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.
Olivia was the spiritual leader of the Shipibo Konibo indigenous peoples.
A wise Indigenous woman and grandmother, she was known for cultivating traditional medicine and the sacred songs of her people (Íkaros). Olivia Arevalo was an active defender of the cultural and environmental rights of her people. Olivia’s murder occurred in a context of territorial conflict between the Shipibo community and companies that desire to take over their land to cultivate palm oil.
Members of her community have said: “Her death is an aggression against the entire Shipibo community. She was the living memory of her people”.
WHRDs from the Pacific Region
The 3 Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) from the Pacific we are featuring in this year's Online Tribute have worked in the media, campaigned for disability rights and advocated for women’s rights. Their contributions are missed and we honor them in this Tribute. Please join AWID in commemorating these WHRDs, their work and legacy by sharing the memes below with your colleagues, networks and friends and by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute.
Please click on each image below to see a larger version and download as a file
Madiha was a prominent Professor of Sociology who actively engaged with civil society as an advocate for women’s rights in the Arab region.
She chaired the Alliance for Arab Women and was a member of the Committee on Civil Society and the Committee on the Development of Minia Governorate with the National Council for Women. She produced numerous papers that shed light on, and analyzed, gender inequalities and discrimination against women.
She is remembered fondly by colleagues, students and friends.
8. Finalize and format
Your comprehensive research product is now all organized and edited. You now want to ensure your findings are visually accessible and appealing to facilitate the dissemination.
Consider developing smaller products along with your long report.
As mentioned in the “Synthesize your research findings,” AWID often pulls smaller products from the lengthy research report. This allows for wider and easier distribution specialized for key audiences.
Always keep your targeted population in mind: who will read your report?
Examples of smaller products distilled from a larger report:
Infographics
Online gallery
An animation presenting your arguments
1. Think as your audience thinks
People are bombarded with information constantly. Your product will have to be visually compelling to maintain the interest of your audience. Again, having an idea of what you hope to accomplish and who you hope to reach, will allow the designer to create targeted products.
A lengthy written PDF report may seem the only way to present your research, but it could appear overwhelming to most people – especially online.
If you want to share your product with an online community, think about creating memes and infographics to use on social media, blogs and web platforms.
When deciding whether to create smaller products, consider dividing your results into several smaller products that you could share with targeted populations or at different times of the year to reactivate the interest on your product.
2. Work with a professional designer
If you have limited time and a little bit of budget, we recommend hiring a design firm.
It can be tempting for economic reasons to use in-house staff to package your report. However, a professional graphic designer can make a huge difference on how your final product looks and thus on how much impact it will have!
The designer (in-house or hired) must be able to:
Show you samples of their previous work that is similar to what you seek.
Provide you clear advice on how to present your research based on the content you provide and the audience you are targeting.
Suggest additional or different pieces to package your product.
What the designer will need from you:
A general idea on what you would like the lengthy report to highlight through visuals and graphics (what are the most important pieces of information, the key findings, for example) and some ideas on the types of smaller products you want to create (brochure, an infographic, a series of viral memes, for example). If possible, show the designer examples of similar documents developed by other organizations.
Your budget and time frame.
Your organization’s visual guidelines if you have any (logo, official colours, fonts, etc...).
A few photos copyright free or access to your photo bank if you have one.
Key visuals that need to be included – graphs, tables and other visual graphics drawn from your research.
The designer is a graphic expert. S/he is not necessarily familiar with women’s issues and does not know the results of your research, especially if you hire an external firm.
Communicate what elements of this report is important to you and who is your target. The designer will propose a way to highlight these elements and make the whole piece appealing to your users.
3. Make sure it's consistent
While creating a set of smaller information products, do not forget to link them all together:
A shorter version of the report that focuses only on your final results and recommendations should present a link to the final, full report
A visually compelling infographic that sends a message on the state of funding for your particular research can link to your website and the related section of the full report. It should be associated with a call to share on social media.
A short animation video that uses the data, findings and recommendations from your report should link back to your organization website and social media
A series of viral memes that can be distributed online should link back to your report, infographic, shorter report, etc.
It is also important to keep the research staff involved, so they can ensure any offshoot products stay true to the actual findings of the research.
After the design and packaging of the final research report is complete, if any of the wording of content was changed, be sure to re-send to translators.
If you create smaller products, once designed and packaged, you will also need to get the copy translated for those pieces. The translations should be clear enough so the designer can apply to the design, even if she/he does not speak the language.
