Sandra Luz Hernandez
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice
Uprooting Fascisms and Fundamentalisms
Across the globe, feminist, women’s rights and gender justice defenders are challenging the agendas of fascist and fundamentalist actors. These oppressive forces target women, persons who are non-conforming in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual orientation, and other oppressed communities.
Discriminatory ideologies are undermining and co-opting our human rights systems and standards, with the aim of making rights the preserve of only certain groups. In the face of this, the Advancing Universal Rights and Justice (AURJ) initiative promotes the universality of rights - the foundational principle that human rights belong to everyone, no matter who they are, without exception.
We create space for feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to recognize, strategize and take collective action to counter the influence and impact of anti-rights actors. We also seek to advance women’s rights and feminist frameworks, norms and proposals, and to protect and promote the universality of rights.
Our actions
Through this initiative, we:
- Build knowledge: We support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements by disseminating and popularizing knowledge and key messages about anti-rights actors, their strategies, and impact in the international human rights systems through AWID’s leadership role in the collaborative platform, the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)*.
- Advance feminist agendas: We ally ourselves with partners in international human rights spaces including, the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Population and Development, the Commission on the Status of Women and the UN General Assembly.
- Create and amplify alternatives: We engage with our members to ensure that international commitments, resolutions and norms reflect and are fed back into organizing in other spaces locally, nationally and regionally.
- Mobilize solidarity action: We take action alongside women human rights defenders (WHRDs) including trans and intersex defenders and young feminists, working to challenge fundamentalisms and fascisms and call attention to situations of risk.
Related Content
A Collective Love Print | Small Snippet EN
A Collective Love Print
“If we can inherit trauma, can we inherit an imprint related to love?”
AWID Community Blurb
Join our online community!
The AWID Community is an online social networking platform specifically for AWID. It is a feminist space for connection, resistance and celebration. A space for critical feminist conversations, collective power and solidarity. It is also a space for post-event dialogues, navigating difficult political learnings and community care.
Join AWID membership to be part of the AWID Community today.
Chinelo Onwualu Snippet | AR
تشينيلو أونوالو، مستشارة في الشؤون التحرِيرية، مع 10 سنوات من الخبرة في صياغة الاتصالات الاستراتيجية للمنظمات غير الربحية في جميع أنحاء العالم. من بين عملائها منظمة ActionAid Nigeria و BBC World Trust و Open Society Initiative for West Africa و AWID. حائزة على درجة الماجستير في الصحافة من جامعة سيراكيوز. عملت كاتبة ومحررة وباحثة في نيجيريا وكندا والولايات المتحدة. وهي أيضًا محررة في مجلة Anathema والمؤسس المشارك في Omenana، وهي مجلة من قصص الخيال الأفريقي. ظهرت قصصها القصيرة في العديد من المختارات الحائزة على جوائز، ورُشّحت لجوائز الخيال العلمي البريطانية، وجوائز نومو للخيال الأفريقي المضارب، وجائزة يوم القصة الافريقية القصيرة. تشينيلو من نيجيريا لكنها تعيش في تورنتو مع شريكها وطفلها.
Snippet - CSW69 On anti-rights resistance - EN
On anti-rights resistance
- PRESS RELEASE CSW69: One Step Forward, Multiple Steps Back— The Resolve for Gender Equality Continues! Download here
- Rights at Risk: Time for Action - OURs Trends Report
- Rights at Risk Resource Library
- “Gender ideology” Narratives: A Threat to Human Rights
- Feminists on the frontline of defending human rights and democracy: how can funders make an impact?
Curatorial Note by Rula Khoury
Feminist Art Walk
Curatorial Note by Rula Khoury
As part of our commitment to engage more deeply with artists and the practice of co-creating Feminist Realities, AWID collaborated with an Artist Working Group to advance and strengthen feminist agendas and realities in their communities and movements through their creative expression. Our intention here is to bring feminist creatives together in a powerful and brave space where they grow and live freely, and where they shatter toxic narratives to replace them with transformative alternatives.
This exhibition gathers the work of artists and collectives from across the globe, those who are actively creating the difference that we want to see in the world. These feminist creatives include Upasana Agarwal, Nicole Barakat, Siphumeze Khundayi, Katia Herrera, Ali Chavez Leeds, Colectivo Morivivi, Ika Vantiani, and the curators behind the #MeToo in China exhibition. Their voices stand strong in their refusal to accept the limitations imposed by patriarchy, and amplify their commitments to the communities they are working in and with. In their own way, each artwork represents daily acts of resistance, untold stories and identities, connections to land and ancestry, and most importantly, the solidarity that exists within and amongst feminist movements and struggles. These artists are both inspired by and inspire creative strategies of feminist resistance and initiatives that show us how we can all live in a more just world - a world that centers care and healing.
Snippet - Title WCFM Landing - EN
Who Can Fund Me?
Reclaim Power to #FreezeFascisms: Resources for Feminists to Survive & Thrive
Feminist and gender justice movements continue to be chronically underfunded in the face of global funding cuts and freezes. Particularly in Global South regions with shrinking civic spaces, resource scarcity has impacted the most vulnerable communities.
In the face of these setbacks, AWID has updated the Who Can Fund Me? Database - an easy-to-use, practical tool for movements looking for funders from philanthropic foundations, multilateral funders to women’s and feminist funds to support vital lifesaving efforts.
