Rose Marie Muraro
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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مع استمرار الرأسمالية الأبوية الغيريّة في دَفعِنا نحو الاستهلاكية والرضوخ، نجد نضالاتنا تُعزَل وتُفصَل عن بعضها الآخر من خلال الحدود المادّية والحدود الافتراضية على حدٍّ سواء.
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🎯 Deckgame: Organize. Strategize. Mobilize.
A hands-on deckgame for collectives to explore feminist economic alternatives and systems of care as crisis response. This deckgame is for all movements navigating global climate crises through play and strategy based on real-life scenarios. A creative avenue to strategize in meetings, workshops, and community gatherings!
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Young Feminist Activism
Organizing creatively, facing an increasing threat
Young feminist activists play a critical role in women’s rights organizations and movements worldwide by bringing up new issues that feminists face today. Their strength, creativity and adaptability are vital to the sustainability of feminist organizing.
At the same time, they face specific impediments to their activism such as limited access to funding and support, lack of capacity-building opportunities, and a significant increase of attacks on young women human rights defenders. This creates a lack of visibility that makes more difficult their inclusion and effective participation within women’s rights movements.
A multigenerational approach
AWID’s young feminist activism program was created to make sure the voices of young women are heard and reflected in feminist discourse. We want to ensure that young feminists have better access to funding, capacity-building opportunities and international processes. In addition to supporting young feminists directly, we are also working with women’s rights activists of all ages on practical models and strategies for effective multigenerational organizing.
Our Actions
We want young feminist activists to play a role in decision-making affecting their rights by:
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Fostering community and sharing information through the Young Feminist Wire. Recognizing the importance of online media for the work of young feminists, our team launched the Young Feminist Wire in May 2010 to share information, build capacity through online webinars and e-discussions, and encourage community building.
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Researching and building knowledge on young feminist activism, to increase the visibility and impact of young feminist activism within and across women’s rights movements and other key actors such as donors.
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Promoting more effective multigenerational organizing, exploring better ways to work together.
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Supporting young feminists to engage in global development processes such as those within the United Nations
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Collaboration across all of AWID’s priority areas, including the Forum, to ensure young feminists’ key contributions, perspectives, needs and activism are reflected in debates, policies and programs affecting them.
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A Festival For Feminist Movements
Do you want to be inspired by the creative resistance strategies of feminists from all over the world? Do you want to discover feminist initiatives that show us how we can all live in a more just world? Do you want to learn about models of feminist care and healing to bring to your own community? Is that a resounding yes that we hear? YES!
Then check out Crear | Résister | Transform: a festival for feminist movements. This festival took place virtually throughout the month of September 2021 across all of AWID’s platforms, and now you can experience it on your own time.
The Festival was a multicultural and multilingual experience.
The panelists participated in their preferred language and at AWID we included subtitles on the videos for your accessibility.
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Cheryl Ananayo
Juventina Villa Mojica
Jeanne d´Arc Mihigo
2019: Feminist Realities in a changing world
AWID began preparing this annual report just as the global pandemic began to unravel how we gather, organize and live our lives. It is impossible to review what we have done without COVID-19 tinting our assessment.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Co-Creating Feminist Realities is no longer just an AWID Forum theme - it is a rallying cry in response to a pandemic that has laid bare the failures of social, political and economic systems.
It is an urgently needed affirmation that there are other, more just ways of organizing our lives. During 2019 hundreds of groups shared their experiences and proposals for feminist realities with us, ranging from radical networks of community support in Latin America facilitating self-managed abortion, to practices of community-centered economies in Indonesia and community-centered food systems in India and the US, to a re-imagination and new practice of harm-free rites of passage in Sierra Leone. These are the experiences that will chart a path forward for a “new normal”.
Yet long histories of oppression and violence can make it difficult to imagine the possible. A key part of our work in 2019 was to spark these explorations through a toolkit AWID launched to support groups interested in unearthing the stories and aspirations that are the building blocks of feminist propositions.
While we focus on our proposals for a different world, we recognize the challenging context around us.