Once translated, make sure to have your design proofread by a native speaker before sharing it!
Rocky showed inspirational leadership and direction in working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Brotherboy and Sistergirl (LGBTIQBBSG) youth at risk.
Rocky started her career with the Queensland Police Service as a Police Liaison Officer. Making a difference was important to her. She led an impressive career working with young LGBTIQBBSG people as the Manager of Open Doors Youth Service.
Rocky worked through complex situations with clients relating specifically to gender and sexual identity. She was a natural in this line of work - a strong community leader, a quiet achiever, a loyal friend, a compassionate nurturer, and a change maker. Rocky was a founding member of IndigiLez Leadership and Support Group.
In 2016 at the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Former High Court Justice Michael Kirby mentioned Rocky by name when praising the work of the LGBTI Legal Service over the years. Rocky fought extremely hard for the human rights of the LGBTIQBBSG community, pushed boundaries and created change in a respectful, loving way.
AWID Members Engaging at CSW61
Member states and women's rights advocates and organisations are gathering at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 13 - 24 March for the 61st Commission on the Status of Women to address ‘women’s economic empowerment’ in the context of Sustainable Development Goal 5.
Whilst AWID is looking forward to physically meeting those of you who will be in New York, we want to engage with all those who cannot attend CSW, and as much as possible, amplify your voices in relevant spaces.
Continue reading to find out how to engage with AWID around CSW, whether you are attending physically or not.
Participate in an artistic takeover!
We are thrilled that AWID member Nayani Thiyagarajah is attending CSW this year and will take over the AWID Instagram. She will be available onsite to connect with other members for a possible feature on our Instagram. She will also explore possibilities of including some AWID members in a short film on the theme, ‘The personal is political’, a story of Nayani’s participation in this year’s CSW.
Nayani Thiyagarajah
Who is Nayani?
Nayani Thiyagarajah is a director, producer, and writer, dedicated to stories for the screen. A daughter of the Tamil diaspora, she calls Toronto home. For over 10 years, Nayani has worked in the arts and cultural industries. Her first independent feature documentary Shadeism: Digging Deeper (2015) had its World Premiere at the 2015 Zanzibar International Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize. Nayani recently launched [RE]FRAME, with her producing partner Camaro West, a production company based out of Atlanta and Toronto, focused on re-framing the narratives around Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour through storytelling on screen.
On a more serious note, it should be noted that Nayani has a strange laugh, she's quite awkward, and her head is always in the clouds. She feels blessed beyond belief to create stories for the screen and play make believe for a living. Above all else, she believes in love.
Interested in meeting Nayani and being considered for inclusion in the film?
Send an email to membership@awid.org with the subject line “CSW Artistic Takeover”
By 13 March 2017
Please include your full name and country information.
Can't attend? Voice it!
If you are not able to attend CSW61 because of a travel ban, either due to the one imposed by the Trump administration or one you are facing from your own government, please share your story with us.
Send us messages you want heard in the United Nations spaces concerning funding, the impact of the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, and the need to push back against all types of religious fundamentalisms. You can send these in the following formats:
Video: no longer than two minutes and sent through a file sharing folder (for example dropbox, google drive)
Audio: no longer than two minutes and sent through a file sharing folder (for example dropbox, google drive)
Image: you can share a photo or a poster of your message
Text: no longer than 200 words and sent in the body of an email or in a word document
AWID members tell us that connecting with other members at CSW is valuable. In such a huge advocacy space, it is useful to connect with others including activists working on similar issues, or originating from the same country or region. Recognising the importance of connecting for movement building, we invite you to:
Interested in connecting with other members @CSW61?
If you are attending the CSW, we’d love to see what’s going on through your eyes!
Show us by capturing a moment you find speaks to the energy in the CSW space, be it on or off site. We hope to publish some of your ‘images’ on our social media channels and share on awid.org.
You can send us:
colour and/ or black and white photographs with a title (if you wish) and
a caption (no longer than 100 words) about the story your image tells.
Please also include:
your full name and country of origin and
let us know if we can publish the information you shared (in part or in full).
During the whole CSW or shortly after until Tuesday 28 March 2017.
Join Us
Join Us
By joining AWID, you are becoming part of worldwide feminist organizing, a collective power that is rooted in working across movements and is based on solidarity.
