This July 2-8, support #AfghanWomen

As delegates from around the world meet in Tokyo July 8-9 to discuss the way forward in Afghanistan, we will use twitter to highlight the needs and voices of Afghan women. 

Marking the 10 year anniversary of the Afghanistan Recovery and Reconstruction Conference that took place in Tokyo during January 2002, “international organizations and others will re-convene in the same city to pledge assistance to Afghanistan for the remainder of the transition process and beyond 2014.”

This conference might be the first in Tokyo in a decade, but it is the second major international conference on Afghanistan in the last 6 months. After over 10 years of US occupation, Afghan women face major challenges and setbacks. 

Will you join our twitterstorm to help co-create an international online conversation about the need for listening to the demands of #AfghanWomen during this major conference?

CODEPINK has partnered with MADRE for this twitter days of action.   Together we will amplify our messages with tweets, blog posts and articles.  Please invite your networks to join you.

• Let us know you'll be tweeting! Share your twitter handle.
• Join this facebook event and invite your friends.
• Follow us on twitter: @codepink and @MADREspeaks
• Invite your friends and groups you know to participate
• Get ready to tweet during the lead-up to, and during the conference, July 2-8 with many others who care about to #Afghanwomen! Plenty of sample tweets are below, or you can compose your own on the core messages of:
  • The most important thing governments can do is listen to the demands of Afghan Women.
  • More troops are not the solution; more troops mean more civilian casualties.
  • The US government must support social and community programs and end military involvement.

Tweet #AfghanWomen

Whatever you tweet, be sure to use #AfghanWomen in your tweets.  You can also tweet to world leaders by including @UN_Women, @NATO, @BarackObama.

Want to tweet to your Congressperson?  Find your Rep's twitter handle.

Sample Tweets:

• Call on @NATO and @UN_Women to listen to #AfghanWomen. What do they need for their families and their futures? http://bit.ly/QPD3dt
  
• Every 30 mins, #AfghanWomen die in childbirth. @NATO & @UN where’s the money for comprehensive maternal healthcare? http://bit.ly/QPD3dt
  
• 87% of #AfghanWomen are illiterate. Is the Tokyo Conference thinking of ways to address this crisis? http://bit.ly/QPD3dt
  
• Does a plan for a “self-sustaining Afghanistan” include resources #AfghanWomen need to bring their communities forward? http://bit.ly/QPD3dt
• Hey! @CODEPINK & @MADREspeaks call on delegates in Tokyo to listen to the call for peace from #AfghanWomen http://bit.ly/QPD3dt
  
• Stand up for peace and #AfghanWomen! Learn more: http://bit.ly/QPD3dt @MADREspeaks via @codepink

Sign the Petition to UN Women to Listen to Afghan Women!

 For Groups and Organizations:

• Let us know you are participating in #Afghanwomen twitterstorm.
• Invite your supporters & friends to join the event in emails, Facebook and Twitter. 
• Join & promote the Facebook event
• Follow us on twitter: @codepink and @MADREspeaks
• Tell other organizations you work with about this opportunity to get the word out about #Afghanwomen, July 2 - 8.
  

What's the Tokyo conference really about?
Getting governments to pledge money for the huge, expensive police and army that have been created there, mostly.

Excerpt: "With the Bonn II Conference on Afghanistan over with limited dividends to show for it, Afghanistan is yet again gearing up for another international conference. In July of this year, governments, international organizations and other major donors will meet in Tokyo, Japan and will discuss and take on financial commitments for a ten year period after 2014."

Not on Twitter? Getting started with a new web tool can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some quick tips to get you going.

• All you need to create an account is an email address. Choose a handle (it’s a good idea to use some variation on your real name), then get started building your profile. A photo is essential—it doesn’t need to be of you, but you need to have one if you want to be taken seriously. In your description, be brief, but give people an idea of what you’ll be talking about (climate change, fossil fuel subsidies, cats, cakes, etc.). Click here to create an account.
• Friends, family, and colleagues are a good place to start building your network. Who’s in your real-life network? Whose opinions do you care about and want to hear? Try following journalists you like to read, celebrities you’re a fan of, or organizations you support. The key word here is start. You don’t have to have 500 followers to get going with posting content. In fact, the more active you are right off the bat, the more ways there are for people to find and follow you.
• Twitter VS Facebook: Where networks like Facebook are largely about extending existing social ties, Twitter has become a more media-oriented tool. It’s favored by celebrities, journalists, and people who are looking to cultivate or create an audience. Twitter is great for tracking topics and connecting with people you don’t already know. If you take the time to actually interact with people instead of just posting about yourself, you’ll find you get more out of it and forge some surprising connections.
• Vocab lesson! A tweet is a short status update: 140 characters worth of deep thoughts, mundane observations, bad puns, etc. Tweet often, and tweet from the heart—you don’t have to “overshare” to make it personal and compelling. Followers are the people who can read your tweets. If you start out by following lots of people, many of them will follow you back. A hashtag or # is just a symbol that the platform uses to track topics. If you include a hashtag in your tweet, your followers can click on it and see all the other tweets using the same hashtag. 
• Texting! Are you not online regularly, or do you know people who don’t have access to a computer? Twitter actually allows sign-up & participation via SMS—learn more here.
• More tips on getting started with social media here.