Main activities of our group

• Our group has undertaken initial research and investigation of some fifty victims/survivors. This research and documentation process is still ongoing and hopes to cover a total of 135 victims who haveapproached the AWHRC and the Buhay Foundationfrom 2000 to 2005 for documentation of their narratives. We hope that the organization can avail of funds so that the ongoing interviews and research work can be systematized and the results can be published to ensure recording of the survivors’ stories.
  
• The organization has undertaken initial counselling and therapy activities since founding year 2000. However, it was difficult to sustain it without a regular place to hold the activities. In July 2006, Lolas Kampanyera was finally able to find its own reception center and office with the support of both the AWHRC and the Buhay Foundation for Women and the Girl Child which rented a Lolas Place Center for Counseling and Psychosocial Activities.
  
• Our group undertakes regular lobbying activities with Philippine legislators for policies to support the Filipino comfort women. Since 2000, around ten resolutions and draft bills were the result of such efforts. On July 30, 2007, the US House of Representatives passed House Res. 121 introduced by Congressman Mike Honda, and got bipartisan support. The resolution calls for the government of Japan to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of the war of World War II. The passage of the US resolution has galvanized concerned Philippine legislators to action by also introducing similar resolutions and bills in the 14th Congress session.
  
• In August of 2006, our group hosted and co-organized the 4th ISCR International Conference on Legal Redress which addressed WW II Crimes of Japan and Issues for Victims of Forced Labor and Military Sexual Slavery, attended by 120 participants from 9 countries.We also co-convened with Filipino Congressman Eduardo Zialcita the Filipino-Japanese Parliamentarians Forum on the same issues.
  
• Lolas Kampanyera, since its founding, has embarked on a program based on the guiding principle of “justice with healing” which aims that while we seek to mobilize and campaign for justice, we must also ensure the healing process of the survivors. This is done thru individual and collective counselling,and therapy sessions that nurture the self-worth of each victim whose psyches were damaged by the violent experience with the Japanese soldiers. A psychologist comes to Lolas Place - the center for therapy and collective bonding, to initiate psychosocial activities on a monthly basis, or as needed per individual survivor. Friends and supporters also come to do home visits to the Lolas, to show their care and solidarity.
• The organization aims to empower the Lolas in such a way that they now show the way to other women how to overcome the impact of violence. Lolas who
  spoke publicly and participated in the Courts of Women public hearings organized by AWHRC inspire other victims of violence and wars to bring themselves
  together as a community of women and assert their human rights to dignity, humanity, liberty, peace and compensation. The survivor victims of Lolas Kampanyera have become a rich resource for strength and courage and are often invited speakers, andtestifiers in national and international meetings.
• Lolas Kampanyera collaborates with the Asian Women Human Rights Council, whose regional office is in Bangalore, India, for the participation of Filipina survivors in Courts of Women On War Violence and Human Rights Impact held in South Africa in 2001 and
  2003 as well as other initiatives held at parallel NGO events in UN meetings. Since July 2006, we collaborated with the Buhay Foundation for Women for the project “Lolas Reception Center and Art Works Exhibition Place for Filipino Survivors of Japanese
  Military Sexual Slavery.”
• Lolas Kampanyera seeks for volunteers and donations to bring the mobile photo exhibition in various universities and schools in the Philippines, and to realize its various services and projects to strengthen its advocacy of the “comfort women” issue.