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Guatemala - Rural Women Diversify Incomes and Build Resilience
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Priority Areas

Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.

Building Feminist Economies

Building Feminist Economies is about creating a world with clean air to breath and water to drink, with meaningful labour and care for ourselves and our communities, where we can all enjoy our economic, sexual and political autonomy.


In the world we live in today, the economy continues to rely on women’s unpaid and undervalued care work for the profit of others. The pursuit of “growth” only expands extractivism - a model of development based on massive extraction and exploitation of natural resources that keeps destroying people and planet while concentrating wealth in the hands of global elites. Meanwhile, access to healthcare, education, a decent wage and social security is becoming a privilege to few. This economic model sits upon white supremacy, colonialism and patriarchy.

Adopting solely a “women’s economic empowerment approach” is merely to integrate women deeper into this system. It may be a temporary means of survival. We need to plant the seeds to make another world possible while we tear down the walls of the existing one.


We believe in the ability of feminist movements to work for change with broad alliances across social movements. By amplifying feminist proposals and visions, we aim to build new paradigms of just economies.

Our approach must be interconnected and intersectional, because sexual and bodily autonomy will not be possible until each and every one of us enjoys economic rights and independence. We aim to work with those who resist and counter the global rise of the conservative right and religious fundamentalisms as no just economy is possible until we shake the foundations of the current system.


Our Actions

Our work challenges the system from within and exposes its fundamental injustices:

  • Advance feminist agendas: We counter corporate power and impunity for human rights abuses by working with allies to ensure that we put forward feminist, women’s rights and gender justice perspectives in policy spaces. For example, learn more about our work on the future international legally binding instrument on “transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights” at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

  • Mobilize solidarity actions: We work to strengthen the links between feminist and tax justice movements, including reclaiming the public resources lost through illicit financial flows (IFFs) to ensure social and gender justice.

  • Build knowledge: We provide women human rights defenders (WHRDs) with strategic information vital to challenge corporate power and extractivism. We will contribute to build the knowledge about local and global financing and investment mechanisms fuelling extractivism.

  • Create and amplify alternatives: We engage and mobilize our members and movements in visioning feminist economies and sharing feminist knowledges, practices and agendas for economic justice.


“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”.

Arundhati Roy, War Talk

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Mariam Mekiwi | Snippet EN

Mariam Mekiwi Portrait

Mariam Mekiwi is a filmmaker and photographer from Alexandria and living and working in Berlin.

Snippet2 - WCFM type of funder - EN

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Type of funder:

Filter your search by funders from different sectors i.e., philanthropic foundations, multilateral funders, women’s and feminist funds

Hospital | Content Snippet EN

“Now might be a good time to rethink what a revolution can look like. Perhaps it doesn’t look like a march of angry, abled bodies in the streets. Perhaps it looks something more like the world standing still because all the bodies in it are exhausted—because care has to be prioritized before it’s too late.” 
- Johanna Hedva (https://getwellsoon.labr.io/)

Hospitals are institutions, living sites of capitalism, and what gets played out when somebody is supposed to be resting is a microcosm of the larger system itself. 

Institutions are set out to separate us from our care systems – we find ourselves isolated in structures that are rigidly hierarchical, and it often feels as if care is something done to us rather than given/taken as part of a conversation. Institutional care, because of its integration into capitalist demand, is silo-ed: one person is treating your leg and only your leg, another is treating your blood pressure, etc. 

Photographer Mariam Mekiwi had to have surgery last month and documented the process. Her portraits of sanitized environments – neon white lights, rows after rows of repetitive structures – in a washed-out color palette reflect a place that was drained of life and movement. This was one of the ways Mariam kept her own spirit alive. It was a form of protest from within the confines of an institution she had to engage with.

The photos form a portrait of something incredibly vulnerable, because watching someone live through their own body’s breakdown is always a sacred reminder of our own fragility. It is also a reminder of the fragility of these care systems, which can be denied to us for a variety of reasons – from not having money to not being in a body that’s considered valuable enough, one that’s maybe too feminine, too queer or too brown.  

Care experienced as disembodied and solitary, that is subject to revocation at any moment, doesn’t help us thrive. And it is very different from how human beings actually behave when they take care of each other. How different would our world look like if we committed to dismantling the current capitalist structures around our health? What would it look like if we radically reimagined it?

Snippet - COP30 Intro

Join the feminist movement reclaiming climate action from corporate capture

With 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists at last year's COP29, 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, call out corporate capture, demand that States uphold their commitments under the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities and push for feminist economic alternatives.

$2.7 trillion for the military. $300 billion for climate justice. We're here to flip the script.

