The League in action globally: a historical perspective.

At its founding in 1920, the League of Women Voters (LWV) had a plateful of domestic political challenges, including the formidable task of putting its own house in order and transforming itself from the suffrage movement into a well-functioning, politically effective, viable organization. This was no small task, even for the incredible women who helped found the League. Yet, by the time its third year of existence rolled around, the LWV had taken on a global initiative! The League has been active globally every since.

In 1922, the LWV organized a Pan-American Conference of women in Baltimore, MD, to precede its third annual Convention in Washington, DC. Representatives of Latin American nations were invited to participate in the Conference and attend the League's national Convention. The response was remarkable. Delegates from 22 countries, joined by representatives of women's organizations and students from U.S. colleges and universities, took part in the highly successful five-day Pan-American Conference as well as the four-day LWV Convention.

Former LWV National Board Member and Minnesota academician Barbara Stuhler notes (For the Public Record, 2003): "In the closing minutes of the Pan-American Conference, the elder stateswoman of U.S. suffrage [Carrie Chapman Catt] spoke to the delegates. Her remarks inspired the delegates from North and South America to form the Pan-American Association for the Advancement of Women." And what were these words?</p> <pre> I want you to take this message home ... There are six continents in the world and there is only one continent where no woman has the vote and that is South America. Will you be content to be the only women in the world without the vote? No! ... Now, dear friends from South America and Central America, if you think that you do not want to be a suffragist, and do not want to start a movement in your own country, well, don't do it; but if you don't, somebody else will. You cannot escape destiny and the destiny of this time is to lead the women of the world. And, if you areafraid, of us, why just get over it. --Carrie Chapman Catt, excerpts from her speech, 1922. </pre> <p>In the ensuing years, the empowerment of women globally sometimes had to take a back seat to other global and domestic League concerns. In its early years, the League supported U.S. entrance into the World Court (1923), an effort that led to the organization of the first Conference on the Cause and the Cure of War in 1925.

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In the 1930s, the League became more involved in disarmament, including the efforts to form the League of Nations, and international trade agreements. And as war came to Europe in the late 30s, then LWV President Marguerite Wells called on League members to defend democracy. Under her leadership, the League supported repeal of the Neutrality Act of 1939.

During World War II, Wells encouraged the League to work towards international cooperation. Subsequently, trade issues, the United Nations, peacekeeping issues and normalization of relations with China joined the list of the League's international concerns.

With the formation of the Overseas Education Fund (OEF) in 1961, attention towards the needs of Third World nations that had started with the Carrie Chapman Catt Memorial Fund was growing. African and Latin American women were the focus of outreach.

In the late 1990s, the Global Community Dialogue program was developed and the independent states of the former Soviet Union and the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe were added to our global concerns. (See sidebar for a look at the activities of some of our League members.) In 1999, the League embarked on its two-year Woman Power Politics: Building Grassroots Democracy in Africa project. Thus, in this 21st century, we have come full circle back to our founding traditions. And, the League's work in the global arena energetically continues as you will find in reading the other features as well as LWVUS President Kay Maxwell's "Out Front" column in this issue of the Voter.

RELATED ARTICLE: A FORMER LEAGUE INTERN FROM CROATIA SPEAKS:

"I interned with the LWV of Minnesota for two weeks in 2000. The internship was part of the Freedom House's Visiting Fellow program, designed to introduce activists from around the world to the work of their U.S. counterparts. My area of interest was civic participation in elections and governance. During my visit, I learned how open institutions of state are to citizens (especially on the state, county and township levels) and what kind of work associations are doing to make sure that this does not change. Now, public hearings and public advocacy have a whole new meaning for me. I was also surprised with the level of "institutionalization" of civic access to the different governmental offices and their role in the legislative process. Before my internship, advocacy meant much less and I never realized that it can be so embedded into political life. You have to understand that NGOs in my country, Croatia, and pretty much all developing democracies, have very limited access to governmental institutions, so in order to be successful, their advocacy efforts are usually 'movements' rather than 'campaigns.'"

