APWLD farewells five members of the Secretariat and thanks them for their commitment, hard work and long hours which kept APWLD going in the last 3 turbulent years. We thank :

Lisa, Cholpon and Tomoko at the Peace Day rally in Chiangmai, September 21, 2004

Lisa Pusey, Programme Officer for Women's Human Rights and Violence against Women (VAW) Programmes, and Tomoko Kashiwazaki, Programme Assistant, for their hard and stupendous work in organising annual Asia-Pacific NGO Consultations with the UN Special Rapporteur on VAW, the International Women's Human Rights Defenders Campaign and Feminist Legal Theory and Practice Trainings among zillions of other things that these two intensive programmes have carried out over the last few years. And thanks Tomoko for keeping the network updated on 'comfort' women's campaign for justice!

Val and Judy at the solidarity dinner with P&M, October 2004

Judy Pasimio, Programme Officer for Women & Environment (WEN) and Rural & Indigenous Women (RIW) Programmes and Valentina Soe, Programme Assistant, for their passionate contribution organising the Women's Purple March and Women's Tribunal on WTO in Hong Kong, 2005; and finally producing and printing the long awaited Food Sovereignty Kit.

Cholpon Akmatova, Information and Communications Officer, for the long hours during weekends and holidays to meet the deadlines for the production of Forum News which has become more analytical and brighter, for pioneering APWLD's first video documentaries and her compassionate leadership on the Women's Human Rights Violations Documentation Project in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami and earthquake in Pakistan.

We wish you all the best of luck in your future feminist endeavours!

APWLD welcomes Almah Tararia, Programme Officer for APWLD's WEN/RIW. A lawyer by profession, she was educated in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Sydney, Australia. She had spent last 9 years working with human rights and public interest environmental law groups in Papua New Guinea, providing legal assistance to women and indigenous landownercommunities.

"The highlights of such an involvement have to be:- meeting and working with some fantastic people who are passionate about what they do; seeing indigenous landowner-communities fight enduringly- despite lacking in resources - to defend and protect their rights to natural resources; seeing local communities begin to allow women to participate in decisionmaking despite strong traditional cultural norms and the instances of victory in some of the court cases. There has been many a downside. Inequality- in all senses, faced by ordinary PNGians, is one. I am looking forward to working with APWLD which I am sure has enough challenges (but what office does not?!) The place- Chiang Mai seems like a lovely place to live in- I think I will give it a try. I will need to find places to do a bit of hiking, spend some time in water (scuba diving, snorkeling) and hopefully get some real work done to!" says Almah.

We also welcome new Task Force members:

Women and Environment Task Force:

Khushi Kabir is a women's rights activist from Bangladesh. She has been with Nijera Kori, as Coordinator since 1980. Nijera Kori aims at eradicating poverty and advocates for people's social, economic, and political rights. She is also a co-founder of a women's NGO Sammalita Nari Samaj. She has an extensive experience in working with grassroots and international communities on issues of human rights, poverty, development, and environment. She has helped develop new NGOs working on environmental and human rights issues in the country.

Suntaree Saeng-ging is Coordinator of the Northeastern Women's Network (THAILAND), Coordinator of Homenet Northeast / Member of Homenet Committee and a member of the NGO Coordinating Committee on Development in the Northeast of Thailand. All her networks mainly deal with environmental conservation projects, organic farming, women's cooperatives, and promotion of women's participation in decision-making processes in the Northeastern part of Thailand.

Violence against Women Task Force

EunKyung Kim at the 693th Wednesday Demonstration for justice to comfort women in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul

EunKyung Kim, Coordinator of International Programme, Korea Women's Hot Line (KWHL), Seoul, South Korea . KWHL works to eliminate violence against women. KWHL submitted the revision on Domestic Violence to the National Assembly, currently under review. KWHL organised the international campaign in 5 countries on 16 days of activism against violence against women. KWHL's program 'Nalja' offers foreign wives in Korea a chance to reunite with relatives back home. EunKyung works for the Asia women's networking and migrant women's rights focusing on domestic violence providing training and workshops and works with activists and lawyers.

Sarala Emmanuel, a VAW Task Force from Sri Lanka

Sarala Emmanuel from Sri Lanka has worked in development, specifically on issues of gender and psychosocial care in situations of armed conflict. She coordinated the post-tsunami Women's Coalition for Disaster Management in Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. She has been involved with networks of women's organisations in Sri Lanka and Asia in terms of lobbying, advocacy and research work in relation to gender and conflict. She has a Masters in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. Her recent publications include Gender, Conflict and Transition to Peace: Frameworks for Understanding Issues Affecting Women in Sri Lanka in Uyangoda, Jayadeva, 2005, (ed) Conflict, Conflict Resolution and Peace Building; Global Issues, Local Realities: A note from a post-tsunami coastal town in Sri Lanka, in Zarkov, Dubravka, (forthcoming) (ed) Gender, Violent Conflict and Development: Challenges of Practice, and Trends in Psychosocial Intervention with Children Affected by War: A Case Study from Sri Lanka in DevIssues, Special Issue on Children and Conflict (April, 2004).