Artist and performer Luci Murphy received WIFP’s Women and Media Award at the 2019 Activist Salon on July 17th.

Luci Murphy is a preeminent advocate for utilizing culture to advance social and political justice, weaving people together across communities. As an artist and performer, she has harnessed her musical talents by singing for social justice, civil rights, union rights, affordable housing, peace, and other causes. (See the Women and Media Award page on this website for more about Luci’s important work and contributions.)

WIFP Director Martha Allen welcomed participants to the 2019 Activist Salon.

Short interesting presentations by speakers stimulated discussions and led to networking and connecting among the activists.

New Story Leadership for the Middle East (NSL) Managing Directors Rawan Odeh and Anna Garbar interviewed three of their 2019 delegates about their lives and their work.

Rawan Odeh is a Palestinian American who lived half her life in New York and half in Nablus. Rawan has worked as an Asset Management Associate for Women’s World Banking in the MENA region. Afterwards, she went on a fellowship with Kings College London and published research on the Economic Aspects of the Palestinian Israeli Conflict.

Anna Garber is an Israeli from Haifa. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Haifa and is currently pursuing her Masters in International Relations at American University. She has worked at the Institute of International Education.

Rawan and Anna interviewed two Palestinian women and an Israeli leading to discussions with the activist audience. Brief backgrounds of the women who spoke:
Hiba Yazbeck: Palestinian citizen of Israel, born in Nazareth. In communications at Tel Aviv University. Currently interning at Haaretz. Hiba is working in the office with Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
Thawra Abukhdier: Palestinian American from Jerusalem. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications and Journalism from Hebrew University. Thawra is working in the office with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Dana Amir: Dana is from Gan-New, Israel. The past five years she has been traveling and studying around the world. She is currently pursuing a B.A. degree in Psychology and Economics. Dana is working on a Project for Change where international students learn to recognize and mitigate cognitive and emotional biases that appear in complex and difficult political discussions.

In addition to the speakers on the Middle East, Margaret Flowers spoke about the work of activists in the U.S. on a number of important issues including single payer health care and the importance of activist journalists efforts to get information out that is omitted or distorted by the corporate-owned mass media. Margaret Flowers is a Pediatrician and advocate for single payer health care and justice. She is the co-director of Popular Resistance and co-host of Clearing the Fog, a weekly podcast.

Hosts of the WIFP event were Martha Allen (WIFP director), Tanya Smith-Sreen, Otgon Altankhuyag, Alethea Russell, Arya Boris, and Jonathan Zeitlin — all Associates of WIFP and support staff. Alethea Russell, a photographer, provided most of these wonderful photos from the event.

Organizational links
New Story Leadership for the Middle East (NSL): www.newstoryleadership.org
Popular Resistance: www.popularresistance.org

June 11, 2019 marked one year since the FCC’s repeal of all net neutrality protections went into effect. In the year since the repeal, there have been extremely troubling incidents of telecom giants slowing popular services like YouTube and Netflix as well as Skype, and Verizon throttling firefighters’ data in the midst of a massive wildfire.

In April, the House of Representatives passed the Save the Internet Act (HR 1644), which would restore the net neutrality protections repealed by the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai — protections that are crucial to preventing unjust, unreasonable and discriminatory behavior by internet providers. In 2018, the Senate passed a similar measure, known as a Congressional Review Act resolution, with bipartisan support.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, has declared net neutrality “dead on arrival” in the Senate this year, despite the fact 86% of the public—including overwhelming majorities of Republicans, Independents and Democrats—oppose the FCC’s net neutrality repeal.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 11th, public interest advocates from Demand Progress, Free Press, Action, Fight for the Future, Consumer Reports, Public Knowledge, Common Cause, National Hispanic Media Coalition, 18MillionRising.org, PEN America and the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press hand delivered 3.5 million pro-net neutrality public comments and petition signatures, generated by dozens of netroots groups, to Senator Mitch McConnell in DC. The delivery included petitions from StopTheFCC.net, SaveTheNetFromTrump.com, BattleForTheNet.com, CREDO Action, Consumer Reports, and Free Press Action, as well as public comments submitted to the FCC going back to the lead up to the 2017 repeal.

On the same day, 26 netroots groups launched an online coalition action, demanding Mitch McConnell allow a vote to restore net neutrality.This effort will drive tens of thousands of online actions and phone calls pressuring senators to cosponsor and demand a vote for the Save the Internet Act in the Senate. Over 100 nonprofit and public interest organizations, including WIFP, also sent a letter on June 11^th to Sen. McConnell in support of the Save the Internet Act.

These activities coincided with an all-day livestream on the 11^th hosted by web companies, video creators, celebrities, gamers, artists, veterans, business owners and policy experts, to draw attention to the Senate’s inaction on this issue, and to pressure Senate leadership to allow a vote to restore net neutrality. The livestream featured the petition delivery.

WIFP joined the efforts to get the Trump Military Parade cancelled and joined a general assembly of people and groups for peace and justice to determine how to build and strengthen the movement to end the wars at home and abroad. The Peace Congress was held November 10, 2018 in Washington, DC.

WIFP’s partner organization, Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation, held the award ceremony on the evening before the 2018 Walk to End FGM. “Celebrating our Collective Efforts to Dispel the Myths and Misconceptions about FGM/C” was held October 26 at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Over a half million women and girls in the United States are at risk for or have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Many myths and misconceptions from key leaders in religion, legal advocacy, education, advocacy, and medicine, and from women who have experienced FGM/C.

Global Woman: “We congratulate the women and men receiving our fifth set of Recognition Awards this evening. Each year, the Nominating Committee of Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation nominates and votes and selects 10 deserving women and men to honor and recognize with the Global Woman Award. We thank these award recipients for the dedicatiion they have rendered to ending the practice of FGM and other injustices on women and girls in the world.

WIFP had a team in the Walk to End FGM and served on the Awards Committee. WIFP’s director, Martha Allen, was among the Award Presenters for this moving evening.