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| Closing Message Anne Michaud
After the last three days of exchange and sharing, have we accomplished our main objective? To our delight, yes! We really have begun to make the links ! We took the risk of sending out invitations to what would be this First International Seminar on Women's Safety in hope that this sharing of experiences and practices would re-charge our energy and efforts to make our communities safer for all citizens, particularly women and girls. We hope that the contacts made here will lead to increased city-to-city cooperation and sharing, «twinning» of cities, and sharing between communities. We also hope that our sharing and making the links over the past few days will continue to inspire sharing of experiences and knowledge in the domain of women's and community safety. We know that practices from cities in the North such as Montréal and Toronto can not be directly transferred and realistically implemented in other contexts, particularly communities and cities in Southern countries. Our hope in sharing our Northern experiences with you here was to share our accomplishments as well as the challenges that we face. We hope that this information and knowledge will in turn inspire and lead to the development of practices that are adapted and tailored to your respective contexts and environments. Our colleagues from Latin America and Africa have shown their interest to take up the torch - we hope that the second International Seminar will be held in a city in the South. We have also met our challenge of transforming the last three days of hard work into concrete recommendations for action for diverse actors. We should be very proud of the quality of the content of the Montréal Declaration on Women's Safety . We hope that you will use this Declaration to guide your work guide and that you will share it throughout each of your broad networks. The Montréal Declaration will be widely distributed next week at the World Health Organization's sixth World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control. We also hope that you will keep us informed of your activities, successes, and lessons learned from practice. The final results of this Seminar will also be the focus of a follow-up state of the art conference on the most recent developments in women's safety. In the coming months, we will continue to develop our International Directory of activities and resources and to promote the exchange of practices and knowledge in the field of women's safety. We will be publishing the complete Seminar Acts in English, French, and Spanish on our website in the late Spring of 2003. We have launched the movement by organizing the First International Seminar - the next move is yours to make. Your continuing to share your experiences with us and others will make it possible for our network to continue to grow and for us to develop new practices, learn new lessons, and organize follow-up activities. I want to warmly thank each and every one of you - participants, members of the Organizing Committee, collaborators and volunteers. I would particularly like to thank France Leblanc, Event Coordinator, and Caroline Andrew, my Co-Sponsor, for the exceptional quality of their contributions to this event. We owe the success of this Seminar to the enthusiasm, solidarity, and commitment that you have shown over the last few months and past few days. It was a great pleasure to welcome you to Montréal,
may you have a good return home in perfect safety.
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