Reflecting on the work of the Red Thread Women's Development Organisation in Guyana, which has over two decades' worth of experience in grassroots organising, the author explores what autonomy and connection might mean for poor women. Forging a multiracial unity, while confronting and working through disparities in power among women, is regarded as integral to the struggle for freedom. Initiatives undertaken by Red Thread, such as a time-use survey which allowed women to define and make visible their work, are located within a wider notion of transnational solidarity and mutual support.
I would like to thank Red Thread and the Global Women's Strike for inspiration and concrete example and, in particular, Andaiye and Selma James for thoughtful and critical comments, especially under pressure of tight deadlines!
2.
George Lamming, The Sovereignty of the Imagination (Kingston, Jamaica, Arawak Publications, 2004), p. 9.
3.
Andaiye, ` The angle you look from determines what you see: towards a critique of feminist politics in the Caribbean', Lucille Mathurin Mair Lecture (University of the West Indies, Mona, 2002).
4.
RedThread has under its belt just over two decades of a variety of income-generating projects, surveys, anti-violence organising and public education. Andaiye, `The Red Thread story', in Suzanne Francis-Brown (ed.), Spitting in the Wind: lessons in empowerment from the Caribbean (Kingston, Jamaica, Ian Randle, 2000).
5.
`Cooking up change in the global kitchen', Global Women's Strike (No. 3, January 2006), <http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/Strike/English2006/Journal2006.htm >.
6.
6 Andaiye, unpublished notes (13 April 2007).
7.
Lamming, op. cit, p. 33.
8.
Red Thread, `Statement for the Red Thread press conference on a survey to measure women's time-use in Guyana' (2 December 2004).
9.
`How women ensured Guyana survived the great flood', Global Women's Strike (No. 3, January 2006), <http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/Strike/English2006/Journal2006.htm>.
10.
H. Khan, J. Bacchus and N. Marcus, Report on Our Visit to Venezuela (April 2006), unpublished report.
11.
Ibid.
12.
Red Thread, One Heart, One Fist, One Voice: statement by grassroots women organizers of all races (Georgetown, Guyana, 31 March 2006).
