May 14 and 15, 2022 we met again the networks and collectives that are part of Red Compañera.
During the Regional Meeting held in Ecuador in May 2022, the strategic priorities established in Lima 2020 were reaffirmed, and new short-term priority actions were proposed once the previous ones had been achieved.
The main finding: We are moved by the colorful threads of the plots we have woven over the years, we are moved by the desire to continue accompanying and activating for free, safe, feminist, legal and completely decriminalized abortions everywhere.
We look at each other, we feel each other, we talk to each other, inhabiting the rounds and the languages of abortion and the experiences of accompanying; here and there, there and here, both where legalization processes are unblocked and where authoritarian criminalization lurks.
In the fragilities of the pandemic time we circumvent the isolations and, far from stopping, we revisit our daily political modes to amplify our actions. To remain close to those who needed an abortion and among the collectives. To take care of us in the face of criminalization. To push debates and legalization processes in our countries. In short, to produce acts of justice.
We continue to build this movement by building resistance and dreams. Our refuge and our revenge is to know that we have each other.
We are here to expand more and more in this Latin America and Caribbean that is going to be all feminist!
This document systematizes the political agreements made by the seventy-six companions who attended the Encounter for the hundreds of compañeras and compañeres we represent, here we reaffirm the Network we have and also the horizons we want to continue building:
The Network we have built:
- In this meeting, the desire has converged and we feel that we have placed in the center. To summarize some achievements so far: we have been able to incorporate more networks of accompaniers, expand calls, carry out the 2T school, provide technological support, direct transfers of money to the collectives and groups that make up the Network, make referrals to those seeking an abortion through liaisons from other countries and mobilize and influence collectively in our territories.
- The Network allows visibility to groups that cannot be openly public. It makes it easier to place diverse contexts in the feminist discussion, to ground different perspectives, to see ourselves reflected in Latin American and Caribbean discourses and to strengthen ourselves from an expanded political perspective.
- The Network is a possibility to connect and talk about accompaniment, share learning through virtual training spaces with the opening for other colleagues to participate, train and adapt knowledge to our realities.
- The Compañera Network is, in relation to the need for identification with feminist networks, the strongest we perceive. It is an inclusive network that leaves no one out. We rescue the emotional support and accompaniment between collectives in the midst of difficult contexts, to shake off fear, insecurity and not to feel alone.
What we want to continue building:
- We took on the task of growing in Caribbean countries.
- To continue to strengthen ourselves and for this it is necessary that the work of the Compañera Network can become a daily reality in each of the territories where there are collectives/organizations/national networks that are part of it. The presence of our Network must be in the daily accompaniments and in the political debates that we set up.
- Being part of the Network should allow us to develop joint strategies, understanding that this process is not unilateral. On the contrary, it provides the possibility of contributing among all the collectives with a sense of belonging. To this end, we propose to redouble communication among us, to plan more meetings, calls, common points in spite of the different contexts, to feel cared for, listened to, strengthened and secure.
- Expand learning, schools such as holistic security, which allow us to protect and support each other, and make an ABC of communication to make safe referrals. Also, contemplate channels to share and socialize how to raise and systematize information from the learning of others.
Our Political Projections
The strategic priorities built in Lima 2020 were reaffirmed, and new short-term priority actions were proposed once the previous ones were achieved.
Priority 1: Strengthening the Partners Network
This priority is related to strengthening the regional articulation that we are building, so that the Network can become a daily occurrence in each of the territories where there are collectives/organizations/national networks that are part of it. General lines of work were established on this point:
- Communication and visibility: improve internal communication mechanisms, as well as implement the external communication strategy, with the objective of generating a greater sense of belonging to the network and at the same time making visible our work and our discourse of free abortion and abortion accompaniment as political acts beyond causalities and laws.
- Expansion: Mapping escort networks in the Caribbean, as well as increasing the number of escorts from the collectives that are part of the Compa Network.
- Internal strengthening and organization: To train the accompaniers in order to deepen the professionalization of abortion work, through virtual and face-to-face spaces; as well as to support the generation and distribution of emergency, local and regional funds.
Priority 2: Accompany us to accompany us
This priority refers to generating spaces for exchange, joint learning and strengthening the capacities of all the local collectives/organizations/networks that make up the Compañera Network, which will allow us to improve the way in which we accompany in our territories.
It also alludes to accompany regionally as a Compañera Network the actions of political and public advocacy in each country, when there are debates about the possibility of progress or regression on abortion. And finally, it refers to the process by which trust generates support, exchange, strength and the possibility of seeing in the actions of all, our regional scope to guarantee abortions in each territory. The general lines of this axis are:
- Safety and care: Create timely response strategies to criminalization and risk situations for organizations that are part of the Network.
- Training: Exchange knowledge from the experience of each group to solve local needs.
- Access: Expand possibilities and conditions of access to accompanied abortions.
- Co-Accompany: Generate processes of dialogue between companions to answer doubts during the accompaniments.
Priority 3: Knowledge generation
From the Compañera Network we want to be in regional and global decision-making spaces. Political spaces where knowledge related to abortion is being disputed and debated. For example, in the updates of the guidelines of the World Health Organization. This component refers to being able to generate: joint publications; systematization of regional data on abortion; evidence from our daily practice as medical abortion providers; knowledge that will allow us to recover abortion as a natural and daily practice and create a positive discourse around it. For this reason, the following will be promoted:
- Spaces for training, exchanges and political dialogues: Generate spaces for intergenerational exchange among the groups, for conflict resolution and training strategies for companions.
- Processes of systematization and collection of inputs from the collectives: Generate a digital repository with the material produced by the Network's collectives.
The team that will materialize these projections is the Grupo Impulsor, ratified at this assembly to continue its work until the next regional meeting in two years. The importance of the integration of the country teams was recognized, both in the Socorristas en Red and with the friends and at home (which at the moment had only one member in the IG), and in this sense they elected one more companion to be part of the IG.
