This was held on Monday 1st April, 1985 at the Caribbee Beach Hotel, Barbados
Monday 1 April 1996
Name | Organisations/Institution | Country |
---|---|---|
Peggy Antrobus | Women & Development Unit (WAND) | Barbados |
Rawwida Baksh-Soodeen | Working Women for Social Progress | Trinidad & Tobago |
Maralyn Ballantyne | University Centre; The Vincentian Newspaper | St. Vincent |
Hazel Brown | HousewivesÕ Assoc. of T&T (HATT) | Trinidad & Tobago |
Patricia Burke | Barbados | |
Yvonne Byron-Cox | National Council of Women | St. Vincent |
Lorraine Chan | WWSP; Starr Productions Ltd | Trinidad & Tobago |
Indra Chandarpal | WomenÕs Progressive Organisation | Guyana |
Indra Chandarpal | WomenÕs Progressive Organisation | Guyana |
Sonia Cuales | UN/ECLAC | Curacao |
Kathleen Drayton | Women & Development Studies Group UWI, Cavehill | Barbados |
Ramabai Espinet | WWSP; WomenÕs Studies Group, UWI St. Augustine | Trinidad & Tobago |
Elaine Fido | WomenÕs Studies Group, UWI, Cavehill Stage One Campus Theatre | Barbados |
Honor Forde-Smith | SISTREN | Jamaica |
Bernice Fraser | Guyana | |
Joan French | SISTREN | Jamaica |
Margaret Gill | UN/ILO | Barbados |
Scarlette Gillings | UNDP | Jamaica |
Diane Haylock | Belize Committee for Women & Development (BOWAND) | Belize |
Merle Hodge | WWSP; WomenÕs Studies Group, UWI St. Augustine | Trinidad & Tobago |
Wendy Ifill | WWSP; Starr Productions Ltd | Trinidad & Tobago |
Adiola James | University of Guyana | Guyana |
Daphne Kelly | Committee for WomenÕs Progress (CWP) | Jamaica |
Namm Roopnarine | Starr Productions Ltd | Trinidad & Tobago |
Mc Sweeney | Starr Productions Ltd | Trinidad & Tobago |
Liliane Marchal | Comit Permanent de Soutient aux Femmes Agresses | Martinique |
Marina Maxwell | OMNA Media Caribbean Ltd; Women Winters of the Americas (Conference) | Trinidad & Tobago |
Patricia Mohammed | OMNA Media Caribbean Ltd; Women | Trinidad & Tobago |
Patricia Mohammed | WWSP; The Group ISER, UWI St. Augustine | Trinidad & Tobago |
Dawn Morgan | The Nation Newspaper | Barbados |
Marja Naarendorp | National WomenÕs Movement | Suriname |
Sybil Patterson | University of Guyana | Guyana |
Nan Peacocke | WAND, Barbados | St. Vincent |
Daphne Phillips | PeopleÕs Popular Movement | Trinidad & Tobago |
Stephanie Pile | The Group | Trinidad & Tobago |
Rhoda Reddock | WWSP; WomenÕs Studies Group, UWI St. Augistine, ISER, UWI, St. Augustine | Trinidad & Tobago |
Nelcia Robinson | National Council of Women | St. Vincent |
Patricia Rodney | WAND, Barbados | Guyana |
Norma Shorey-Bryan | WAND | Barbados |
Marjorie Thorpe | WWSP; WomenÕs Studies Group, UWI, St. Augustine | Trinidad & Tobago |
Faustina Ward-Osborne | WomenÕs Affairs Bureau; WomenÕs Revolutionary Socialist Movement | Guyana |
Judy White | Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) | Trinidad & Tobago |
V. Ioltrie Wyre | Extra-Mural Department, UWI | Antigua |
Countries Represented :
Antigua, Barbados, Belize, Curacao, Guyana, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Vincent, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago
PROVISIONAL AGENDA :
A.M. Session
(a) Arguing the need for CAFRA;
(b) Presentation of “A Call to Action”;
(c) Justification of Research/Action
Orientation of CAFRA;
(d) Definition of ‘Feminism’;
(e) Presentation of revised aims & objectives of CAFRA.
Break
Lunch
P.M. Session
(a) Choosing a Coordinator and Secretariat/Location of these.
