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.
While we dream of a feminist world, there are those who are already building and living it. These are our Feminist Realities!
What are Feminist Realities?
Feminist Realities are the living, breathing examples of the just world we are co-creating. They exist now, in the many ways we live, struggle and build our lives.
Feminist Realities go beyond resisting oppressive systems to show us what a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy look like.
These are the narratives we want to unearth, share and amplify throughout this Feminist Realities journey.
Transforming Visions into Lived Experiences
Through this initiative, we:
Create and amplify alternatives: We co-create art and creative expressions that center and celebrate the hope, optimism, healing and radical imagination that feminist realities inspire.
Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.
Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.
Mobilize solidarity actions: We engage feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies in sharing, exchanging and jointly creating feminist realities, narratives and proposals at the 14th AWID International Forum.
The AWID International Forum
As much as we emphasize the process leading up to, and beyond, the four-day Forum, the event itself is an important part of where the magic happens, thanks to the unique energy and opportunity that comes with bringing people together.
We expect the next Forum to:
Build the power of Feminist Realities, by naming, celebrating, amplifying and contributing to build momentum around experiences and propositions that shine light on what is possible and feed our collective imaginations
Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience
Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements
Welcome to Crear | Résister | Transform: a festival for feminist movements!
Principles of Engagement
AWID is committed to creating an online space that invites and challenges us all to operate from a place of courage, curiosity, generosity and shared responsibility.
We invite you to co-create spaces with us that are free of harassment and violence, where everyone is respected in their gender identity and expression, race, ability, class, religion, language, ethnicity, age, occupation, type of education, sexuality, body size, and physical appearance. Spaces where we recognize inequalities in our world and strive to transform them in our own interactions with each other.
We want to create a space where ...
we can all be present
This means that we are able to listen, understand and relate to each other. To feel close, in spite of it all being virtual. For this, we will make interpretation available and open channels (like chat and other tools) for you to react and share. To hear each other better, we invite you to wear headphones during the conversation. If it is possible for you , we suggest that you close your email and any other likely source of distraction while you are in the conversation.
all forms of knowledge are valued
Let us celebrate the multiple ways in which knowledge shows up in our lives. We invite you to approach the conversation with curiosity and openness to learn from others, allowing ourselves to unlearn and relearn through the exchange, as a way to start collectively building knowledge.
all of us feel welcome
We are committed to holistically approaching accessibility by being mindful of different physical, language, mental and safety needs. We want a space that is welcoming of folks from various backgrounds, beliefs, abilities and experiences. We will be proactive but we also ask that you communicate your needs with us, and we will do our best within our capacity to address these needs.
all of us feel safe and respected:
We all commit individually and collectively to respect each other’s privacy and to seek people’s consent before sharing any images or content generated during the conversation that involves them.
Creating a safer, respectful and enjoyable environment for the conversations, is everybody's responsibility.
Reporting
If you notice that someone is behaving in a discriminatory or offensive manner, please contact the reference person who will be indicated at the beginning of the session.
Any participants that express oppressive language or images, will be removed from the call and will not be readmitted. We will not engage with them in any way.
When can I register for the Forum? How much does it cost to register? What does Registration Include?
Registration will start early 2024. We will announce the exact registration date and registration fee soon. Registration will include participation in the Forum, plus lunch and snacks (breakfast to be provided at the hotels), and one onsite dinner.
The Crear, Résister, Transform Story by Coumba Toure
A magical experience of feminist story telling led by pan-African feminist Coumba Toure, performing in the age old tradition of West African griots.
And we gathered again
We gathered our stories our strength
our songs
our tears
our rage
our dreams
our success
our failures
And we pull them all together
In one big bowl to share
for a moon of thoughts
And we stay in touch
We shake each others minds
we caress each other souls
While our hands still are tied
And our kisses and hugs are banned
Yet we grow stronger by the hour
Weaving together our voices
Crossing the sound barriers
as we speak in tongues
We are getting louder and louder
We know about differences from others
and from each other so we are stitching our beauties into patchwork or thoughts
From our deepest learnings from our powers
Sometimes we are surrounded by terror
by confusions by dishonesty
But we wash out in the Ocean of love
We are weavers of dreams
To clothes or new world
Thread after thread
As small as we are
Like little ants building our movement
Llike little drops building our rivers
We take steps forward and steps backward
Dancing our way back to sanity
Sustain to the rhythm of our hearts keep
Beating please don't not stop
And we are here transmitter of forgotten generosity
drop after drop growing like the ocean
growing like the river flowing from our souls .