Actions Hubs Tools

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Snippet Kohl - Panel | Liberated Land & Territories | AR

Speech bubble: Panel liberated land and territories

حلقة نقاش | الأرض والمناطق المُحرَّرة: محادثة عموم أفريقية 
مع لوام كيدان ومريامة سونكو ويانيا صوفيا غرسون ڤالنسيا ونوسمة سيزاني

YOUTUBESOUNDCLOUD

Snippet - COP30 - Our Tools title - EN

Toolbox for COP30 Organizing

#5 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet AR

تقديم تحليل كفء للأجساد البحثيّة، يستوجب بالضرورة تسخيرًا شاملا لكافّة الأدوات الحميميّة…

Image of a tweet. Text says: I prefer an intersectional approach, namely the tongue and finger method.

أفضّل المقاربة التقاطعيّة لما تشتمل عليه من مداعبة ممنهجة باللسان والأصابع

Human Rights Council (HRC)

The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the key intergovernmental body within the United Nations system responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe. It holds three regular sessions a year: in March, June and September. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the secretariat for the HRC.

The HRC works by:

  • Debating and passing resolutions on global human rights issues and human rights situations in particular countries

  • Examining complaints from victims of human rights violations or activist organizations on behalf of victims of human rights violations

  • Appointing independent experts (known as “Special Procedures”) to review human rights violations in specific countries and examine and further global human rights issues

  • Engaging in discussions with experts and governments on human rights issues

  • Assessing the human rights records of all UN Member States every four and a half years through the Universal Periodic Review

Learn more about the HRC


AWID works with feminist, progressive and human rights partners to share key knowledge, convene civil society dialogues and events, and influence negotiations and outcomes of the session.

With our partners, our work will:

◾️ Monitor, track and analyze anti-rights actors, discourses and strategies and their impact on resolutions

◾️ Raise awareness of the findings of the 2017 and 2021 OURs Trends Reports.

◾️Support the work of feminist UN experts in the face of backlash and pressure

◾️Advocate for state accountability
 
◾️ Work with feminist movements and civil society organizations to advance rights related to gender and sexuality.
 

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Mettre fin aux violences faites aux femmes, « une bataille qui vaut toujours la peine d’être menée ! »

Mettre fin aux violences faites aux femmes, « une bataille qui vaut toujours la peine d’être menée ! »

D’origine libanaise et palestinienne, Lina Abirafeh (membre individuelle de l'AWID) est née dans un contexte de conflits, de déplacements de population et de problématiques de genre. Déterminée à mettre un terme à la violence à l’égard des femmes, elle dit : « Nous devrions tou-te-s lutter fermement contre la violence faite aux femmes ! C’est la violation des droits humains la plus répandue dans le monde, et elle dure depuis bien trop longtemps. C’est une bataille qui vaut la peine d’être menée, même si nous n’en voyons pas les résultats de notre vivant ! »

Lina, qui a obtenu un doctorat du Département pour le développement international de la London School of Economics, voit sa thèse actuellement publiée dans un ouvrage (en anglais) intitulé Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan: The Politics and Effects of Intervention (Genre et aide internationale en Afghanistan : les politiques et effets de l’intervention). Pendant près de 20 ans, elle s’est attachée à travailler sur des questions de violence contre les femmes, particulièrement dans des situations d’urgence et dans plus de 20 pays dont l’Afghanistan, la Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, la République démocratique du Congo, Haïti, le Mali, le Népal et la République centrafricaine. Lina a également collaboré avec de nombreuses agences de l’ONU, avec la Banque Mondiale, et avec différentes organisations non-gouvernementales internationales et nationales. Elle intègrera au mois de septembre la Lebanese American University (LAU) à Beyrouth en tant que Directrice de l’Institute for Women’s Studies (IWSAW) in the Arab World (institut d’études des femmes dans le monde arabe).

 « Nous sommes tou-te-s concerné-e-s. Nous sommes donc tou-te-s responsables. » - Lina Abirafeh

Lina se fait aussi une joie de communiquer avec d’autres membres ! 

Vous pouvez voir la présentation (en anglais) TEDx de Lina sur son travail concernant la violence sexuelle au cours de crises humanitaires.
 

 

Source
AWID

Ending violence against women, "it's still worth a fight!"

Ending violence against women, "it's still worth a fight!"

Lina Abirafeh (an AWID individual member) is Lebanese and Palestinian, born into conflict, displacement and gender issues. She is committed to ending violence against women and says “we all should be! It is the most pervasive human rights violation in the world, and it has endured far too long. Even if we don’t see the results in our lifetime, it’s still worth a fight!

