Solidarity With Women, Mombasa, Kenya

Although Bangkok, Thailand and Olongapo, Philippines have been given a lot of attention because of international prostitution, a lesser known site on the African continent is achieving a similar reputation. Mombasa, Kenya has become a favorite vacation spot for European tourists and a stop-over site for American, French, British, and Indian naval carriers in recent years. As many as 10,000 sailors and soldiers invade the town at once for brief stays to relax on the coral speckled beaches, visit wild game reserves, and hire "twilight ladies" - as the prostitutes who flock to city when the ships come in, are known.

As in Bangkok or Olongapo, the local hotel, restaurant and nightclub industry has flourished around prostitution, bringing high profits to business owners. The police, for their own profit making interests, use a double standard in the practice while sailors and soldiers temporarily inhabit the town. Once they leave, however, the police are likely to raid the main hotels, arrest the women, and fine them heavily.

Determined that this exploitation and hypocrisy not go unchallenged, a group of Mombasa women have come together to form a new group: Solwodi, an abbreviation for Solidarity with Women in Distress. "The idea is that we women are putting our heads together to find in common a way toward a better, human, respectful life," Sister Lea Ackermann wrote for the group in their first circular letter in June 1986. Ackermann notes that most of the women - landless, jobless and with little opportunity for study or training - turn to prostitution merely to survive.

Solwodi members began last year by visiting women in coffee-houses, homes and jails, helping them out with food, fines or other needs. In the spring of 1986, they began constructing a women's center which serves as a meeting place for women victims and their supporters and will also offer sewing and pottery facilities to teach women alternative income-earning skills. Members have also been invited abroad to countries such as Germany to share their message through the media, and to promote solidarity actions for their work.

Solwodi welcomes your ideas, solidarity, and financial support.

To get in touch with them, write;

Solwodi
P.O. Box 86823
Mombasa, Kenya

Support for Single Mothers in Spain

Single mothers in Spain have formed a new group to defend their rights and those of their children. The Asociacion Solidaridad con Madres Solteras (Solidarity Association With Single Mothers) has begun to document the reality of single mothers' lives, offer information services and legal advice to them, and carry out advocacy on their behalf with governmental social service and other agencies.

For more information, write to:

Asociacion Solidaridad Madres Solteras
Mendez Nunez 84, 60A
Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Spain

Wanted: Women Video Producers

Sheffield Film Co-op, a group of feminist-socialist film producers in England, would like to contact other women film producers interested in collaborating on a video production on "Women and Education."

For more information, contact:

Sheffield Film Co-op Ltd.
Albreda House
Lydgate Lane
Sheffield S10 5FH
England
Tel: (0742) 668-857

Women in Sync

Women in Sync is a group of women in London of different racial and cultural backgrounds who are skilled in producing videotapes. Since 1983, the group has been working to produce videos on women's themes and to provide various services to local women.

For example. Women in Sync lends video equipment to individual women and women's groups, charging by a sliding scale: runs regular workshops on video production; assists women in making their own productions; and is available for film events. The group has a center in London where women can come to use equipment or receive instruction. Membership in the group costs a modest £1 per year.

A recent women in Sync production is Encuentro, a video documenting the Third Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting in Brazil in 1985. Produced by Latin American members of the group, the video "helps Latin American women to document their own history and shows women from other cultures what it means to be feminist in Latin America today."

For more information, contact:

Women in Sync
Unit 5/6 Wharfdale Project 47-51 Wharfdale Road
London N1, England
Tel: (01)278-2215

Aurora Vivar Association

Created in December 1985, this new group is dedicated to increasing the participation and organization of working women in Peru. The coordinating team had been working since 1982 with women miners and factory workers as part of the " The New Awakening Women's Project." The new association is called Aurora Vivar, after a prominent heroine of the Peruvian women's movement.

The group will carry out activities in the following four areas:

• courses, workshops and round table discussions for women in labor unions, on themes such as women and union organization, labor and civil rights, work and health, domestic and paid work, maternity, sexuality, and more;
• studies and research into women in the job market, living and working conditions, and their participation in unions;
• legal and psychological advice;
• communication materials and press events, including pamphlets, booklets, audiovisual materials.

Recently, the group produced a booklet in Spanish, El Cor age de las Mineras (The Courage of the Miners), a collection of personal testimonies from Andean women miners about their lives, struggles and organization.

For a copy of the booklet or for more information, contact:

Aurora Vivar Association
Av. Alfonso Ugarte 1428, Oficina 702
Lima, Peru

Association of Development Agencies, Jamaica

Jamaican non-governmental organizations ranging from church groups, community development projects, training programs to a women's theatre group joined hands last year to create a national federation: the Association of Development Agencies. The association provides a forum for collective analysis, discussion and planning and coordinates activities among the various NGOs throughout the country.

Among its programs, the association promotes training of development workers, collects and disseminates information resources, facilitates participatory research for development programs, and works to develop a common marketing strategy for small business projects. And in addition to representing Jamaican NGOs as a group to governmental organizations, it facilitates South-South communication between Jamaican NGOs and counterparts in other developing countries.

To get in touch with the association, write:

Association of Development Agencies
14 South Avenue
Kingston 10 Jamaica, West Indies
Tel: (809) 926-7114