UN Women / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Guatemala - Rural Women Diversify Incomes and Build Resilience
Left
Half
Left

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

Related Content

Promouvoir les programmes féministes : principales avancées en matière de genre et de sexualité

Chapitre 1

Alors que les fondamentalismes, les fascismes et autres systèmes d’oppression se métamorphosent et trouvent de nouvelles tactiques et stratégies pour consolider leur pouvoir et influence, les mouvements féministes persévèrent et célèbrent leurs victoires nationales, régionales et internationales.

© GovernmentZA / Flickr A group of women re-enact the 1956 women's march to Pretoria protesting against pass laws.
© GovernmentZA / Flickr
Un groupe de femmes reconstitue la marche des femmes de 1956 à Pretoria pour protester contre les lois sur les laissez-passer.

La reconnaissance en 2019 par le Conseil des droits de l’Homme du droit à l’intégrité et à l’autonomie corporelles, par exemple, a marqué une étape cruciale. Des résolutions du Conseil sur la discrimination envers les femmes et les filles admettent cependant un recul lié à des groupes de pression rétrogrades, des conceptions idéologiques ou un détournement de la culture ou la religion pour s’opposer à l’égalité de leurs droits. Des avancées féministes sont aussi notées dans le travail des Procédures spéciales, qui soulignent notamment l’obligation des États de contrer les doctrines de l’idéologie du genre, rappellent à l’ordre les antidroits qui détournent des références à la « culture », et signalent que les convictions religieuses ne peuvent pas servir à justifier la violence ou la discrimination.

Sommaire

  • Niveau national
  • Sphères mondiales
  • Exercice : Cartographions et célébrons nos victoires!

Lire le chapitre complet

My question isn’t answered here

For additional questions, please use our contact form. We will keep updating this document based on the queries we receive from you!

A Collective Love Print

The Circle’s Conspiracy of Writers | Wazina Zondon

Decorative element
Teta Research Network
Wazina Zondon Portrait
Also known as the Teta Research Network, The Conspiracy of Writers was founded in 2021 in the context of Kohl’s weekly writing circles. The Network is a transnational group of queer and feminist writers who engage in collective writing, thinking, and world-making.  Wazina Zondon is an Afghan raised in New York City. Her storycollecting and storytelling work centers collective memories and rites of passage in the diaspora. Currently, she is working on Faith: in Love/faith in love which (re)traces her parent’s love story and family’s inherited love print.

 

Love is a contraband in Hell,
cause love is acid
that eats away bars. 

But you, me, and tomorrow
hold hands and make vows
that struggle will multiply.

The hacksaw has two blades.
The shotgun has two barrels.
We are pregnant with freedom.
We are a conspiracy.

It is our duty to fight for freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

- “Love” by Assata Shakur

Cover for article A Collective Love Print showing two people kissing

“If we can inherit trauma, can we inherit an imprint related to love?”

That is the question Wazina Zondon asks in her collective memoir Loveprint. Loveprint is a wandering, an overlap, a deviation that (re)creates, at the intersection of interviews and personal essays, our family’s stories and insights on love, partnership and romance. Under Wazina’s guidance, the circle’s conspiracy of writers came together and attempted to reproduce this literal blueprint in the form of collective writing, where our different stories, our genders and sexual identities complement and contradict each other. With our voices overlapping, we complete each other’s sentences to create a conversation, a memorial, pieces of ourselves that speak to a “we.”

What are the origins of your love print?

I am a so-called “happy accident.” There is much narration about this – an accidental life, one that is entirely wanted at the same time. I feel this shaped my way of loving, I don’t just fall in love; I risk the slips that lead to the fall. Perhaps it made me an amor fati kind of person. 

I was told that I was an unwanted child. So I grew up to become an unwanted adult. The origins of my love print are based on being eternally unwelcomed. I am not a fruit of love or any happy feelings but rather one pain and burden. I don’t have a love print – at least not in this sense.

