ISAR's Partnership and Exchange Program promotes information and people-to-people exchanges among grassroots citizen activists in Eurasia and the US. The program builds on ISAR's two decades of experience in bringing together activists from opposite sides of the world to create positive change through mutual understanding and cooperative projects. ISAR approaches its Partnership and Exchange work with the belief that the personal and professional connections resulting from these cross-cultural programs lead to ongoing relationships between grassroots counterparts, and ultimately result in the creation of stronger networks among activists on an international level.
Current Partnership and Exchange projects focus on a range of environmental initiatives, including a major effort to unite US and Eurasian nuclear safety activists.
For three weeks in May 2002, ISAR led an exchange program in Russia that brought together ten US and ten Russian women nuclear safety activists. The program continued an effort that was initiated several years ago aimed at strengthening the grassroots nuclear safety movement in Russia and the US by building collaborative networks between activists in both nations and by augmenting the fundamental role that women have played in the movement to protect the lives of their families and the vitality of their communities from the threat of nuclear contamination.
During the trip, the American participants spent four days in Moscow meeting with international level non-profit organizations working on nuclear and environmental issues as well as with two Russian government officials one a member of the Russian Parliament and one a member of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation.
The group then traveled to Russian cities affected by the nuclear industry to work in partnership with a Russian activist for five days traveling to Murmansk, Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Muslumovo, Zlatoust, and Novosibirsk. Some of the highlights of their visits to the Russian communities were: A tour of a nuclear powered Barents Sea icebreaker in the Artic Circle; A visit to a Urals village on the radioactively contaminated Techa River; A meeting with 40 members of the Yekaterinburg "Victims of Chernobyl" organization where balls of "Serpentine" stone were passed through each members' hand and presented to the American activists as a blessing of peace; A day spent monitoring radiation levels near the Novosibirsk Chemical Plant in Siberia; and, of course, the many dinners, cultural performances, and sincerity that are characteristic of Russian hospitality.
The last step of the exchange program was a four-day conference in the city of Tomsk where the group met at a Soviet style resort nestled in a birch forest along the Tom River. The women carried with them the same burdening question -- even more palpable after a week of sharing stories and realizing the common threads : "How can our children and grandchildren be saved from the pervading, destructive, silent danger of nuclear contamination?" Participants took part in diverse seminars from treating toxic exposure with complimentary medicine to using media tools for advocacy. The activists convened discussions around issues such as environmental justice as a human rights issue to nuclear disarmament and the effect of radiation on genetics and the fate of future generations. They spent their last day together in Tomsk designing a Russian American Charter on Nuclear Issues to lay out the questions of greatest concern for both nations which will continue to be developed over the summer and fall.
As one of the American activists, Leslie Larsen of Global Gatherings, Inc., noted: "These women spoke with such strength. Their hearts touched mine. Their courage and clarity is free of the rage I have met in other nuclear activists." Cathie Sullivan of Peace Action New Mexico commented at the end of the exchange program, reflecting the sentiment of many others: “I gained the courage that comes from knowing how worthy your allies are.”
ISAR will continue to support these partnerships by giving participants the chance to take part in a cooperative grants program that will award three $10,000 grants to fund partnership projects beginning in September, 2002. We would like to thank the US Department of Statešs Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Trust for Mutual Understanding for funding the Women in Grassroots Nuclear Safety Activism Exchange Program.
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