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Four meetings of women from the Southern Cone region will take place in November, 2009 in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. This cycle is a key axis within the 2009-2010 agenda of the Regional Citizens’ Assembly of the Southern Cone : it consists of building an ascending process which will allow for a coming together of experiences and proposals made by women from various sectors of society from the Southern Cone. The series of meetings, organized locally by the Assembly’s teams, will conclude with a Regional Women’s Conference of the Southern Cone planned for 2010.

The four meetings will take place in Córdoba and La Plata, Argentina (on November 7, 2009), in Cochabamba, Bolivia (on November 20 and 21, 2009), in Lima - Perou on November 19 and in Santiago de Chile (on November 12 and 13, 2009). Like all other processes, they are at the same time a starting point (the meeting and opening up of a dialog between women from various sectors of society) and a result (the building of bonds, the comparison of experiences and proposals, the choice of delegates for the regional 2010 Conference, which will of course take place before the Assembly in Iquique – Chile, in November, 2010).

Special attention is paid to the art of organizing the dialog, to the way debates are prepared and the connection between those women who are carrying projects and experiences. Four pillars make up the foundation of this preparation stage :

• The continuation of previous work and the articulation of the meetings : work connected with women and gender was previously carried out within the framework of the Assembly, which nourishes this new cycle of dialog. Nonetheless, we need to make sure that this memory be readily accessible. Each meeting should value their work by means of a detailed review, a proposal document or even a Female citizens’ letter. These results create in themselves essential articulation conditions between the regional Conference and the Assembly in general. The attention paid to the relation between the meetings goes hand in hand with the priority given to valuing the debates, the quality of organization and the construction of a synthesis.

• The construction of bonds and trust : the preparation of the meetings allows for closer local contact between the organizers of the meetings and the participants. These bonds are not just specific or limited to the meeting, but they rather transcend towards the process of the Assembly, allowing us to appreciate the organizers’ social assets and to go and meet the diversity in society. Protagonists from rural movements, from human rights’ organisms, from state administrations, from trade unions, from the social economy, from universities, as well as inhabitants, mothers, young women, artists, they will all be present during the four meetings in November. The link between the local organization teams is also a great challenge due to the geographical distance between the coordinators: Ricardo Jiménez’s traveling mission last September helped to reinforce this bond.

• The consolidation of the organization teams : the organization of the meetings allows the local teams to get to know one another better, to discover themselves amidst an action done in common. In La Plata, Argentina, an initiative’s group has been getting together every week for the past two months to exchange ideas on the framework and dynamics of the meeting, in association with the Women’s Care Center – House of Embraces, where the meeting will take place.

• The drafting of the first issues and of a shared vision: the discussion arisen during the preparation of the meetings have brought to light a first series of shared ascertainments and common topics. Memory and human rights, economy and work, sexuality/reproduction and gender appear as the issues that the four initiatives have in common. Some singularities also arise: female vision from Andes and the Amazon, climatic change in Bolivia, relations with the environment in Argentina, art and culture in Chile. The Cochabamba team, in Bolivia, included a distance discussion phase 15 days before the meeting at the end of November (using the electronic discussion forums).
  
  

The art lies, then, on the capacity to connect all these columns within a group of attitudes, choices, focuses and methods which may reinforce one another. Is there anyone more capable than women to make up this new citizens’ network and to “de-polarize” the environmental models and paradigms?