I know for a fact that both my parents were in love at some point, but mental health is such a demon, and until one confronts their demons, there is no winning.

I will never associate “love” with my parents or normative family. Love growing up was full of violence and responsibilities I didn’t sign up for or was even ready for. For the longest time, it felt like life and love were about carrying a big rock uphill. While my parents “loved each other,” it was a toxic ethos of violence, jealousy, and insecurity to grow up in. I grew up wanting to crave stability, and this is what is me now. I am a risk taker, but never in my “love space.”

I don’t know why my mother chose to host a child (me) within her.
She does not love in this form.

My mother tells me that if I have to think about “finding” love, I should never look at her marriage as a template. My love print comes instead from my raising dogs for the last two decades (18 years to be precise). The other way around is true as well – they raised me. I understand more and more about love and its many layers in their company.

I haven’t known love from a “print.” In our household we don’t talk about love. I had to teach myself how to love. It was hard work. Still, I fail and still, I keep on trying and I fail everyday. Perhaps failure is my love print.

My love print is the care, warmth, and understanding I give to others
surrounding me, whether a stranger, a friend, a relative, a lover. 
My love print is political – uncalculated and unthought of.

I was born under heavy shelling. 
My love print is the negative 
print of that.

Lessons learned about love

I know more about what love is not than I know about what love is. 

Love is neither anxiety nor panic.

Love is not asking permission to live or breathe. It is always about love and there is no love without freedom.

Everything you do is about using your heart except love. Love is about using your mind. 

Sometimes I fear that my love language is lost in translation.

--- There are many ways
to map the origins
of how to
how not to
love
not love
love just enough
love far too much
some love
some loss
to love
to love lost ---


I cannot stand the idea of the couple. I cannot stand the idea of living alone while aging either. I am tired of doing the chores alone, moving houses alone, paying rent and bills alone... I imagine getting a stroke alone, and it scares me. I have no plan of “partnering up.” I want a world where I can get married to a friend, buy a house with a friend, not have sex.

Loving many does not corrupt a love shared between two, and whether love is romantic or not is really not that important.

When I reflect on the shoddy state of my relationships, I realize that I am in the relationship I was trained to be in. With all my “radicalness” I have not yet unlearned shitty gendered norms.

My need for stability feels “not radical” enough. I want to get out of this labeling. I want something I never had. I want to make it beautiful. I want to feel beautiful and safe – and only stability makes me feel that. Safe, sound, knowing home is neither about violence nor strife.

 

--- Love print – love to smell the books to see 
where they were printed
I try to think of the origin of my 
understanding and practice of love
Do we need origin, it is not the same as purity? 
No purity or origin of love. 
Why is it understanding and practice, 
and not “emotion” that comes to mind? ---

 


When I call my parents, I don’t hang up the phone after we’ve said
goodbye, so I can hear the sounds of home.

What do we need to be/feel loved in death?

During my Sunni burial, I want all the women and men to come together for my burial. What’s with not being able to go say goodbye to dead people from a different sex? It will be Sunni because my mother would want it to be. It will be eco-friendly; no need for the headstone. I love all burial rituals. Quran is good, but I also want music. I really like Asmahan, Um Kulthum, and The Stone Roses.

I have a Monday-Friday playlist and two different ones for the weekend: one for Saturday and one for Sunday playlist. I would like those who loved me to play the music that I used to listen to, respecting the days – with some margin of tolerance as long as they stick to the playlists.

I want to be surrounded by the one(s) who have loved me, even for a moment. And in music and embowered in fresh cut flowers. I don’t want to be discovered dead; I want to pass away mid-laugh with loved ones.

I want to be remembered as someone who loved.

I don’t need to feel loved in death. I need the people around me to feel I loved them, even after I die. Being loved in death is about those who are alive. So I think more about how we come together as a living and loving community in the death of those we love and live with. How we take their memories with us. How we become archives of their lives.

