Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim
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
What measures to protect public health and contain risks of Covid19 outbreak will be in place?
We are monitoring this and other risks carefully, and will publish comprehensive health and safety information when the registration opens, so you could make an informed decision. In addition, the hybrid format is designed to provide a meaningful engagement experience to the participants who will prefer not to travel or are not able to travel.
Fiona Richardson
How about climate justice, is this really the time for so many international flights?
Asking ourselves the same question, we believe there are no simple answers. For many participants the AWID Forum might be one of the few international trips they undertake in their life. The pandemic taught us the possibilities but also the limitations of virtual spaces for movement-building: there is nothing like in-person connection. Movements need cross-border connections to build our collective power in the face of the threats we face, notably the climate crisis. We believe that the upcoming AWID Forum can be a strategic space to hold these conversations and to explore alternatives to international travel. The hybrid element of the Forum is an important part of this exploration.
Halla Barakat
CFA 2023 - Themes - EN
Themes
We welcome applications across the full range of thematic areas and intersections important to feminist and gender justice movements. In the application form, you will be able to mark more than one theme that fits your activity.
- Free Bodies, Free Spirits: all things bodily autonomy, gender and sexuality, reproductive health and rights, freedom from gender-based violence, freedom to live in safety, pleasure and joy in our diverse bodies, identities and communities, and much, much more.
- Resisting Anti-Rights: locally and globally, feminists are leading the way in resisting all forms of intersectional oppressions, including fascisms, fundamentalisms, and authoritarian regimes; we have a lot to share and strategize with each other about.
- Movements and Organizing: let us get to know each other’s movements. From navigation of power (internal and external) to protection strategies in the face of the repression of women and gender-diverse human rights defenders, from alliance-building to creative and successful forms of organizing, let’s learn and be inspired by each other.
- Economic Justice and Feminist Economies: this theme encompasses all feminist efforts to transform our economies, from challenging dominant extractive models and defending labor rights to embodying and living feminist economic practices and alternatives in everyday life.
- Funding/Resourcing Activism: securing much-needed funding is a shared challenge for movements across the world; let us together unpack the feminist funding ecosystem, from critical analysis to first-hand experiences and practical ways to fund feminist work.
- Climate, Environmental Justice, Land and Water: ecological and climate justice has deep roots in many of our movements and communities; from ancient traditions to futuristic visions, from ecology villages to campaigns to end extractivism and health justice, we invite a full scope of activities on all aspects of climate and environmental justice.
- Militarization, War and Conflict: we aim to spotlight feminist organizing, analysis and experiences often on the frontline of crisis response and helping to sustain life, community and justice in the harshest times of war and protracted conflict.
- Decolonization: decolonization is central to each and every one of our themes, yet it also stands on its own, as a key feminist agenda of resistance and world-building in many colonial and post-colonial realities.
- Digital Realities and Feminist Tech: we welcome an opportunity to celebrate the incredible feminist initiatives that transform digital worlds, challenge big tech power structures, and democratize technology as truly by and for the people.
- Healing Justice: there is an incredible diversity of approaches to collective care and healing justice. Worldwide, healers and movements are reclaiming healing justice as a political principle, a set of practices, a learning journey, a way of life, and much more.
- Add your theme here!
Body
Luz Yeni Montaño
CFA 2023 - Hubs - thai
ใหม่
จุดศูนย์กลาง: การเดินทางข้ามพรมแดน
ผู้เข้าร่วมประชุมจะได้เข้าร่วมตามสถานที่ต่างๆนอกเพื้นที่ในการจัดงานที่กรุงเทพฯ และตามส่วนต่างๆของ โลกในแต่ละวันของการประชุม สถานที่ประชุมที่ผู้เข้าร่วมจัดการเองทั้งหมดนั้นจะเชื่อมต่อกับสถานที่จัดงาน
จริงในกรุงเทพฯเช่นเดียวกับบุคคลที่เชื่อมต่อทางออนไลน์ ผู้เข้าร่วมในจุดศูนย์กลาง Hub นี้จะสามารถ ดำเนินรายการในหัวข้อกิจกรรมต่างๆ เข้าร่วมอภิปราย แลกเปลี่ยน และเพลิดเพลินไปกับโปรแกรม ที่หลากหลาย
ที่ตั้งจุดศูนย์กลาง Hub จะประกาศในปี 2567
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Olivia Arévalo Lomas
Olivia was the spiritual leader of the Shipibo Konibo indigenous peoples.