Lina received a PhD from the London School of Economics Department of International Development, her research being published in a book entitled Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan: The Politics and Effects of Intervention. For nearly 20 years she has been dedicated to working on issues pertaining to violence against women, specifically in emergency contexts and in over 20 countries including Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Mali, Nepal, and Central African Republic. Lina has also worked with numerous UN agencies, the World Bank, as well as with diverse international and national non-governmental organizations. In September 2015, she joined the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut as Director of the Institute for Women’s Studies (IWSAW) in the Arab World.
“We are all affected. So we are all responsible.” - Lina Abirafeh
Lina is also looking forward to connecting with other members!
 
Watch Lina’s talk for TEDx on her work regarding sexual violence in humanitarian emergencies
 

 

Region
West Asia
Source
AWID

Para terminar con la violencia contra las mujeres, ¡aún vale la pena luchar!

Para terminar con la violencia contra las mujeres, ¡aún vale la pena luchar!

Lina Abirafeh (afiliada individual de AWID) es libanesa y palestina. Nació en medio del conflicto, el desplazamiento y la discriminación de género y está comprometida con la eliminación de la violencia contra las mujeres. «¡Todas las personas deberíamos tener el mismo compromiso!», afirma. «Es la violación a los derechos humanos más generalizada en el mundo y persiste desde hace mucho tiempo. Aun cuando no veremos los resultados durante nuestra vida, vale la pena luchar».

Lina obtuvo un título de doctorado del departamento de desarrollo internacional de London School of Economics, para el que presentó una investigación publicada (en inglés) en el libro Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan: The Politics and Effects of Intervention [Género y ayuda internacional en Afganistán: La política y los efectos de la intervención]. Durante casi 20 años Lina se ha dedicado a trabajar por los temas referidos a la violencia contra las mujeres, especialmente a la ejercida en contextos de emergencia y en más de 20 países, incluidos Afganistán, Papua Nueva Guinea, República Democrática del Congo, Haití, Malí, Nepal y República Centroafricana. Ha trabajado también con numerosos organismos de las Naciones Unidas, el Banco Mundial y diversas organizaciones no gubernamentales nacionales e internacionales. En septiembre se incorporará a la Lebanese American University [universidad libanesa americana] de Beirut como directora del instituto para los estudios de la mujer en el mundo árabe (IWSAW).
 
«Todas las personas nos vemos afectadas; por eso todas somos responsables.» - Lina Abirafeh
 
Lina también anhela conectarse con otras/os afiliadas/os de AWID. 
 
Mira la charla de Lina (en inglés) por TEDx sobre su labor para evitar la violencia sexual en escenarios de emergencia humanitaria.
 
 

 

Source
AWID

Our partners

This project is built in collaboration with:

Logo for African Women's Development and Communication Network
Logo for Rutgers Center for Women's Global Leadership

Snippet Feminist Art Walk_fest (EN)

Feminist Art Walk

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.

Feminist Art Walk

Annual Report 2010

AWID 2010 Annual Report Cover

Our 2010 Annual Report highlights the major accomplishments of each of our strategic initiatives during the year.

Along with activity highlights, we include a brief analysis of the impact of our initiatives as well as reflections from our members and partners that further illustrate the relevance of AWID’s work and its connection to broader women’s rights movements. 

This interactive document is complete with links to our websites and recent publications with in-depth information on the issues we address in the report.

Read online

Faye Macheke

Biography

Faye is a passionate Pan-African feminist, active in movements for women's rights, racial justice, migrant and labor rights, and environmental justice. Her activism builds on the legacy of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the aftermath of the apartheid era in Zimbabwe.

In 2019, Faye joined AWID as the Director of Finance, Operations and Development, and strived to ensure that AWID upholds the feminist principles and values in all of its operations. She brings over 20 years of experience in feminist leadership, strategy, and all aspects of finance and organizational development.

Faye is a committed Board Member of UAF-Africa and other women's rights organizations. She previously held a Head of Finance and Operations roles at Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa and JASS - Just Associates Inc. in Southern Africa. She also held Directorship roles for International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) in Central and Southern Africa. She holds a Bcompt in Accounting Science from University of South Africa and is a member of the Southern African Institute for Business Accountants.

Position
Co-Executive Director
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Ȃurea Mouzinho

Biography

Ȃurea Mouzinho is a feminist economic justice organizer from Luanda, Angola, with a 10-year career in research, grant-making, advocacy, and movement-building for women's rights and economic justice across Africa and the global south. Currently the Program Manager for Africa at Thousand Currents, she also serves on the Feminist Africa Editorial Board and is a member of Ondjango Feminista, a feminist collective she co-founded in 2016. A new mom to a Gemini boy, urea enjoys slow days with her young family and taking long strolls by the beach.

She occasionally tweets at @kitondowe.

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