Women from seven political parties in the North will unite tomorrow to promote a Yes vote in the referendum on the Belfast Agreement.
The women are members of the Northern Ireland Women's Political Forum, an umbrella group set up in 1996 to foster links between women politicians, raise women's political awareness and encourage them to join political parties.
The forum allows women politicians from different social backgrounds and political outlooks to share information and discuss issues on which their parties are deeply divided, as well as those they agree on.
"The forum is an opportunity for women to sit around a table and be frank with each other and have discussions on everything from prisoners to policing," says Ms Eilish Duffy from the Workers' Party, the forum's co-ordinator.
"I learned a lot that I didn't know about Orange parades, police harassment in Protestant communities and schooling issues in all areas. There were women in the forum who had never spoken to a Catholic before they joined it."
The forum held conferences on sectarianism in 1996 and 1997, with the help of funding from the Community Relations Council. It is planning a joint conference with the Women's Political Association in the Republic later this year. Its members have also addressed peace groups and schools in the North and South.
Up to four representatives nominated from the seven political parties affiliated to the forum - the Workers' Party, the SDLP, Alliance, the UUP, the UDP, the PUP and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition - attend its monthly meetings.
Women from Sinn Fein and the DUP have never attended meetings. The DUP was invited when the forum was established in March 1996, but has not sent a representative, according to the forum's chairwoman, Ms Lily Kerr from the Workers' Party.
Sinn Fein was not initially invited to send a representative to the forum, because when it was formed the IRA ceasefire was not in place. Under the forum's constitution, affiliated parties must sign up to the Mitchell Principles of non-violence.
Ms Kerr said Sinn Fein, which has now signed up to the Mitchell Principles, had requested and was sent information last September on how to become affiliated to the forum. The forum had not yet received a reply, she said.
A spokesman for Sinn Fein said yesterday this appeared to be an administrative oversight, and that the party would seek to become involved in the forum.
Ms Kerr said members would like to see women from all eligible political parties joining, including Sinn Fein and the DUP, as well as the Communist Party of Northern Ireland and Labour, which have also requested information.
Ms Patsy Laverty, a member of the Progressive Unionist Party, said she would like to see Sinn Fein join the forum as her party had more in common with it than with DUP members "who come from `leafy-land' in east Belfast".
Ms Laverty, a voluntary social worker from east Belfast, said the forum allowed women with limited political experience to build confidence "so they can go out there and talk and not feel intimidated".
Ms Patricia Lewsley from the SDLP said the forum could not be dismissed as just a talking shop, but was an opportunity for women with opposing politics to learn the views of other politicians in a non-threatening environment.
"Many of us agreed that we didn't have to detract from our own party policies or party lines . . . what we wanted to do was to see how we could draw commonalities which every party could then work on separately," she said.
Ms Lewsley, who lost her Upper Falls seat on Belfast City Council last year after a four-year term, said the forum's main aim was to encourage more women to become involved in party politics.
About one in six local councillors in the North are women. Seven of the 51 councillors in Belfast City Council are women. But none of the North's MEPs or MPs is a woman.
Ms Lewsley said the timing of local council meetings and lack of child care facilities made it difficult for women with children, especially single parents, to become councillors.
"The more women we get in there, then the bigger the changes we can make," she said.
Ms Kerr said forum representatives would be "coming together as political women to say that we want a Yes campaign".