 --- Sometimes, you can only love people in their death. ---

I have to think back to the body being connected to a space. My family is very tiny and although we come from different places, it is as if every generation moved somewhere new. Perhaps this is the reason why death is not connected to a special place, a cemetery. It is common in our family to bury the dead without names or gravestones, or to distribute the ashes in the wind. I feel at peace with this kind of spaceless remembrance. The idea that my ashes fertilize new life gives me the sense of being loved, being remembered through recreation. My grandmother died earlier this year due to complications after the vaccination. Two hours after she died, my family sat laughing tears about her jokes, her hilarious way to tell stories. We laughed and loved, and it was as though she sat with us again. This is what would make me feel at peace – fertilizing soil, fertilizing conversations, and collective remembrance.

--- There were
Two streets that I used 
To walk
To run
To play
To stay

There were 
Five hours when the sun
Was hot
The sky was blue
The earth was green

There was 
A flower I could
Smell
Touch
Squeeze
Crush

There were
The friends I could
Caress
The food
I could 
inhale
The language
That would roll off my
lips

There might still be

Those many places

And things

And people

After me  ---

Perhaps a promise that I will be “spatially commemorated” as a plant and taken care of in turns until it becomes a tree is enough. No name, no plaques – just the plant/tree, and knowing that it will be cared for. As for my body, I want to be cremated without any rituals and my bone ashes set free in the Arabian sea.

I need my body to be treated as subversively as it’s lived.

I do not want to be buried next to my family. In this tiny drawer next to all of the people who never knew me. Trapped in death as I was in life. I want to be cremated, and my ashes finally set free. 

I want to be allowed to pass, not hang in the in-between, so it is a presence, an active process, a trespassing.

I will ask of you: 

  • To release me and let me pass
  • To not let nostalgia muddy this moment because I will ask only for the normalcy of your expressions
  • I have snuck the gentle glimpses and hoarded away the already small and large ways you loved me in order to be sustained. I kept myself alive on these
  • To set a finite amount of time to grieve
  • To be be reminded there is no separation in the beauty of loving; it is infinite and it regenerates without the body

I want to be remembered for the love I put into the world.
I want my body to be given away, and my organs
to further fuel love in (an)other live(s).


--- The smell of jasmine ---


 

Cover image for Communicating Desire
 
Explore Transnational Embodiments

This journal edition in partnership with Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, will explore feminist solutions, proposals and realities for transforming our current world, our bodies and our sexualities.

Explore

Cover image, woman biting a fruit
 

التجسيدات العابرة للحدود

نصدر النسخة هذه من المجلة بالشراكة مع «كحل: مجلة لأبحاث الجسد والجندر»، وسنستكشف عبرها الحلول والاقتراحات وأنواع الواقع النسوية لتغيير عالمنا الحالي وكذلك أجسادنا وجنسانياتنا.

استكشف المجلة

CFA 2023 - Learn more about - EN

Learn more about AWID's 15th International Forum

إلى مجموعتي النسوية،

إلى مجموعتي النسوية، 

تحذير: عنف ضد المرأة و البنت (لانو في فرق بيناتهم) ، اعتداء.


 لطالما كنت جزء منك. لما كنت صغيرة لم أكن أعرف أن كلمة - نسوية - مقصودة لنا نحن ، الي نطمح إلى التغلب على النظام الأبوي وتفكيكه ، الي نلتمس اللجوء في أحضان الشمول والنسوية التقاطعية ، الي يعاملو الناس على قدم المساواة بغض النظر عن جنسهم ، عرقهم،  توجهاتهم الجنسية أو دينهم ، الي يحبو يكونوا أفضل ويستخدموا صلاحياتهم لرفع مستوى الآخرين.