Snippet From the Heart of the Commune_Fest (EN)
Snippet - WCFM getting the money we need - En
Getting the Money We Need | A 101 Guide on Fundraising for Small Grassroots Organizations
From building prospect funders lists with *templates*, to understand how to write a solid grant proposal, with ‘Getting the Money we Need’ Guide really we don't have to figure this out alone anymore
Read and download the guide hereText-only version
- Version française version intégrale | version texte seulement
- Versión en español versión completa | versión solo texto
WITM - Refreshed INFOGRAPHIC 1 EN
Ever wondered what budgets for feminist organizations look like?
In 2023, feminist and women's rights organizations had a median annual budget of USD 22,000. Behind that median lies disparity and inequality: while a few groups access large-scale resources, the vast majority survive on shoestring budgets.
A closer look at actual budgets reveals major income diversity and inequality.
Snippet - COP30 - Resistance Hubs Section Column 2 - EN
The following partners are organizing COP30 hubs:
- Caribbean Feminist Climate Justice Movement, Barbados
- Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA), Pakistan
- Women’s Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE), Nigeria
- Réseau des Acteurs du Développement Durable (RADD)*, Cameroon
- MASIPAG, The Phillippines
*Website in French
COP30: Homepage Banner
COP30: Reclaim climate action from corporate capture
As world leaders gather in Brazil, feminist movements are advocating, gathering and disrupting the status quo- at COP30 and beyond! We're heading alongside other feminists to Belém, Brazil for COP30, from 10 November – 21 November 2025, where we will continue to denounce false solutions.
AWID IN 2014: Strengthening Women’s Rights Organizing Around the World
AWID is very pleased to share our 2014 Annual Report.
From building knowledge on women’s rights issues to amplifying responses to violence against women human rights defenders (WHRDs), our work last year continued to strengthen feminist and women’s rights movements across the world.
Get learn how we built the capacity of our members and broader constituency, pushed hard to keep women’s rights on the agenda of major international development and human rights processes, and helped increase coverage of women’s rights issues and organizing through the media. You'll find a panoramic sampling of our projects and some concrete numbers demonstrating our impact.
Collaboration is at the heart of all that we do, and we look forward to another year of working together to take our movements to the next level.
A sneak peak inside the report
Despite an increasingly challenging panorama, there are important signs of hope for advancing women’s rights agendas. Women’s rights activists remain crucial in creating openings to demand structural change, sustaining their communities, opposing violence and holding the line on key achievements. And there are important opportunities to influence new actors and to mobilize greater resources to support women’s rights organizations.
In this context, strong collective action and organizing among women’s rights activists remains essential.
Our impact
- We built knowledge on women’s rights issues
- We strengthened our online community
- We helped improve responses to violence against WHRDs
- We strengthened movement building through collaborative working processes
- We pushed hard to keep women’s human rights on the agendas of major international development processes
- We helped women’s rights organizations better influence donors and increased visibility and understanding of women’s rights organizations among the donor community
- We contributed towards increased and improved coverage of women’s rights issues and organizing in mainstream media
I am sincerely thrilled by AWID’s accomplishments since 1982 and hope to be able to pay at least a modest contribution to its hard work for the benefit of women and situation of gender equality.” — Aleksandra Miletic-Santic, Bosnia Herzegovina
Our Members
Read the full report
Parveen Rehman
Inna Michaeli
Biography
Inna is a feminist queer activist and sociologist with many years of deep engagement in feminist and LGBTQI+ struggles, political education and organizing by and for migrant women, and Palestine liberation and solidarity. She joined AWID in 2016 and served in different roles, most recently as Director of Programs. She is based in Berlin, Germany, grew up in Haifa, Palestine/Israel, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and carries these political geographies and resistance to colonial past and present into her feminism and transnational solidarity.
Inna is the author of “Women's Economic Empowerment: Feminism, Neoliberalism, and the State” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), based on the dissertation which earned her a doctoral degree from the Humboldt University of Berlin. As an academic, she taught courses on globalization, knowledge production, identity and belonging. Inna holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a Board Member of the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East (Germany), and previously of +972 Advancement of Citizen Journalism. Previously Inna worked with the Coalition of Women for Peace and she is passionate about mobilizing resources for grassroots activism.
Position
Co-Executive Director
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Derya Demirler
Michelle D'Cruz
Biography
Michelle is a Southeast Asian feminist who enjoys conspiring to bring people together and spark conversations for social change and feminist knowledge sharing, through art, poetry, music and games. With a background in digital advocacy and communications strategy development, she has contributed to initiatives in digital rights, human rights research, and civil society coalition building throughout Southeast Asia. She has an LLB from National University of Singapore, enjoys following her feet down random city streets and likes coffee a little too much.
Position
Membership and constituency Engagement Coordinator
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Mary Rivera
Khaoula Ksiksi
Biography
Khaoula Ksiksi is a passionate advocate for justice, equity, and liberation. As a Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) Advisor, she works to make inclusivity a lived reality, not just a policy, across humanitarian programs and crisis contexts. She collaborates with teams to challenge structural oppression using bold, transformative tools rooted in lived experience.
Her activism began on the frontlines of Tunisia’s anti-racism movement. With Mnemty, she helped push through the country’s first anti-discrimination law, forcing a national reckoning with racial injustice. She later co-founded Voices of Black Tunisian Women to amplify Black women’s leadership, build solidarity networks, and demand visibility in a society that often silences them.
Khaoula is also a founding member of Falgatna, a radical queer-feminist movement fighting for SOGIESC rights and supporting LGBTQI+ communities through direct action, digital resistance, and survivor-centered advocacy.
Previously, she led regional feminist and climate justice projects at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in North and West Africa.
At the heart of her work is a deep belief: no one is free until we all are. Her activism is both a fight and a love letter to her people, her communities, and the world we deserve.
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Giulia Tamayo
