Stand With Us for Peace

Ellen C is organizing this fundraiser to benefit Hawaii Peace and Justice.

Tax deductible

Women's Voices Women Speak (WVWS) needs your support to send delegates from Hawaiʻi to the 9th International Women’s Network Against Militarism (IWNAM) meeting in Okinawa. This meeting will help connect women in Hawai'i to women in Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Guahan, U.S. and Puerto Rico also resisting militarism in their lands. By deepening our relationships across cultures, we can challenge divisions that justify war, and create opportunities for people to feel their role in building peace.

We recognize the multiple harms caused by militarism:
- Destruction and exploitation of land, water, and sacred sites.
- Cultures of patriarchal and domestic violence.
- Rape and other violence against women, including transwomen, near military bases.
- Disproportionately high levels of military recruitment among indigenous youth, youth of color, and poor communities.
- PTSD and other afflictions suffered by veterans.
- Economic systems that prioritize defense spending over public education.

We need to address these issues of militarism because they affect us in Hawaiʻi, Oceania, and throughout the world.

Women’s Voices, Women Speak (WVWS) was created in 2004 as a collective of women in Hawai‘i who address local and international issues relating to demilitarization, peace and non-violence by fostering women’s political leadership to educate the public on the gendered effects of militarization.

We uplift intimate community models of “genuine security” as alternatives to the sense of inevitable, militarized national security.

“Genuine Security” means safe land, water, food, shelter, healthcare, and education for local communities.

We are asking for funding to help us represent Hawai'i in Okinawa. This isn’t just a trip. Delegates will work for genuine security, before and after, including:

- Huakaʻi (visits) to militarized sites in Hawaiʻi to learn what the problem is at home, and how it is connected to other places around the world
- Producing a multi-lingual report on militarization in Hawai‘i that includes research on Red Hill fuel tanks, bombing practice on Pōhakuloa, the missile defense exercises on the Pacific Range Missile Defense System in Kaua‘i, military base/housing developments in Kāne‘ohe Marine Corp Base, and military recruitment in the Schools.
- Reporting back to Hawaiʻi communities
- Educational Demilitarization Tours (“De-tours”) that make visible important sites of militarization in Hawaiʻi and connect people to innovate our social movements
- Organizing a genuine security campaign against RIMPAC
- Participating in Nā Hua Ea and La Ho‘iho‘i Ea to affirm the indigenous Hawaiian nation's vision to be a place of peace

You can donate to our efforts through Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice, our fiscal sponsor.