--Vladimir Pran is based in Jerusalem and manages the elections monitoring program for the National Democratic Institute.

RELATED ARTICLE: LEAGUE MEMBERS IN ACTION:

Former National Board Member Linda Moscarella was the League UN observer from 1985-1990. Since 1990, she has traveled all over the world, directly supervising elections and doing civil society/democracy/governance training. To start with, during her tenure on the National Board from 1990-1994, Moscarella oversaw the emerging democracies program with projects in Poland and Hungary. Under an African-American Institute project that grew out of the League's "how to" video on registering people to vote, running candidate forums and the like, she made four trips to Nigeria to train women to participate more fully and effectively in politics and government. Working with various groups in the mid to late 90s, she also met with women NGOs in Brazil and traveled to Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Angola.

Always keeping her suitcase packed, from 1997 to 2002, Moscarella made seven trips to the Balkans to register voters and act as election supervisor. In 1998, she did a League-sponsored training program in Russia as well as State Department-sponsored debate training in Bosnia and El Salvador. Moving eastward, Moscarella worked on State Department programs dealing with women and political participation in India, Bangladesh and South Korea. Her last project focused on training NGOs in Armenia in the spring of 2003. Of her globetrotting activities, Moscarella notes, "I didn't plan it that way and would enjoy doing more of this work which I found fascinating and gratifying."

Linda Jenkins, former president of the Pasadena, CA, LWV, and former CA LWV state board member, worked with the League in Sarajevo and Mostar in 1998. The previous year she had contracted with the State Department to register voters in a small town in Bosnia.

Of her 1998 experience, Linda reports:

"What impressed me the most was that women came from everywhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia to hear us talk about the League and how to conduct candidate debates. They used whatever transport they could find, from hitchhiking on a UN jeep to horses, wagons drawn by horses, motor scooters and even tractors! Within ten days they had learned so much, and we were so proud after the debates in Mostar! After discussing pie charts and city/local budgets, one of the bright, college educated women said 'when we can determine what will be in each section of the pie, our pie will be shaped as a heart. It will still be 100 percent, but it will remind us to remember the children, the sick and the women first, then the money that is left will go to the other things.'"

"One afternoon, the LWVUS team had ice cream under the Mostar Bridge and pondered the lives of the women we were leaving. We weren't sad about it, but full of hope because they were willing to learn and try to make things better out of the rubble. We were reminded of those who fought for our right to vote, own property, earn money and keep it. Our duty to others around the world is to pass on that legacy and hope."

"Mother Teresa noted that everyone has to find their own Calcutta. The League has to keep finding them one after another and training, teaching, assisting and praising, while not forgetting to do it all right here at home."

When Jenkins returned to California, she was invited to speak to local Leagues in Southern California, service organizations, churches, and others. Most people had little first-hand contact with anyone who had experienced the post-war Balkans; they wanted an "inside" view from an average person.

Jenkins has since "passed the torch" of international work to her son who works for USAID. However, she continues to work with her League (now in Rhode Island).

Since her 1997 introduction to monitoring elections abroad as a participant in the League's activity in Bosnia, League member (CT)

Nancy Polk has continued on that original mission. She has been an international elections observer and supervisor in Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania and Ukraine, 13 times in all. On one recent trip to Ukraine, she says, "I found much fraud." In one instance, a group of Ukrainians were using falsified documents and names to vote at several polling places. Even absentee ballots were falsified; some ballots had duplicate numbers and were a different shade of yellow from the authentic ones! Polk remarked that she had "never seen such blatant cheating" before, but she notes how effective just carefully watching an election can be. "A glare and intense writing has a sobering effect on would-be cheaters," she said. And, she continues her work even though it is fraught with challenges because, "I hope to push the cart of democracy forward a few inches."