Through the Observatory on the Universality of Rights, Feminists for a Binding Treaty, Count Me In! and other alliances, AWID has continued to push back against unfettered corporate power and fascist and fundamentalist agendas that undermine women’s rights and gender justice. With dim prospects for transformative change through multilateral processes and limited responsiveness from most states, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that feminist movements, in all their diversity, are resourced in ways that match the critical roles they play - supporting their communities, demanding rights and responding to crises. In 2019 we introduced feminist principles and approaches to ground-breaking funds like the Spotlight Initiative and the Equality Fund, and succeeded in leveraging resources through feminist reality seed grant funding from feminist funders.
As we look ahead, it is clear that the context is calling for a transformation of our organizing strategies:
- we are learning to navigate global advocacy confined to online channels,
- we grapple with the uncertainty of when and how we can convene in person, and
- we use the tools at our disposal to tighten connections across local to global spheres.
AWID is embarking on a new membership model that lowers barriers to access and emphasizes opportunities for engagement and cross-member connection. We will continue to experiment with different online tools and processes for building community. Cross-movement engagement will stay at the center of our work. AWID’s actions in solidarity with oppressed movements and identities, even and especially where these are marginalized in feminist movements, are important to drive change and support broad and inclusive movements for all.
Crisis is not new to feminist and social movements.
We are resilient, we adapt, and we show up for each other. And we have to keep doing better. Thank you to all who are part of the journey with us.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Jyotika Singh
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Biography
Margo Okazawa-Rey is an activist-educator and transnational feminist working on issues of militarism for nearly 30 years. She is a founder member of the International Women’s Network against Militarism and Women for Genuine Security, the US group of the Network. She has long-standing activist commitments with Du Re Bang/My Sisters Place in South Korea and Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling in Palestine. She also serves on the International Board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe in Bern, Switzerland and is President of the Board of Directors of Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID). Her foundational activist/life principle is that love is a radical act. She is also known as DJ MOR Love and Joy.
Position
President
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Parvin Paidar
Veena Singh
Biography
Veena Singh is a Fiji Islander, feminist, and woman of colour. Born and raised in a small rural town in Fiji, she draws strength from her rich mixed heritage (her mother is an Indigenous Fijian woman and her father is Fijian of Indian descent). Veena’s identity and lived experiences deeply inform her commitment to justice, equity, and inclusion. With over two decades of experience in human rights, gender equality, community development, and social inclusion, Veena is a passionate advocate for shifting power to create transformative change and for building an “economy of kindness”. Her work spans diverse areas including community development; women, peace and security; social policy; human rights; and policy advocacy.
Veena is deeply committed to advancing inclusion, peace and justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), climate justice, transitional justice, and human rights. She brings a wealth of experience working across grassroots networks, international organizations, and government institutions, always centering community and locally led approaches and feminist principles.
Outside of her ‘office life’, Veena is an environmental advocate, mental health champion, and writer. She is a mum to 11 cats, a saree wearer, and a lover of snail-mails and postcards. A thoughtful observer of feminist movements in Fiji and the Pacific, Veena is on a personal journey to “decolonise the mind and the self through radical self-reflection.” Above all, she is driven by a desire and dream to produce relatable, resonant writing that connects with the Pacific diaspora and amplifies voices from the margins.
Position
Co-President
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Cecilia Loria
Jemutai Mercy
Biography
Jemutai is a passionate plant lover who finds inspiration in the natural world and its intricate web of interconnections. This fascination with the universe's interrelatedness is mirrored in their approach to work, community building, care and support.
She believes in the vibrant presence of their ancestors within them and lives to experience, remember, uphold, appreciate and celebrate their struggles, triumphs and values.
As an intersectional queer feminist and human rights activist, Jemutai has dedicated their career to advocating for equity and inclusivity. They are passionate about Organizational Development, with a background in Grants Making and Administration, and now pursuing a path in creating impactful experiences for convenings and providing operational leadership and support, ensuring that spaces are inclusive, safe and curated with precision and care.
Jemutai is also a strong believer in the philosophy of Ubuntu – the idea that "I am because we are." This belief in our shared humanity and mutual interdependence informs their collaborative approach and commitment to fostering a supportive, inclusive environment for all, especially structurally silenced and marginalized people.
Position
Logistics & Administrative Coordinator
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Itziar Lozano