A wise Indigenous woman and grandmother, she was known for cultivating traditional medicine and the sacred songs of her people (Íkaros). Olivia Arevalo was an active defender of the cultural and environmental rights of her people. Olivia’s murder occurred in a context of territorial conflict between the Shipibo community and companies that desire to take over their land to cultivate palm oil.
Members of her community have said: “Her death is an aggression against the entire Shipibo community. She was the living memory of her people”.
CFA 2023 - breadcrumbs Menu _ cfa-thai
Les femmes autochtones défenseuses de droits
Ces défenseuses ont fait campagne pour les droits fonciers et ont lutté pour les droits des femmes et des peuples autochtones. Elles se sont opposées aux industries extractives, ont écrit de la poésie et se sont battues pour que l'amour prévale. L'une d'entre elles nous a quitté il y a dix-neuf ans. Nous vous invitons à vous joindre à nous pour rendre hommage à ces défenseuses, à leur travail et à l’héritage qu’elles nous ont laissé. Faites circuler ces mèmes auprès de vos collègues et amis ainsi que dans vos réseaux et twittez en utilisant les hashtags #WHRDTribute et #16Jours.
S'il vous plaît cliquez sur chaque image ci-dessous pour voir une version plus grande et pour télécharger comme un fichier
Madiha El Safty
Madiha was a prominent Professor of Sociology who actively engaged with civil society as an advocate for women’s rights in the Arab region.
She chaired the Alliance for Arab Women and was a member of the Committee on Civil Society and the Committee on the Development of Minia Governorate with the National Council for Women. She produced numerous papers that shed light on, and analyzed, gender inequalities and discrimination against women.
She is remembered fondly by colleagues, students and friends.
I applied for the past forum, do I need to reapply?
Yes please. The world has changed since 2021 and we invite you to submit an activity that reflects your current realities and priorities.
4. Collect and analyze your data
This section will guide you on how to ensure your research findings are representative and reliable.
In this section:
- Collect your data
1. Before launch
2. Launch
3. During launch- Prepare your data for analysis
1. Clean your data
2. Code open-ended responses
3. Remove unecessary data
4. Make it safe- Create your topline report
- Analyze your data
1. Statistical programs
2. Suggested points for analysis
Collect your data
1. Before launch
- First determine the best way to reach your survey population.
For example, if you want to focus on indigenous women’s rights organizers, do you know who the key networks are? Do you have contacts there, people who can introduce you to these organizations or ways of reaching them? - Determine if your key population can be easily reached with an online survey, if you need to focus on paper survey distribution and collection or a mix of both. This decision is very important to ensure accessibility and inclusiveness.
- Be prepared! Prior to advertizing, create a list of online spaces where you can promote your survey.
If you are distributing paper versions, create a list of events, spaces and methods for distributing and collecting results. - Plan your timeline in advance, so you can avoid launching your survey during major holidays or long vacation periods.
- Make it easy for your advisors and partners to advertize the survey – offer them pre-written Twitter, Facebook and email messages that they can copy and paste.
2. Launch
- Send the link to the survey via email through your organization’s email databases.
- Advertize on your organization’s social media. Similar to your newsletter, you can regularly advertize the survey while it is open.
- If your organization is hosting events that reach members of your survey population, this is a good space to advertize the survey and distribute paper versions as needed.
- Invite your advisors to promote the survey with their email lists and ask them to copy you so you are aware of their promotional messages. Remember to send them follow-up reminders if they’ve agreed to disseminate.
- Approach funders to share your survey with their grantees. It is in their interest that their constituencies respond to a survey that will improve their own work in the field.
3. During launch
- Keep the survey open for a minimum of four weeks to ensure everyone has time to take it and you have time to widely advertize it.
- Send reminders through your email databases and your partners databases asking people to participate in the survey. To avoid irritating recipients with too many emails, we recommend sending two additional reminder emails: one at midway point while your survey is open and another a week before your survey closes.