 كان عمري 14 سنة ،لما اعتدى مدرس اللغة الفرنسية في المدرسة الإعدادية على طالبة في صفي ، رجل يبلغ طوله ستة أقدام و عمره ثلاثين عامًا. ذهبت مع الطالبة ، التي كانت صديقة طفولتي ، والعديد من الفتيات في صفي إلى مدير المدرسة للإبلاغ عنه ، وشهد الفصل بأكمله المكون من 30 طالبًا عن الاعتداء. لكن كل محاولاتنا لمحاسبته باءت بالفشل ، وغطت الإدارة قصة الفتاة ولم يُطرد مدرس الفرنسية. أنا والفتيات في صفي شعرنا بغضب كبير، لذلك فعلنا ما  كانت ستفعله كل ناشطة نسوية في مراهقته:رمينا بيض علي سيارته! وعلى الرغم من أن البيض بيتغسل بسهولة ، إلا أن الطلاء الذي استخدمناه في كتابة "خنزير" و "خماج" بقى. لن أنسى أبدًا كيف شعرنا بهداك الوقت. متحررات ، غاضبات ، سعيدات ، متماسكات ، وجبارات.منذ ذلك الحين، نفس الشعور يتكرر في كل بيئة نسوية كان لي الشرف ان احضر فيها. نشأت الناشطة النسوية في داخلي لتنضم إلى Women Deliver ، و AWID ، و Unootha ، ولتنسق ورش نسوية في الجامعة ، بل وتتعرض للاضطهاد بسبب انتمائي النسوي في سن التاسعة عشرة ، لكن هذه قصة أخرى لرسالة أخرى.

توفر لي المساحات النسوية الأمان والتمكين. تلك المساحات هن الأمهات اللواتي تمنينهم والرابط الذي كنا بحاجة إليه للتواصل مع بعضنا وتنظيم أنفسنا على الرغم من خلافاتنا ضد عدو مشترك، الباترياركية. من خلالك تعلمت أن أجمع نقاط قوتي ومهاراتي وأوجههم نحو النهوض بالآخرين وإبراز المهمشين وإعطاء صوت لمن لا صوت لهم.

أكثر ما أحبه فيك ، هو أنك تخطئين أحيانًا ، وتتجاهلين وتهمشين أيضًا ، ولديك تحيزات كما لدى كل حركة أخرى ، لكن ما يجعلك مختلفًتن هو أنكي تسعين دائمًا إلى أن تكوني أفضل. المساءلة ليست شيئًا يرعبكي وأنت حركة دائمة التغير تعكسين كيف يتغير العالم والعمل الخيري في جهود المساواة مع مرور الوقت.
أتمنى أن تنمي دائمًا ، أن تفعلي ما هو أفضل ، وأن تغضبي دائمًا ، وأن تزأري دائمًا ، وأن تحبي دائمًا ،  أن تتحدثي بلغات مختلفة ، وأن تكوني دائمًا في السلطة.

 كل حبي ونوري وغضبي لكي ،

لينة

Mona Chemali Khalaf

Mona was an economist and an independent consultant on gender and development issues.

She was  a former Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University. 

She passed away suddenly on January 6, 2018. 

Friends and former colleagues say of Mona: “When we celebrate her life, the best thing we can do is commit to continuing what she started: gender equality no matter what.”

 


 

Mona Chemali Khalaf, Lebanon

CFA 2023 - Hubs - thai

ใหม่

จุดศูนย์กลาง: การเดินทางข้ามพรมแดน

ผู้เข้าร่วมประชุมจะได้เข้าร่วมตามสถานที่ต่างๆนอกเพื้นที่ในการจัดงานที่กรุงเทพฯ  และตามส่วนต่างๆของ โลกในแต่ละวันของการประชุม สถานที่ประชุมที่ผู้เข้าร่วมจัดการเองทั้งหมดนั้นจะเชื่อมต่อกับสถานที่จัดงาน
จริงในกรุงเทพฯเช่นเดียวกับบุคคลที่เชื่อมต่อทางออนไลน์        ผู้เข้าร่วมในจุดศูนย์กลาง Hub นี้จะสามารถ ดำเนินรายการในหัวข้อกิจกรรมต่างๆ เข้าร่วมอภิปราย แลกเปลี่ยน และเพลิดเพลินไปกับโปรแกรม ที่หลากหลาย