(b) Steering Committee of CAFRA. Who will comprise it?
(c) Choosing National Representatives.
(d) Legalising of the Association.
(e) Channels of Communication
(f) Deciding on Committees; Defining their work areas broadly; Volunteers for each.
(a) Poems read
(b) Hands held high in circle
MINUTES:
A.M. Session:
(i) Outlined history of CAFRA arising out of a 1980 meeting in Puerto Rico at the IDS/CEREP seminar on Women in Social Production
(ii) Named CAFRA’s original coordinating team:
To which were subsequently added,
(iii) Outlined tasks accomplished by this coordinating team:-
(a) Prepared documents ‘A Call to Action’ and ‘The Report of a Planning Meeting, August 1984’
(b) Organised this meeting: invited interested feminists (individuals and groups) from both the English and non- English speaking Caribbean to participate in this launching and to join the Association.
(c) Worked out the proposed structure of the Associaion.
(iv)
(a) Clarified agenda items.
(b) Outlined how the BDS$6.00 registration fee is being used (morning tea break and registration folders).
(v) Introduced Chairperson, Sonia Cuales
(i) Welcomed participants
(ii) Thanked participants for staying on an extra day after WAND’s ‘Caribbean Celebration’ (March 29-31)
(iii) Thanked Peggy Antrobus for facilitating this meeting
(iv) Noted the regrettable absence of women from the non-English speaking islands because of cost. Reported that many asked to join nonetheless and expressed their support.
(v) Asked participants to identify themselves, giving name, country and organizational affiliation (if any).
3.
(a) Arguing the need for CAFRA
(i) Found a feminist perspective absent from Caribbean organisations in which we work on women’s issues at different levels.
(ii) In many national political organisations we had to defend our right to be feminists.
(iii) In many of our working or other organisations, women’s organisations included, we were constantly forced to defend our right to have a concern for the oppressed people in our society, i.e. a socialist or anti-imperialist position.
(iv) Tired of having to explain to some why we feminists and to others why we took such a political decision, that we decided it necessary to have such an organization as this which would :
(v) Obviously from the response to today’s meeting many other feminists region-wide feel a similar need.
(b)”A Call to Action“
This paper, written in 1981 :-
(i) Sought to place the present international women’s movement within the present historical situation, i.e. with the emergence of the second wave of feminism of the 1960’s –1970’s;
(ii) Tried to show how this movement developed in Western Europe and North America, and the problems which existed within the movement;
(iii) Tried to show how feminism influenced the United Nations System, how the Women & Development approach came to be used throughout the world by the U.N., and the achievements and weaknesses of this approach;
(iv) Tried to prove that it is through a combination of feminist approaches, but in their application to the problems of women in Third World countries, that a new approach to feminism, relevant to our struggles for total human emancipation, could emerge;
(v) Also attempted to show that within all of this, it is necessary to place the present women’s/feminist movement within the context of Caribbean history, and especially Caribbean women’s history (Caribbean herstory)
Fortunately as a result of the development of the women’s movement in the Caribbean the beginnings have been made towards understanding the history of women in the Caribbean. We were able to trace the struggles of individual women throughout history for their own interests as women and on behalf of their national or racial groups in the face of oppression or colonial exploitation.
It is within this context that we felt we should continue the struggle of our foremothers for a more humane society within the Caribbean. We feel that we have to make the point that any kind of human emancipation within the region has to be one that takes with it the feminist concerns that have always emerged whenever movements for social liberation have emerged within history. We feel that in order for us to make this point within the total struggles that are taking place, that an organistion operating at a regional level had to be formed which could concretize and put together such information for the entire region.
(c) Justification for the Research/Action Orientation of the Association :
(i) Research and Action were felt to be interrelated.
(ii) We felt the need for a new methodological approach towards feminist research, one that shows that research itself is never for its own sake, but that it should be used as part of the process of human liberation.
(iii) We felt that research itself is a form of action, and that all action is a form of change.
(iv) We felt the need to develop a new methodology for research on women which would guide all our activity.
(d) Definition of ‘feminism’
(i) Feminists are those who recognize the exploitation and oppression of women and its relationship to other forms of exploitation and oppression in the society, AND work actively to change it.
(ii) Hence feminism is not simply a matter of consciousness, but also of translating this into ACTIVE participation with others to change the situation.