“[She] was a person who was characterized by her hard work in favor of the defense of human rights and the construction of peace in Nariño, especially in the municipality of Samaniego-Nariño.” - Jorge Luis Congacha Yunda for Página10
Paula Andrea Rosero Ordóñez was a trial lawyer in the office of the Public Ministry in Samaniego, Nariño, the main agency defending citizens’ rights in Colombia.
She focused on civil and political rights, issues of impunity and justice, and contributed to uncovering the abuse of power, including corruption. She also participated in peacebuilding projects in her hometown Samaniego, such as the Municipal Peace Council and the Municipal Women’s Board.
Paula received death threats after exposing the irregular handling of resources and complaining about acts of corruption at the Lorencita Villegas Hospital in the Nariñense municipality. She was murdered on 20 May 2019, when two men approached and shot her at close range.
Defending human rights at the UN
Keeping an eye on anti-rights actor at the Human Rights Council
Anti-rights mobilization at the United Nations constitutes a response to the significant feminist and progressive organizing. It involves a constant threat for women's rights, especially when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights and an open door to racism, xenophobia and all kinds of discrimination.
Get to know all their tactics and discourses worldwide.
Main resolutions and organizations to follow on the 38th session
We’re looking at an attack on the human rights system, and all of these fundamentalisms are coming together to try to weaken the fabric of multilateralism, and that’s happening in large part at the expense of marginalized groups of people. It’s happening at the expense of women, and it’s happening through tactics that are often about gender and sexuality.
Cynthia Rothschild
Independent human rights expert, OURs member
We’ve experienced a lot of pushback from different states, from different civil society actors, from private corporations and large donors who are funding the activities of these anti-rights actors.
Meghan Doherty
Director of Global Policy and Advocacy with Action Canada
ILGA's Gender Identity and Gender Expression Senior Programme Officer
Paola Salwan Daher
Global Advocacy Adviser at the Center for Reproductive Rights
What will be different about this Forum?
With up to 2,500 participants on-site and 3,000 virtual/hybrid participants, it will be the largest AWID Forum ever. We envision multiple spaces for meaningful connection, learning, exchange, strategic conversations, healing and celebration. It is the first time we gather in this space since the pandemic, and we can’t wait.
Juli Dugdale was an Australian feminist who practiced intergenerational leadership rooted in principles of feminism, inclusion and equality. She was a leader, peer and mentor for many women and especially young women around the world.
Juli was a dedicated staff member, volunteer and fervent advocate for young women’s leadership with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) movement for over 30 years.
She offered a strong link between the Australian movement and the World YWCA Office. Her trust in the leadership capacity of young women led to a multi-year partnership with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the creation of the Rise Up manual, a global guide for young women’s transformative leadership, launched in 2018.
Juli passed away in Geneva on 12 August 2019.
Tributes:
“For those who got to work with Juli, it was a privilege. For those who didn’t, be assured that her legacy continues in the work we do every day and in the mission of the YWCA movement.” - YWCA Australia
“Juli Dugdale will forever hold a deep place in many people's hearts in the YWCA movement, especially here in Aotearoa and across the Pacific. Juli had a special relationship with the Pacific and was an incredible supporter of the young women there. She was humble, gracious, loving, caring, dedicated, passionate and had a generous heart. She embodied the YWCA's vision of 'transformative leadership' with extraordinary vision and foresight, and helped empower generations of young women leaders around the world.” - YWCA New Zealand
When you do a search for “Female Genital Mutilation” or “FGM” online, an image of four line-drawings of the female anatomy pop up next to its Wikipedia entry. It illustrates four types of violence. The first being a partial cut to the clitoris. The second, a more invasive cut with the entire clitoris removed. The third is progressively worse with the removal of the clitoris, labia majora and minora. And the fourth box illustrates a series of hash marks to symbolize stitches over the vaginal opening to allow only for urination and menstruation.
As a survivor of FGM, most questions about my story fixate on the physical. The first question I usually get asked is what type of FGM I underwent. When I told a journalist once that I went through Type 1, she said “oh, that’s not so bad. It’s not like type three which is far worse.” She was technically right. I had the least invasive form. And for many years, I gaslighted myself into feeling a sense of relief that I was one of the lucky ones. I comforted myself noting that I could have been less fortunate with all of my genitalia gouged out, not just the clitoral tip. Or worse I could have been one of the ones who didn’t survive at all. Like Nada Hassan Abdel-Maqsoud, a twelve year old, who bled to death on a doctor’s operating table earlier this year in Upper Egypt. Nada is a reminder to me that for every data point -- 200 million women and girls who live with the consequences of FGM globally -- there is a story. Nada will never be able to tell hers.