- As part of your outreach, remember to state that you are only collecting one response per organization. This will make cleaning your data much easier when you are preparing it for analysis.
- Save an extra week! Halfway through the open window for survey taking, check your data set. How have you done so far? Run initial numbers to see how many groups have responded, from which locations, etc. If you see gaps, reach out to those specific populations. Also, consider extending your deadline by a week – if you do so, include this extension deadline in one of your reminder emails, informing people know there is more time to complete the survey. Many answers tend to come in during the last week of the survey or after the extended deadline.
If you also plan to collect data from applications sent to grant-making institutions, this is a good time to reach out them.
When collecting this data, consider what type of applications you would like to review. Your research framing will guide you in determining this.
Also, it may be unnecessary to see every application sent to the organization – instead, it will be more useful and efficient to review only eligible applications (regardless of whether they were funded).
You can also ask grant-making institutions to share their data with you.
Prepare your data for analysis
Your survey has closed and now you have all this information! Now you need to ensure your data is as accurate as possible.
Depending on your sample size and amount of completed surveys, this step can be lengthy. Tapping into a strong pool of detail-oriented staff will speed up the process and ensure greater accuracy at this stage.
Also, along with your surveys, you may have collected data from applications sent to grant-making institutions. Use these same steps to sort that data as well. Do not get discouraged if you cannot compare the two data sets! Funders collect different information from what you collected in the surveys. In your final research report and products, you can analyze and present the datasets (survey versus grant-making institution data) separately.
1. Clean your data
- Resolve and remove duplications: If there is more than one completed survey for one organization, reach out to the organization and determine which one is the most accurate.
- Remove ineligible responses: Go through each completed survey and remove any responses that did not properly answer the question. Replace it with “null”, thus keeping it out of your analysis.
- Consistently format numerical data: For example, you may remove commas, decimals and dollar signs from numerical responses. Financial figures provided in different currencies may need to be converted.
2. Code open-ended responses
There are two styles of open-ended responses that require coding.
Questions with open-ended responses
For these questions, you will need to code responses in order to track trends.
Some challenges you will face with this is:
- People will not use the exact same words to describe similar responses
- Surveys with multiple language options will require translation and then coding
- Staff capacity to review and code each open-ended response.
If using more than one staff member to review and code, you will need to ensure consistency of coding. Thus, this is why we recommend limiting your open-ended questions and as specific as possible for open-ended questions you do ask.
For example, if you had the open-ended question “What specific challenges did you face in fundraising this year?” and some common responses cite “lack of staff,” or “economic recession,” you will need to code each of those responses so you can analyze how many participants are responding in a similar way.
For closed-end questions
If you provided the participant with the option of elaborating on their response, you will also need to “up-code” these responses.
For several questions in the survey, you may have offered the option of selecting the category “Other” With “Other” options, it is common to offer a field in which the participant can elaborate.
You will need to “up-code” such responses by either:
- Converting open-ended responses to the correct existing categories (this is known as “up-coding”). As a simple example, consider your survey asks participants “what is your favorite color?” and you offer the options “blue,” “green,” and “other.” There may be some participants that choose “other” and in their explanation they write “the color of the sky is my favorite color.” You would then “up-code” answers like these to the correct category, in this case, the category “blue.”
- Creating a new category if there are several “others” that have a common theme. (This is similar to coding the first type of open-ended responses). Consider the previous example question of favorite color. Perhaps many participants chose “other” and then wrote “red” is their favorite. In this case, you would create a new category of “red” to track all responses that answered “red.”
- Removing “others” that do not fit any existing or newly created categories.
3. Remove unecessary data
Analyze the frequency of the results
For each quantitative question, you can decide whether you should remove the top or bottom 5% or 1% to prevent outliers* from skewing your results. You can also address the skewing effect of outliers by using median average rather than the mean average. Calculate the median by sorting responses in order, and selecting the number in the middle. However, keep in mind that you may still find outlier data useful. It will give you an idea of the range and diversity of your survey participants and you may want to do case studies on the outliers.
