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I want to let you know about a video project that may be of particular interest to you. I am currently working on a thirty-minute video documentary called: "Look Us in the Eye: The Old Women's Project."

Cynthia Rich, Mannie Garza and Janice Keaffaber

As you well know, the three founders of The Old Women's Project in San Diego, Cynthia Rich, Mannie Garza and Janice Keaffaber use a multitude of strategies to combat the patronizing, the contempt and the invisibility that old women meet every day of their lives, even within progressive movements. "The word 'old'," they say, "is a statement of fact, not a matter of shame. We claim it, because as long as it is humiliating to be called old, it will be humiliating to be old."

Some of you may have even participated in their women only actions including:

• a shopping-bag march through downtown declaring "Women Don't Buy This War" that protested the Iraq war as a women's issue, and in particular an old women's issue before the war began
   
• an International Women's Day action at City Hall that mobilized women representing diverse ethnicities and ages to show why housing is a women's issue, and launched the low-cost housing movement in San Diego
   
• "Bush Brides" street theater to protest Bush's "Healthy Marriage Initiative."

The Old Women's Project with their giant, multi-ethnic old woman puppet POWER (Pissed Old Woman Engaged in Revolution) bring their voices to other social justice protests in the city. "We connect our issues with everyone else's issues, and that's what makes us unique," says Garza. In their support of the Living Wage Ordinance they carried signs declaring "No Decent Wage = Homeless Old Age." Says Rich, "Old women are affected by all issues of social justice, not only those that relate to our age, like Medicare and Social Security. Those are very important issues, but that is not all of who we are." The Old Women's project lobby, speak at State and local meetings in support of causes as diverse as:

• Justice for Janitors
   
• The ongoing fight for low-cost housing
   
• The fight against Governor Schwarzenneger's proposed cuts in services to the disabled.

Speaking recently in support of decent wages for home health care workers, Rich pointed out that old women are not only the recipients of such care but in many cases the providers of these services.

With your help "Look us in the Eye: The Old Women's Project" will bring a much-needed perspective on an important women's issue to universities and grassroots organizations around the country. I hope that you see the value of this video about old women's visibility and will want to make a donation of any amount as soon as possible. Only with your support can I reach my goal of bringing "Look Us in the Eye: The Old Women's Project" to the screen in San Diego by International Women's Day.

Thank you,

      Jennifer Abod, Ph.D. producer