Cronology of the evolution of the Women´s Media Pool Beijing + 10

1. January 20, 2005. FIRE (Feminist International Radio Endeavour) issues a call to women in media and communicaitons to organize a women´s media pool towards the Beijing + 10 Session of the Commite on the Status of Women. (See original press release). The response to the initiative starts growing. Many networks and groups have as a reference having worked together in Beijing 1995 in the Women´s Alternative Media and Services Center and in Beijing + 5, the WomenAction iniatiative. The first few groups join the Pool.

2. January 21, 2005. Concieved originally as a pool for coverage and communicaitons, the IWTC suggests that the pool joins their initiative to organize a lobby for Section "J" of the Platform for Action about Women in Media. Both initiatives merge into one, each coordianted by their proponents.

3. January 28, 2005. Simultaneously to the first reactions through Internet, FIRE presents the idea at the planning Beijing + 10 meeting in the feminist boat at the V World Social Forum. Women from the Latin American and Caribbean region respond to it with enthusiasm, as they also had as a reference the media initiative at the IX Latin Americna and Caribbean Feminist Encuentro in Costa Rica in 2002.

4. February 09, 2005. A list serve in dgroups, called "poolB10" is created by FIRE to set the process going collectively. "poolB10" becomes a discussion list in order to collectively define the objectives of the pool and to find out what each oganization or network will finally be doing in the Beijing + 10 in terms of media and communcaitons. A conceptualization of the WMP is sent arround, including the  of the informaiton flow of the WMP

5. February 11, 2005. As more groups join and the nature and objectives of the pool are set, a final press release is writen and distributed, calling on others to join. A "logo-link"  with the URL of the WMP web site embeden in it is created and sent to paticipants and regional and thematic caucues, asking them to place it in their web pages. The count of logo-links to the WMP web page three days prior to the beginning of Beijing + 10 accounted for 83 links. Perhaps this is why 2, 500 hits were received on the first day that the web page was posted.

6. February 10-18, 2005. Several tasks are undertaken to help WMP members to organize for the coverage and lobby. Instructions as to how information would how were sent to all participants. A Gallaxy of the information flow for the WMP was also distributed among participants.

7. February 21, 2005. A WMP web page is organized by FIRE. Its press release describes its nature and components.

8. February 26, 2005, New York. A WMP meeting was organized by the IWTC to set the process in motion.  

10. February 28, 2005. The media and communicaitons initiatives and the lobby strategy designed and present in New York come into action.

11. March 2, 2005. A meeting of the Pool takes place at the IWTC. Strategies to position Section "J" take centerfold at the meeting. A meeting is requested with the Gender Focal Point of UNESCO, who responds leaving a phone message to say she is gone back to Europe that day. A letter was written and sent to Carolyn Hannan, head of the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) to seek a meeting regarding the omission of "J" section in their online forums. The strategy includes the drafting of a resolution about "J" sections to be mainstreamed for the second week of the CSW meetig.

12. March 8, 2005. Another lobby meting takes place at the IWTC. It is agreed to that the resolution in not possible, the lobby should concentrate on the meeting with the Division for the Advancement on Women.

13. March 10, 2005. The meeting takes place with Carolyn Hannan and IWTC, FIRE, WMP, APC WNSP, WEDO. The head of DAW makes a committment to strengthen their efforts to position women and media and ICTs in future events. 

13. March 11, 2005. An assessment meeting about the WMP and its futire takes place at the IWTC. FIRE is commissioned to draft a final report and assess the impact of the WMP during Beijing + 10.