* An outlier is a data point that is much bigger or much smaller than the majority of data points. For example, imagine you live in a middle-class neighborhood with one billionaire. You decide that you want to learn what the range of income is for middle-class families in your neighborhood. In order to do so, you must remove the billionaire income from your dataset, as it is an outlier. Otherwise, your mean middle-class income will seem much higher than it really is.
Remove the entire survey for participants who do not fit your target population. Generally you can recognize this by the organizations’ names or through their responses to qualitative questions.
4. Make it safe
To ensure confidentiality of the information shared by respondents, at this stage you can replace organization names with a new set of ID numbers and save the coding, matching names with IDs in a separate file.
With your team, determine how the coding file and data should be stored and protected.
For example, will all data be stored on a password-protected computer or server that only the research team can access?
Create your topline report
A topline report will list every question that was asked in your survey, with the response percentages listed under each question. This presents the collective results of all individual responses.
Tips:
- Consistency is important: the same rules should be applied to every outlier when determining if it should stay or be removed from the dataset.
- For all open (“other”) responses that are up-coded, ensure the coding matches. Appoint a dedicated point person to randomly check codes for consistency and reliability and recode if necessary.
- If possible, try to ensure that you can work at least in a team of two, so that there is always someone to check your work.
Analyze your data
Now that your data is clean and sorted, what does it all mean? This is the fun part where you begin to analyze for trends.
Are there prominent types of funders (government versus corporate)? Are there regions that receive more funding? Your data will reveal some interesting information.
1. Statistical programs
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Smaller samples (under 150 responses) may be done in-house using an Excel spreadsheet.
-
Larger samples (above 150 responses) may be done in-house using Excel if your analysis will be limited to tallying overall responses, simple averages or other simple analysis.
-
If you plan to do more advanced analysis, such as multivariate analysis, then we recommend using statistical software such as SPSS, Stata or R.
NOTE: SPSS and Stata are expensive whereas R is free.
All three types of software require staff knowledge and are not easy to learn quickly.
Try searching for interns or temporary staff from local universities. Many students must learn statistical analysis as part of their coursework and may have free access to SPSS or Stata software through their university. They may also be knowledgeable in R, which is free to download and use.
2. Suggested points for analysis
- Analysis of collective budget sizes
- Analysis of budget sizes by region or type of organization
- Most common funders
- Total amount of all funding reported
- Total percentages of type of funding (corporate, government, etc)
- Most funded issues/populations
- Changes over time in any of these results.
Previous step
Next step
Estimated time:
• 2 - 3 months
People needed:
• 1 or more research person(s)
• Translator(s), if offering survey in multiple languages
• 1 or more person(s) to assist with publicizing survey to target population
• 1 or more data analysis person(s)
Resources needed:
• List of desired advisors: organizations, donors, and activists
• Optional: an incentive prize to persuade people to complete your survey
• Optional: an incentive for your advisors
Resources available:
Survey platforms:
• Survey Monkey
• Survey Gizmo (Converts to SPSS for analysis very easily)
Examples:
• 2011 WITM Global Survey
• Sample of WITM Global Survey
• Sample letter to grantmakers requesting access to databases
Visualising Information for Advocacy:
• Cleaning Data Tools
• Tools to present your data in compelling ways
• Tutorial: Gentle Introduction to Cleaning Data
Previous step
Next step
Ready to Go? Worksheet
Selena “Rocky” Malone
Rocky showed inspirational leadership and direction in working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Brotherboy and Sistergirl (LGBTIQBBSG) youth at risk.
Rocky started her career with the Queensland Police Service as a Police Liaison Officer. Making a difference was important to her. She led an impressive career working with young LGBTIQBBSG people as the Manager of Open Doors Youth Service.
Rocky worked through complex situations with clients relating specifically to gender and sexual identity. She was a natural in this line of work - a strong community leader, a quiet achiever, a loyal friend, a compassionate nurturer, and a change maker. Rocky was a founding member of IndigiLez Leadership and Support Group.
In 2016 at the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Former High Court Justice Michael Kirby mentioned Rocky by name when praising the work of the LGBTI Legal Service over the years. Rocky fought extremely hard for the human rights of the LGBTIQBBSG community, pushed boundaries and created change in a respectful, loving way.
