International Women’s DAY? We’d a whole month!
As well as our march and rally on the 8th March, International Women’s Day, Reclaim the Agenda coordinated a programme of events running for the whole month of March. With a wide range of events from songwriting and poetry to workshops and talks and even a football tournament we had a diverse and packed programme. While many of the events were organised by our friends in organisations like Women’s Platform, the Equality Commission and Women of Colour Belfast, RTA directly organised or contributed to many events across March.
We began by laying a plaque with the names of the 7 women in the Ulster Penitentiary Grave at Belfast City Cemetery. The inmates were described as 'Penitent Women', 'Fallen Women' or 'Victims of Seduction'. The women buried in the grave were named:-
Sarah Gillespie
Jane Johnston
Ellen Haslett
Rosena Hawthorne
Louisa Johnston
Jane McDowell
Agnes Shannon
We laid the plaque on the 3rd March, International Sex Worker’s Rights Day alongside members of Sex Worker’s Alliance Ireland and Red Umbrella Eireann. While not all the women who went through the Ulster Penitentiary were sex workers, many were.
On 5th march we had a double bill of events at the new Shankhill Shared Women’s Centre. First up was a joint event with Women’s Resource and Development Agency on community gardens and growing spaces. We heard presentations on the work of the Three Sisters Garden and Social Farms and gardens, followed by a panel discussion chaired by RTA’s Helen. This event was followed by a joint event with the Women’s Policy Group, an update on the ’Where’s Our Democracy’ campaign. WPG set out a series of asks for the NI Assembly when they returned from the most recent collapse, now that they have been back to work for a year this event evaluated the government’s record on women’s issues- spoiler the results weren’t great! Women’s Sector Lobbyist Elaine Crory took us through the report put together by the WPG and Danielle represented RTA on the subsequent panel discussion as part of the event talking about issues like the outstanding social inclusion strategies and the good news of the launch of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.
Later that evening we threw ourselves into preparation for the rally. Along with some volunteers we made colourful placards, mounted copies of our IWD poster to be carried at the march, and made up around 200 kids goodie bag to be given out.
Reclaim the Agenda are part of an all island project on tackling coercieve control by using 5 books to start the conversation and increase awareness. The first of these events took place at the Ennis Book Festival on Friday 7th March, so Danielle had a flying visit to Clare! We will be hosting an event as part of this project on the 11th June, keep an eye out for booking details.
Next was the main event, International Women’s Day proper. We gathered in our hundreds at Writers Square and assembled to march to City Hall for our speakers, carrying aloft banners and placards. The march was led by Women’s Aid, to celebrate Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid ‘s 50th anniversary this year. Women’s Centres, Trade Unions, campaign groups and more accompanied by Chidambaram Samba band made their way through the city centre. At City Hall we heard from speakers on a range of issues, and joined together in some chanting as we took over Donegal Square and Royal Avenue. You can read more about the speakers here and see more pictures from the day here and here.
Events continued after the rally and well into the night. While some went into City Hall for lunch and more speakers, others headed to 2 Royal Avenue where we had information stalls, artwork from the MAs project, and dance workshops. Following that Helen hit the road to a UNISON event in the Guildhall, and Danielle spoke at the F Collective Feminist Takeover and finished the night at the Afghan Women’s Solidarity Concert!
Events continued until the end of March. As part of the Belfast Palestine Film Festival Helen took part in a panel on ‘Global Feminist Solidarity with Palestine’ at a screening of 3000 Nights, co-organised with Mothers against Genocide and IPSC Belfast. Throughout March, Raise Your Voice (a partnership project of Reclaim the Agenda, WRDA, WSN and NIRWN) held a series of workshops on tackling sexual harassment, and a powerful evening of spoken word and music performed by victims and survivors. Our last event of the month was an afternoon with the BME Women’s Network talking about peacebuilding and creativity.
Our theme this year was ‘Solidarity Beyond Borders – Women for World Peace’ and this was reflected in many of our events and by our rally speakers. Reclaim the Agenda connect and mobilise women to promote feminist activism through education, campaigning and celebration and we did all that and more for International women’s Day 2025.