As much as I find the label “survivor” suffocating at times -- I also realize there is privilege embedded in the word. By surviving, you are alive. You have the ability to tell your story, process the trauma, activate others in your community and gain insights and a new language and lens to see yourself through.
The act of storytelling can be cathartic and liberating, but it can also shatter the storyteller in the process.
Without integrating the psychosocial support of trained clinicians into storytelling and healing retreats, well-intentioned interventions can result in more trauma. This is all the more important as FGM survivors navigate the double pandemic of their own PTSD from childhood trauma, and the indefinite COVID-19 global shutdown.
In many anti-FGM advocacy spaces, I have seen this insatiable hunger to unearth stories -- whatever the cost to the storyteller. The stories help activate funding and serve as a data point
for measuring impact.
Survivor stories then become commodities fueling a storytelling industrial complex. Storytellers, if not provided proper mental health support in the process, can become collateral damage.
My motivation in writing this piece is to flip the script on how we view FGM survivors, prioritizing the storyteller over the story itself.
FGM survivors are more than the four boxes describing how the pieces of our anatomy were cut, pricked, carved, or gouged out. In this essay, I’ll break down the anatomy of an FGM survivor’s story into four parts: stories that break, stories that remake, stories that heal, and stories that reveal.
Type 1: Stories that break
I was sitting in the heart of Appalachia with a group of FGM survivors, meeting many for the first time. As they shared their traumas, I realized we all belonged in some way or another to the same unenviable club. A white Christian survivor from Kentucky - who I don’t think I would have ever met if we didn’t have FGM survivorship connecting us - told the contours of her story.
There were so many parallels. We were both cut at seven. She was bribed with cake after her cut. I was bribed with a jumbo-sized Toblerone chocolate bar when mine was over. Absorbing her trauma overwhelmed me. And I imagine when I shared my story, others in the circle may also have been silently unraveling. We didn’t have a clinician or mental health professional in a facilitation role and that absence was felt. The first night, I was sharing a room with six other survivors and tried hard to keep the sounds of my own tears muffled. By the last day, I reached breaking point. Before leaving for the airport, my stomach contracted and I convulsively vomited. I felt like I was purging not only my pain, but the pain of the others I’d absorbed that week. We all dutifully produced our stories into 90 second social media friendly soundbites with narration and photos. But at what cost?
Type 2: Stories that remake
On February 6, 2016, the Guardian published my story as a survivor. The second it was released, I was remade. My identity transformed from nondescript, relatively invisible mid-level Foreign Service Officer to FGM survivor under a public microscope. That same day, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power tweeted my story with the introduction: “I was seven years old” before linking to the article. The tweet symbolized a moment for me where my personal and professional worlds collided. Since then, they have been forever intertwined.
Even though I spent ten years of my career as a diplomat focused on other issues -- I lived in Cairo during the early days of the Arab Spring in 2011 and served in Baghdad and Erbil when the Syrian revolution turned from an uprising to civil war -- all of those past experiences that began to make mefeel erased. When I spoke on panels, my identity would be reduced to “survivor.” Like other survivors, I have worked hard to rewrite the script on how others see me.
I reinsert pieces of my other identities when speaking to underscore to the broader public that while yes, I am a survivor of childhood trauma and while my FGM story may have remade a part of my identity, it doesn’t define me.
Type 3: Stories that heal
With the guidance of a mental health expert, I have spent the last few months doing a deep dive into my FGM survivor story. I have told and retold my story over dozens of times in public venues. My goal is to break the culture of silence and inspire action. At this point, the telling of my story has almost become mechanized, as though I am reciting a verse from the Quran I memorized as a kid. I would always start with: “I was sitting an anthropology class when a fellow student described her research project on Female Genital Mutilation. And that’s when I had the memory jolt. A memory I had suppressed since childhood came flooding to the foreground.” I go into the details of what happened in granular detail -- the color of the floor, the feelings of confusion and betrayal in the hazy aftermath. And then I go on to talk about the afternoon I confronted my mother about the summer she and my father shipped my brother and off to India to stay with my aunt. The summer it happened. I later found out my aunt cut me without my parents’ consent. In my years of telling and retelling this story, I would have moments I felt nothing, moments I would break down, and moments of relief. It was a mixed bag, often contradictory emotions happening all at once.
