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今年，面對相同困境，一年半以來我們日復日迎接無盡的失落和隔閡。這次，我們少了遲疑，多了決心，在等待之中我們始終覺得，今年的女人節無論如何也要如期舉行。在一切都被停頓和取消的時候，再多的延期和取消只會令人心漸行漸遠，失去溝通和擁抱彼此的機會。這個10月，女人節希望重新連繫社群，尋找和創造安全和開放的空間，讓所有人可以安心、坦誠地對話，分享、療癒和照顧自己。

「回歸內在」是今年女人節的主題。人們都說這年間，世界變了，我們也變了，再也不能「不如我地從頭黎過」。很多人在討論離去，但退一步想，與其拼命逃離躁動和紛亂的世界，倒不如轉向內在，正視我們內心日積月累的憤怒、不安、恐懼、哀傷。或許，看顧我們疲累又傷痕纍纍的心靈和身體，才是反思和改變現狀的開始。

你還記得酒店門外、面向彌敦道的廣告牌，曾寫着「你的生命變革是怎樣的一個故事？」

對我們而言，女人節可能是大家生命中一個微不足道的變改，但我們始終期待它可以成為一個發自內心的生命變革。我們希望女人節能讓每一個人的聲音被聆聽、了解和尊重，放下種族、階級、性別、文化、背景、立場的價值觀和成見，互相包容、體諒、分享生命中的喜怒哀樂，能讓我們不再感到孤單和被離棄。女人節，是你我的一場關於心的革命。

願我們有一個美好的女人節。

Love,
Chantal, Vera, Sonia

Women's Festival 2020
The Inward Turn: Reflecting from within

Notes from the three of us

Amidst all the instability and social distancing, we were not sure if we could hold the Women’s Festival in 2020. While we debated, deliberated, and waited, deep down I think all three of us knew we didn’t have a choice. We needed the Women’s Festival for ourselves, and we needed it with you.

Last year, we were advised the same: that the time wasn’t right, when everything was going down in tears and flames. But we did it anyhow, not in spite of all the challenges, but as a response to them. We needed the festival to happen, to have a safe space to be together and have meaningful conversations. Amidst the violence and confrontations are feelings and trauma that needed to be acknowledged and heard.

One year later, we find ourselves in a similar place. It has been a long and challenging year and a half, and this seemingly unending time continues with no end in sight. Every day we wake up facing the same shitty uncertainty. Ev-e-ry single day. But true to who we are, more than ever we are determined to hold this year’s Festival. We want to hold on to the festival, when everything is cancelled, banned, or both. We’ve realize that it is not only social distancing that is keeping us apart, but broken hearts and broken trust. But our spirit is not broken. It is thus that we are especially excited for this year’s Women’s Festival. It is particularly important to us. In October, we are bringing communities back to have conversations again, to find solace together, sharing our vulnerabilities, honesty and be present in support and care for each other and ourselves.

Which brings us to our theme this year, “The Inward Turn”, to turn our attention from the world surrounding us to the world within. When the world is falling apart, it is more vital than ever to take the time to reach into ourselves, introspect, and care for ourselves.

Over the past year of uncertainties and violence, of rules, promises, skulls, and hearts broken, the city has forever changed, and so have we. We are angry, hurt, fearful, sad, desperate, and tired, and it’s taken a toll on all of us, emotionally and physically, as a person and as a community. We need to heal. For us, healing begins with recognizing our own wounds and traumas, from childhood, from heartbreaks, from work and fights, from microaggressions and other challenges and confrontations. Because it is only by taking steps towards the healing of our own emotions and bodies that we can begin to change the world.

We remember the (now-gone and much-missed) billboard facing Nathan Road asking, and when we set up the Women’s Festival we also asked ourselves: What does your revolution look like? We have always envisioned the Women’s Festival to be a movement, if not a revolution. The Women’s Festival is a revolution of kindness, of empathy, of friendship, of the marginalized and silenced, of the hurt and the weary, of uniqueness and differences, of bravery and vulnerability, of reflections, thoughts and emotions, of love and of beauty, of care and self-care, of warmth and understanding, of the insistence on hope and happiness especially when it feels impossible. Our revolution, is the revolution of the heart. And we are all in this together.

Have a great Women’s Festival.

Love,
Chantal, Vera, Sonia