(e) Presentation of the revised aims & objectives of CAFRA, taken from the August 1984 “Report of a Planning Meeting”
(i) Since the final revised form of these aims & objectives will be presented in Section 4(b) of the minutes (below), the revised aims & objectives as stated in the 1984 Report of a Planning Meeting will not be presented here.
BREAK
This took two forms, as follows:
(a) A plenary discussion of the general arguments/concepts presented, and
(b) A discussion in work groups of the revised aims & objectives of CAFRA
(a) Summary of the general discussion:
(i) The tremendous struggle of consciousness it is to begin identifying oneself as a feminist. There is a definite need to use the word to label ourselves. The definition of ‘feminism’ as stated by CAFRA will give other women, unsure of their identify as feminists, strength to call themselves by this name.
(ii) The concept of feminism has many problems; many negative connotations have become attached to it over the years. We need to apply ourselves to a thorough study of feminism. Only with the understanding which will emerge from this will we be able to defend our position.
(iii) Men must not see us as isolating ourselves from them. Our definition of feminism must not only imply that our men oppress us. While this is true, our definition must encompass the total oppression of women from a perspective of race, class and sex-gender politics.
(iv) There is a definite need to co-ordinate with other women in the region who recognize the subordination of women and have a commitment to do something about it.
(v) There is a definite need to link research with action.
(vi) There is a need to increase the visibility of women’s hidden contribution and potential, and for women to recognize their identity as Caribbean persons and their strengths.
(vii) It is important to use the media to inform Caribbean women about the concept of feminism; to shatter the myths, negative connotations that have built up around it. Further the media should be used to inform the general population of CAFRA’s activities, its research findings, etc. It is important for feminists already working in the media to join CAFRA.
(b) The final form of Aims & Objectives of CAFRA is as follows:
General Aims:
To: 1(i) develop an approach to women’s problems from the perspectives of race, class and sex, specifically to showhow the exploitative relationship between men and women facilitates the continuation, maintenance and reproduction of exploitative capitalist relations, and how the capitalistsystem benefits from this situation.
(ii) develop an approach to the analysis of relations between men and women in non-capitalist and socialist societies.
2 Develop the feminist movement in the entire Caribbean region.
3 Promote the interrelationship between research and action.
General Objectives:
To: 1. Develop research priorities based on the needs of the women’s movement in the region.
LUNCH
P.M. Session
5.5. Priority areas for research finalised after discussion:
(ii) The Caribbean Basin in Initiative.
(iii) Population Control Policies in the Caribbean
(iv) Peace in the Caribbean
(v) History of women’s labour and struggle in the region
(vi) Women’s cultural expression as a instrument for the building of power
(vii) Sexual Violence
(viii) Women and trade
(ix) Social and Economic conditions of women
(x) Voting patterns of women
(xi) Caribbean family forms: history, present trends and future directions
(xii) Women in Caribbean Literature
(xiii) A directory of feminists and female professionals in the Caribbean region
(xiv) Examination of existing feminist theory as developed in Europe and the USA, and its application to the Caribbean situation
(xv) Education and gender relations
The concern was expressed that CAFRA should NOT allow language barriers to limit the regional character of our research and action.
(a)
(b) The original Coordinating Team is hereby disbanded. The new Steering Committee will comprise the following:
The Coordinator, Secretariat and National Representatives.
(c) National Representatives appointed at the meeting:-
(c) National Representatives appointed at the meeting:-
COUNTRY |
NAME |
BARBADOS |
Kathleen Drayton |
BELIZE |
Diane Haylock |
CURACAO |
Maryke Schweitz |
GUYANA |
Indra Chandarpal |
JAMAICA |
Scarlette Gillings |
ST. VINCENT |
Nelcia Robinson |
SURINAM |
Marja Naarendorp |
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO |
Merle Hodge |
Antigua and Martinique to be decided |
(d) Legalising CAFRA:
To be effected by the Secretariat
(e) Channels of communication:-
(f) Committees established:
*Scarlette Gillings, Sonia Cuales, Honor Forde-Smith, Margaret Gill.
Induviduals – US$ 10.00
Organisations – US$ 15.00
to the Coordinator at the meeting, OR
to be mailed to the Coordinator as soon as possible (either in the form of cash or money order).