International Women's Partnership for Peace

For todays activity we went to IWP (International Women's Partnership for Peace) found in Ban Mai, a village of 120 households. The co-founders of the program are Ginger(with a degree in Internation Studies and Womens Studies) and Ouyporn Khuankaew. Ginger lead our group for meditation, lecture, lunch, and group discussion. The organization works in the community as being a nondinominational positive aid for women. While many of the practices of the organization emulates many Buddhist habits and beliefs, it serves as a location in providing workshops with NGO's, Youth Empowerment, Nurses, and community leaders, transgender and LGBT community. This organization mostly focuses on workshops from 7 days to 6 weeks in length. The IWP uses a triangular framework made up of three key ideas. The organization began 10 years ago and practices Spiritual Practice which cultivates mindfulness, self-care, meditation while practicing yoga. The next idea is Feminist Theory and Practice encapsulating anti-oppression activism. The last leg of the trianglular framework is understanding ourselves and society which creates the idea of how society effects ourselves. All in all combining these ideals creates changes that are both structural and personal. This change happens when we find clarity and then take collective action. These workshops are female orinented and are commonly all female. Though they have welcomed men to the workshops, the workshopd or strongly encouraged in being prodominately female.

During our afternoon at IWP we also played a game which required the group to be frogs. Pillows were placed in a small circle, while a some people were placed on the inside of this circle and the rest on the outside. White papers were placed on the floor in the center and on the outside. Ginger was a croodile while the group were frogs. Ginger would ring a bell, signaling that she had woken up and would eat any frogs not found on a lilly pad. The group later disscussed the ideas of what this game could represent in the real world. At the end of our disscussion the group came to the main idea of talking in depth about privilege. The community has comtinued to welcome the IWP since it first began 10 years ago. While the IWP is not religious based it is difficult to receive funding from US organizations. However, with all the the aid they provide, the IWP is having little trouble staying afloat, it is clear that they are here to stay.

Our lunch today was prepared by some of the local community members.It included two fantastic vegetable dishes, a hot chili paste, a soupwith ingredients such as pineapple and potatoes, then finally fordessert we had the usual amazing fruits accompanied by Milo, achocolatey drink, and coffee. The fantastic food was not the onlyinteresting part of lunch at IWP. We sat on the ground, with lowtables and had the first ten minutes of our meal in silence. Gingerexplained this as a meditative way to emerge yourself in theexperience of eating. This intense eating experience really helps toallow for each person to really contemplate both the food they areeating and how their day is going so far. Of course, following theperiod of silence, we were aloud to speak again and all 17 of us choseto sit and discuss the amazing weather and all that we had learnedfrom the earlier lecture. After our meal had completed we did asGinger asked and all politely went inside to hand wash our dishes. Itwas an interesting process. First, any extra food left on a platewould be placed in the "duck" bucket, which would be fed to localducks around the community in order to not waste the compost. Secondwe soaped the dishes and scrubbed them down. In the three consecutivesinks following the soapy one, there were different levels of rinsing.Obviously the first rinse got rather soapy, but as the lineprogressed by the end the dishes were clean and soap free, awaiting atowel and then a leisurely rest on the drying rack. Overall, we canprobably agree that the lunch experience we had today was one of manyfrom the trip that we will not forget.
-Liz and Anna