Anne Marie Coriolan
Co-Creating 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:
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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.
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Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.
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Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.
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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:
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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
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Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience
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Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements
Learn more about the Forum process
We are sorry to announce that the 14th AWID International Forum is cancelled
Given the current world situation, our Board of Directors has taken the difficult decision to cancel Forum scheduled in 2021 in Taipei.
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Feminist and women’s rights organizations don’t just rely on institutional funding, we resource ourselves. Our organizing is powered by passion, political commitment, solidarity and collective care.
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Protection of the Family
The Issue
Over the past few years, a troubling new trend at the international human rights level is being observed, where discourses on ‘protecting the family’ are being employed to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.
The campaign to "Protect the Family" is driven by ultra-conservative efforts to impose "traditional" and patriarchal interpretations of the family, and to move rights out of the hands of family members and into the institution of ‘the family’.
“Protection of the Family” efforts stem from:
- rising traditionalism,
- rising cultural, social and religious conservatism and
- sentiment hostile to women’s human rights, sexual rights, child rights and the rights of persons with non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations.
Since 2014, a group of states have been operating as a bloc in human rights spaces under the name “Group of Friends of the Family”, and resolutions on “Protection of the Family” have been successfully passed every year since 2014.
This agenda has spread beyond the Human Rights Council. We have seen regressive language on “the family” being introduced at the Commission on the Status of Women, and attempts made to introduce it in negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Our Approach
AWID works with partners and allies to jointly resist “Protection of the Family” and other regressive agendas, and to uphold the universality of human rights.
In response to the increased influence of regressive actors in human rights spaces, AWID joined allies to form the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). OURs is a collaborative project that monitors, analyzes, and shares information on anti-rights initiatives like “Protection of the Family”.
Rights at Risk, the first OURs report, charts a map of the actors making up the global anti-rights lobby, identifies their key discourses and strategies, and the effect they are having on our human rights.
The report outlines “Protection of the Family” as an agenda that has fostered collaboration across a broad range of regressive actors at the UN. It describes it as: “a strategic framework that houses “multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions, where the framework, in turn, aims to justify and institutionalize these positions.”
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Seismic shifts: A year of completion, transition and reflection | Annual report 2017
The past five years have been huge for AWID.
We have contributed to some major victories, like expanding the women’s rights funding landscape with ground-breaking, far-reaching research and advocacy. At the same time, we have experienced some devastating setbacks, including the assassination of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) like Berta Cacares of Honduras, Gauri Lankesh of India and Marielle Franco of Brazil, as well as the rise of anti-rights mobilizing in human rights spaces.
Five years ago, we committed to our movement-building role by producing knowledge on anti-rights movement trends, as well as on issues that feminists often engage with less, like illicit financial flows. We advocated side by side with our movement partners, strengthening young feminist and inter-generational activism, and expanding the holistic protection of WHRDs. As we close out the strategic plan, we are proud of our accomplishments and our growth as an organization. We end 2017 with renewed commitment, insights and learning for the continued struggle ahead!
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Margarita Salas Guzmán
Biography
Margarita is a feminist and LGBTIQA activist from Latin America; her passion is social transformation and collective wellbeing. She holds degrees in Psychology, Communications and Public Administration, as well as certificates in Public Policy, Leadership, Management & Decision Making. In her professional capacity, Margarita has had extensive experience with grassroots organizations, national and regional NGOs, universities and the public sector, developing facilitation, capacity building, political advocacy, communications & policy assessment.
Position
Special Projects Manager
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Cassandra Balchin
Patience Chabururuka
Biography
Patience is a global human resources professional with over a decade of experience in human resources (HR) management in the not-for-profit sector. Patience previously worked at Mercy Corps as the Global HR Officer for Africa supporting the full employee life cycle for expatriates in the Eastern and Southern African region and provided HR technical guidance to Human Resources leaders in country offices within the African region. Before joining the global people team, she was the Country Human Resources and Safeguarding Focal Point, she was part of the senior management team leading on all human resources and safeguarding matters. Prior to Mercy Corps she led the HR and Operations department at SNV Netherlands Development Organization and was a member of the country management team. She also has HR Consultancy experience which she gained while she was still studying for her BSc Honors degree in Human Resource Management. She has a passion for HR, loves working with people and she takes wellbeing and safeguarding as her core values and in her professional work. As someone who loves sports, you can also find Patience at the basketball court, the tennis court or on the soccer field.
Position
Human Resources Coordinator
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Maria Enriqueta Matute
Ekaete Judith Umoh
Biography
Ekaete Judith Umoh is an international disability rights advocate and inclusive development expert with astute analysis of issues regarding gender, disability and inclusive development. Her dream is to see increased visibility of women and girls with disabilities in the global feminist movement, as well as in all development efforts around the world.
Ekaete enjoys activism and politics, and went on to become the first elected female President of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) in Nigeria, where she led Organizations of Persons with disabilities in the struggle to sign the Nigerian Disability Bill into Law in 2019, after over 17 years of consistent advocacy. Thereafter, she joined CBM Global as a pioneer Country Director and led her team for about 3 years, contributing towards ending the circle of poverty and disability in Nigeria. Aside from disability activism, Ekaete has served as consultant to several development agencies, providing technical assistance on disability inclusion in program and project design.
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Mina Agarwala
Can men be members of AWID?
Yes, AWID membership is open to anyone who shares our values.
A number of men who share our commitment to feminism and women’s human rights are members of AWID.
Kazuko Kawaguchi
2008: The Doha International Conference takes place with limited achievements
Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development, Doha, Qatar
- The Doha conference aimed to review the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus. The conference revisited all six areas of financing for development but little substantive progress was achieved.
- While the outcome of Doha went beyond Monterrey on gender equality, it did not go far enough. A statement by the WWG on FfD highlighted that the commitments to gender equality in the Doha Declaration would only be meaningful if the systemic issues that underpin poverty and the unequal distribution of power and resources in the global political economy were decisively addressed.
- In addition to the main Doha conference, during their parallel forum the Civil Society under the Doha NGO Group (DNG) for Financing for Development demanded global economic structural changes, and policies that put peoples´ rights first and respect and promote human rights.
Natalia Estemirova