ที่ตั้งจุดศูนย์กลาง Hub จะประกาศในปี 2567

Three Boats, a Horse and a Taxi: Pacific Feminists at the AWID Forums

Cover for the story: Three Boats, a Horse and a Taxi: Pacific Feminists at the AWID Forums

Three Boats, a Horse and a Taxi: Pacific Feminists at the AWID Forums

This story is about how an increasingly diverse group of feminists from the Pacific organized through the years to attend the AWID Forums and how that process changed them personally, as organizations, and as a movement through what they learned, discovered and experienced. It illustrates the importance of the Forums as a space through which a region that tends to be marginalized or ignored at the global level can build a strong presence in the feminist movement that is then replicated at other international women’s rights spaces.

Download this story


In their own voice: watch the interview with Virisila Buadromo & Michelle Reddy


View all stories Download Full Report

Juana Raymundo

Juana was an Indigenous Mayan Ixil, professional nurse and coordinator of the Farmers’ Development Committee (Comité de Desarrollo Campesino – CODECA).

CODECA is a human rights organisation of Indigenous farmers dedicated to promoting land rights and rural development for Indigenous families) in the Nebaj Quiché micro-region. She first joined CODECA as a member of its youth branch (Juventud de CODECA). At the time of her death had been elected to be part of the Executive Committee of the Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (MLP).

Juana’s body was found by neighbours by a small river on the road near Nebaj and Acambalam Village, Guatemala. According to CODECA, her body showed signs of torture.


 

Juana Raymundo, Guatemala

CFA 2023 - breadcrumbs Menu _ cfa-thai

2025 AWID Feminist Calendar

AWID 2025 Calendar cover

 

 

 

 

This calendar is a gift to our global feminist community. It is our promise of future connection and movement moments in the year to come. This past year has seen unspeakable injustices. We welcome a new year full of powerful movement spirit, of hopeful solutions and strategies. For a more just world for all.

As you flip through the pages note the diversity of art from our artist members who use their work to amplify and interlink our different movements under the feminist umbrella. Do you see yourself, your movement, your communities in these pages? We encourage you to use this calendar as a practical tool to mark time and space, but also to pencil in occasions to connect with feminists and activists.

Use it, print it, share it. Let this calendar be a daily companion in your journey, a constant reminder of our interconnectedness and our shared visions for a better world. Let it inspire you, as it inspires us, to keep moving forward together.

This calendar invites us to immerse ourselves in the inspiring world of feminist artistry. Each month, as it gently unfolds, brings forth the vivid artwork of feminist and queer artists from our communities. Their creations are not mere images; they are profound narratives that resonate with the experiences of struggle, triumph, and undying courage that define our collective quest. These visual stories, bursting with color and emotion, serve to bridge distances and weave together our diverse experiences, bringing us closer in our shared missions.

Get it in your preferred language!

English

Français

Español

Português

عربي

Русский

Thai

Stella Mukasa

Stella began her career at the Ministry of Gender and Community Development in Uganda engaging with policymakers for law reform, including the 1995 Ugandan Constitution, which established some of the most progressive reforms for women in the region.

She is revered throughout the region for her tireless efforts to create and enforce gender-responsive laws and policies. She played a key role in drafting Uganda’s Domestic Violence Act and in mobilizing support for gender-responsive constitutions in both Uganda and in Rwanda.

Through her work with International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), she worked on violence against children, and worked to strengthen the capacities of grassroots organizations addressing gender-based violence. She was a lecturer on gender rights and the law at Makerere University and served on the boards of Akina Mama wa Afrika, ActionAid International Uganda and the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa.


 

Stella Mukasa, Uganda

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.

In memory of all women journalists who were killed in 2018

Just like women have learned to avoid dark streets for their safety, women journalists are forced to avoid reporting certain stories as a result of online harassment.

