3/2/22
Aloha members of the Board of Education,
We are Womenʻs Voices, Women Speak, a group of women of Hawaiʻi who are committed to peace and genuine security. We are teachers, students, aunties, caretakers, daughters, artists, writers, healers, lawyers, and dancers. We are an affiliate of the International Womenʻs Network Against Militarism established in 1997 by feminist peace activists from Okinawa, Guåhan, Puerto Rico, Vieques, the Philippines, South Korea, Turtle Island (North America), and Japan, and we have traveled internationally to listen to other women and their experience of war and their visions of peace and genuine security. In Hawai‘i, we have created documentaries, organized teach-ins and art exhibits, created curriculum, and organized tours to various important historical sites. Women’s Voices Women Speak offers the following comments regarding agenda item IV.A., and respectfully urges the Board of Education to take a stronger approach on the Red Hill water crisis and use your powerful voice and position to advocate for the health of Hawaiʻi’s youth, teachers, families, and land.
To us “genuine security” is a powerful long-term idea that means that we all have the right to good clean food and water, healthcare, shelter and safe communities, a vibrant education, and dignified livelihoods. These elements are more important to spend resources on than “national security”: massive military spending on weapons and training and warmaking. Genuine security are the elements and ways of living that truly keep us safe.
We see the Red Hill water contamination crisis as not just affecting the schools and families in the immediate vicinity. Instead, it is a clear example that the US military is prioritizing warmaking and war readiness over the health and well-being of the youth of Hawaiʻi, over genuine security. This shortsighted belief is what has caused the Navy to continuously deny wrongdoing, block solutions, and force the State, community members, and educators to spend more of our own precious time and resources to fix the Navy’s problem.
We thank you for passing your resolution advocating on behalf of the school communities of the immediate area, and strongly urge you to go a few steps further: to write directly to the U.S. Secretary of Education and President to intervene and assist in the defueling and permanent
decommissioning of the Red Hill Facility, for the future of our students, youth, schools, and entire island community.
Women’s Voices, Women Speak
@genuine_security
