Guatemala, July 6, 2021
Compañeras/ compañeres, sisters:
We are finishing this great experience of meeting every two weeks, for two days, since March,
when we opened the school, and since April, when we began the workshops.
Some of us knew each other before and we dreamed of having a school to strengthen the
movement we’ve been building for many years. Now, we have lived the experience, learned,
confirmed what we knew, and shared experiences, knowledge, visions and cosmovisions with
compañeras from all over the world. Berta and her wisdom guided us during all the workshops.
The school became our collective space, one free of borders with a common identity. All of us
are part of a grassroots feminist movement rooted in the communities, neighborhoods, and in
our ancestors’ dreams of Vivir Bien. Thank you very much for the collective construction that is
expressed in the synthesis of each workshop. Thank you very much for the collective work that
is on the Jamboards and Powerpoints we used. Thank you very much for sharing your work,
your constructions in photos and videos. Thank you very much for participating, supporting us
during the groups, and accepting the challenge of breaking down the barriers the system has set
up to divide us.
We made it, we did it and we are happy to have been the first graduating class of this Berta
Cáceres International Feminist Organizing School.
Thanks to those who had the idea and got organized to put it into practice; thanks to all the
compañeras who were part of the working groups that for a year drafted the base documents we
now have; thanks to the facilitators who took on the challenge of facilitating and developing the
topics; thanks to the methodology, mística, facilitators, note taking, energizing committees;
thanks to the translators, interpreters and the technical team. Without the work and contribution
of all and everyone, we wouldn’t have had the school.
When we feel alone, let’s remember that WhatsApp is there, we will stay connected there. We
will keep moving until we are all free, says the World March of Women; and so it is, because this
road is long, but we are walking it, so we will meet at some point in person. In the meantime, we
have the tools, we know that learning also takes time and that only in practice we will realize
what we have learned, so that is the invitation. Feminist Economy is a proposal for life and for
the reorganization of life. It is a proposal to strengthen our movements by sowing life, joy,
celebration and collective work. This way, by being and doing, we become stronger. Let’s go
now to a new practice, to sharing what we’ve learned, discovered, unlearned; and in our
sharing, let’s create community.
Finally, I share with you a poem I wrote many years ago. Thanks to all of you, we are still
walking, Sandra Morán