The physical, sexual and online abuse that has become a part of their daily work lives should never be normalized.

Harassment is not part of the job description and should be called out and challenged at every turn to ensure these important voices are not silenced.

This tribute to journalists was made on behalf of IFEX
In memory of all women journalists who were killed in 2018

ما هي لغات المنتدى؟

لغات العمل في جمعية حقوق المرأة في التنمية هي الإنجليزية والفرنسية والإسبانية. ستتم إضافة اللغة التايلاندية كلغة محلية، بالإضافة إلى لغة الإشارة وإجراءات الاتصال الأخرى. يمكن إضافة لغات أخرى إذا سمح التمويل بذلك، لذا تحقق/ي مرة أخرى بانتظام للحصول على التحديثات. نحن نهتم بالعدالة اللغوية وسنحاول تضمين أكبر عدد ممكن من اللغات بقدر ما تسمح به مواردنا. نأمل في خلق فرص متعددة للكثيرين/ات منا للتواجد بلغاتنا والتواصل مع بعضنا البعض.

Mereani Naisua Senibici

Mereani Naisua Senibici, also called ‘Sua’, was a longstanding member of the Fiji Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) movement.

She worked with diverse groups of women in multi-racial, rural and urban settings and was committed to supporting and promoting women’s and young women’s rights.

In the Lautoka YWCA, she worked with women of Indian descent, and was  a leading figure in the sports development and participation of women and of trans athletes in Lautoka. 

“Sua is greatly loved by Fiji YWCA members for her dedication and long-time support towards all that the organisation endeavoured to do.” - Tupou Vere

Mereani was part of the House of Sarah (HoS), an initiative of the Association of Anglican Women (AAW), launched in 2009 and aimed at raising awareness of the issues around gender-based violence, as well as providing support to women who face violence. She started as a dedicated volunteer and offered support to women throughout the Pacific.

“A people’s person and an all-rounder in women's empowerment and movement work at community level. Rest in Peace, Sua.” - Tupou Vere

كم تكلفة المشاركة؟

يرجى حساب تكاليف السفر إلى بانكوك، والإقامة والبدل اليومي، والتأشيرة، وأي احتياجات خاصة بإمكانية الوصول، والنفقات الطارئة، بالإضافة إلى رسوم التسجيل التي سيتم الإعلان عنها قريبًا. تتراوح أسعار الفنادق في منطقة سوكومفيت في بانكوك ما بين 50 دولارًا أمريكيًا إلى 200 دولار أمريكي في الليلة الواحدة في حالة حجز غرفة مزدوجة.

يحصل أعضاء جمعية حقوق المرأة في التنمية على خصم عند التسجيل، لذلك إذا لم تكن عضوًا/ة بعد، فإننا ندعوك إلى التفكير في أن تصبح عضوًا/ة والانضمام إلى مجتمعنا النسوي العالمي.

María Digna Montero

María Digna Montero was a Garifuna (Afro-descendent and indigenous) land defender and a member of the National Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), a grassroots organization working to protect the Garifuna communities, their ancestral rights, culture, resources and territory.

María also taught in the local school and was a member of the OFRANEH Intercultural Bilingual Education working group.

On the Day of Indigenous Resistance, October 12, 2019, unknown assailants shot María multiple times in the backyard of her house.  

She was one of six Garifuna women defenders murdered between September and October 2019 and according to OFRANEH, there was no investigation by the authorities into these crimes. In an official statement, the organization also highlighted the connection between the violence against Garifuna leaders and the increase in extractive industries which exploit natural resources in their communities calling this violence part of a “strategy of intimidation and systematic expulsion” by the Honduran State. 

“The heightened tension and growing risks to the security and human rights of the leaders in the communities and ancestral territories is a product of the dispossession, displacement and criminalization of the communities and of the extractive mega projects promoted by the State together with the national and international corporations.” - OFRANEH communique, October 12, 2019