The AFSCM is a space for mediation, research, and action among Mediterranean rim countries. It aims to solidify bonds of friendship, exchange, and
knowledge of each other in a dynamic of training, co-education, and gender equality. The association, through physical, sports, and cultural activities, seeks to strengthen commonalities, identify, and disseminate good practices that bind the Northern and Southern Mediterranean countries.
A conference will be held today at the Nice regional office starting at 2 p.m.
What is “Follow The Women”?
Imagine 300 women from about thirty nationalities, cycling together through Beirut, Damascus, Amman, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, delivering a message of peace. “Follow The Women” is based on a
simple idea that transcends all reducing oppositions and antagonisms: Using the bicycle, an accessible and environmentally friendly mode of transportation, the surprise created by a crowd of moving women, to call for peace and promote active participation of women in conflict resolution. It is a form of simple and non-violent resistance by civil society.
“Follow The Women” originated from the will of a woman, Detta Regan, an Englishwoman in her fifties, to enable women of all backgrounds to discover the Middle East and be actors of peace. Thanks to her professional contacts and the dissemination via the Internet, many women expressed their motivation and joined the project in 2004 and 2005. The new edition of the
bicycle tour will take place in April 2007.
The taste for challenge, the beauty of the landscapes, and the desire to spend holidays differently are not unimportant in the wish to participate in this project. However, it is mostly the desire to do something together, however small, against a conflict that escapes us all that motivates our efforts. To understand a little more the tangle of issues and interests involved. To place humanity as the
primary victim of conflicts, to notice the power of the imaginary lines we call borders. To notice the similarities and enrich ourselves from the differences.
Association “Women, Sport, Culture, Mediterranean”
42, Avenue A.Daudet, bldg. G,
06700 Saint Laurent du Var
Phone: 06.03.00.16.57
Email: AFSCM@aol.com
Contacts:
Catherine GIRARD – c-girard@ti.com,
Frédérick MARIANI – nicebudoclub@aol.com
Emilie GUILLAUME – emilieguillaume@libertysurf.fr