showing our strength to be the water
that will clean this world
and we are gathering again can you feel us
I would lie if I say I said I am
Ok not to see you I do miss my people
I miss your touch and
You unfiltered and unrecorded voices
I miss our whispers and our screams
Our cries of the aborted revolution
We only want to give birth to new worlds
So fight to erase the borders between us
And we gathered again
We gathered our stories our strength
our songs
our tears
our rage
our dreams
our success
our failures
And we pull them all together In one big bowl to share
For a moon of thoughts
And we stay in touch
We shake each others minds
we caress each other souls
While our hands still are tied
And our kisses and hugs are banned
Yet we grow stronger by the hour
Weaving together our voices
Crossing the sound barriers
as we speak in tongues
We are getting louder and louder
We know about differences from others
and from each other so we are stitching our beauties into patchwork or thoughts
From our deepest learnings from our powers Sometimes we are surrounded by terror by Confusions by dishonesty
But we watch out in the Ocean of love
We are weavers of dreams
To clothes or new world
Thread after thread
As small as we are like little ants building our movements
like little drops building our rivers We take steps forward and steps backward
dancing our way back to sanity
Sustain to the rhythm of our hearts
keep beating please don't not stop
And we are here transmitter of forgotten generosity
Drop after drop growing like the ocean
growing like the river flowing from our souls
showing our strength to be the water
that will clean this world
and we are gathering again can you feel us
I would lie if I I said I am Ok
not to see you
I do miss my people
I miss your touch and
You unfiltered and unrecorded voices
I miss our whispers and our screams
Our cries over the aborted revolutions
We only want to give birth to new worlds
So fight to erase the borders between us
Please don’’t stop
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!
I know you are so close. You can feel it can't you? How things need to shift and you need to centre yourself.
This is a letter to tell you to do it. Choose your healing. Choose to be OK. Better than OK. Choose to be whole, to be happy. To cry tears for yourself and no one else. Choose to shut out the world and tell them that 'you will be back in 5 mins'. Or five days. Or five years.
Or never.
Choose to not take it all on. Choose to take none of it on. Because none of it is yours. It was never yours. They told you since you were born that it was yours. Your family's problems. Your lovers' problems. Your neighbours' problems. The globe's problems. The constant whisper that these problems belong to you. They are yours. Yours to hold, yours to shoulder. Yours to fix.
That was a lie.
A bamboozle
A long con.
A scam.
The problems of the universe are not yours.
The only problems that are yours are your own. Everyone else can take a hike.
Allow yourself to drop everything and sprint off into the jungle. Befriend a daisy clad nymph, start a small library in the roots of a tree. Dance naked and howl at the moonlight. Converse with Oshun at the river bed.
Or simply drink a cup of tea when you need to take a moment to breathe.
Give yourself permission to disappear into the mist and reappear three countries over as a mysterious chocolatier with a sketchy past and penchant for dramatic cloaks and cigars.
Or stop answering work calls on weekends.
Let yourself swim to deserted island with a lover and dress only in the coconut shells from coconut rum that you make and sip at sunset.
Or say no when you don't have the capacity to create space for someone.
The options for holding yourself are endless.
Whatever you do, know the world will always keep spinning. That's the beauty and the pain of it. No matter who or what you choose over yourself and your soul the world will always keep spinning.
Therefore, choose you.
In the morning when that first light hits, choose you. When it’s lunchtime and it’s time to cry on company time, choose you. In the evening, when you are warming up leftovers because you didn’t have time to cook again, choose you. When anxiety wakes you up and existence is silent at 3:45 am.
Choose you.
Because the world will always keep twirling on a tilt and you deserve to have someone always trying to make it right side up for you.
Razan was a 21-year-old volunteer medic in Palestine.
She was shot as she ran toward a fortified border fence, in an effort to reach a casualty in the east of the south Gaza city of Khan Younis.
In her very last Facebook post, Razan said: “I am returning and not retreating,” adding: “Hit me with your bullets. I am not afraid.”
AWID at CSW67: a Portal to Feminist Power
Imagine opening a door which takes you into a conversation with feminist activists in other continents. This portal will transcend the barriers of UN CSW by pushing beyond language barriers, unaffordable travel, unequal protection from COVID19, and racist visa regimes.
This week, we’re putting a virtual spin on CSW by connecting and amplifying feminist activists' voices, to challenge the discriminatory barriers that limit participation and influence. By setting up connecting “portals” in New York City, Nairobi & Bangalore, we'll host a physical-virtual hybrid space for feminists to connect their struggles and build collective power.
Most of María’s life was devoted to incorporating a feminist and gender perspective in institutional and organizational work, and capacity building in Latin America.
As a child, María had a strong interest in art, communication, nature, literature, and the achievement of justice, especially for women and marginalized groups.
María was committed to sexual and reproductive rights and was a member of the National Board for Integral Education in Sexuality. She is remembered by those who loved her as a “passionate and restless fighter” with a strong commitment to women’s and children’s rights.
The 2026 AWID Feminist Calendar
Consider this calendar a gift, one that goes out to you and 9,500 members of our global feminist community. A gift of hope, renewed connection, action and community in a time of immense injustice and violence.
Let its stories remind you that across borders and struggles, we are many, we are powerful, and together we are building the worlds we deserve.
Dora was born in Benue State, Nigeria. She was a globally acclaimed pharmacist, technocrat, erudite scholar and community leader.
Dora’s revolutionary work created a paradigm shift in the Nigerian public service when she served as Director General of National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) from 2001-2008. She spearheaded reforms in policy and regulatory enforcement that radically reduced the measure of fake drugs that plagued the Nigerian pharmaceutical sector during her tenure.
Having exemplified the reality of a courageous, competent woman who challenged the ills of a dominantly patriarchal society and drove change, she became an icon for women’s empowerment. She was appointed the Minister of Information and Communication between 2008 and 2010.
She died after a battle with cancer and is survived by her husband, six children and three grandchildren.