When I began to take apart the story, I discovered the core moment where I felt most gutted. It wasn’t the cut itself. It was the aftermath. I remember sitting in a corner alone, feeling confused and ashamed. When I looked at my aunt on the other side of the room, she was whispering to my cousin and they both pointed and laughed at me. Unearthing the moment of shame - the laughter - has haunted me since childhood. The piece that was carved out of me is called “haram ki boti” which translates into sinful flesh. Over time, the physical scar healed. But for many FGM survivors, the psychological wounds remain
Type 4: Stories that reveal
Last year, I decided to take a sabbatical from the Foreign Service. I was burning out on both ends -- I had just completed a really tough assignment in Pakistan and was also doing anti-FGM
advocacy in my personal capacity. When I came home, an acquaintance from graduate school approached me to capture my story on film. As part of the process, she would send a camera
crew to shadow me. Sometimes while giving speeches, other times filming mundane interactions with friends and family. On a visit to my home in Texas, I’ll never forget the moment where my mom told me her story of survival. As part of the film, we went on a roadtrip to Austin to visit the university where I first had the memory jolt. My mom is patiently waiting for the cameraman to set up his tripod. My father is standing next to her.
In the end, we eventually had the conversation I never had the courage to have with either of my parents face to face. Looking them both in the eye, retelling my story with a camera as witness, we discussed how FGM ripped our family apart (specifically my dad’s relationship with his sister). For the first time, I heard my mom talking about her own experience and the feeling of betrayal when she discovered my aunt cut me without her consent. When I later told her that FGM was actually indigenous to the U.S. and Europe and that it was a cure for hysteria (prescribed by doctors) up until the 19th century, my mother exclaimed “that’s crazy to me, this was a cure for hysteria. I’m going to educate other doctors to speak out.” And in that moment, my mother, a survivor who had never shared her story before, became an activist.
My story, intertwined with her story, revealed a tightly woven fabric of resistance. With our voices, we were able to break the cycle of intergenerational structural violence. We were able to rewrite the stories of future generations of girls in our own family and hopefully one day, the world.
This is a woman breaking free from her mundane reality, devoid of color. She dreams in a colorful, "nonsensical" way that people in her life would not understand. She could be considered insane, yet her dreams are more vivid and imaginative than actual life. This is frequently how schizophrenia occurs to me, more engaging and exciting than real life.
Lorena Borjas, a trans Latina woman and activist, lived and worked in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City. In those streets, she looked after her community for years, advocating for trans and immigrant rights, supporting survivors of human trafficking and abuse, campaigning for sex workers’ rights and those of people living with HIV and AIDS.
Lorena was strong and tireless in her fight to support, defend, and have the back of those most marginalized and discriminated by transphobia, misogyny and racism.
“She pushed us to shine authentically, to become a scream of subversion that says, ‘I am here, and I deserve happiness, too.’” - Cecilia Gentili, a trans activist and Lorena’s friend
Having faced numerous traumas and hardships herself, as a trans immigrant woman and victim of human trafficking, Lorena pulled knowledge and emotional memory from the well of her experiences in order to help build and strengthen the community she was part of and which was part of her. Some of the ways she did this was to organize and mobilize support ranging from providing condoms and connecting trans women to different services, to setting up an HIV testing clinic in her own home.
"She was such a beautiful soul who helped others when her journey was difficult and painful as an immigrant, as a trans immigrant. She believed the trans community needed love, acceptance, and compassion, and she gave it all.” - Luchia Dragosh, QPTV Supervising producer of a documentary about Lorena
In more than 25 years of activism, she also founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund together with Chase Strangio (lawyer and trans rights activist). The Fund helps the many different members of her community (and especially trans persons) dealing with immigration challenges to avoid the cycle of arrest-jail-deportation.
Lorena passed away in March 2020 of complications from COVID-19.
Her enormous and beautiful legacy will be taken forward through the streets of Queens by the network and community she co-created.
“We will pick up her work where she left it, work that is essential to the well-being of “mis pajaras” as she called the trans girls of Queens under her wing.” - Cecilia Gentili
Tributes:
"Lorena brought light to us when we were living through a very dark time here in New York. She brought us light when we were dealing with the crack epidemic, when we were dealing with the AIDS crisis, dealing with changes in immigration policies." - Cristina Herrera, founder and CEO of Translatina Network and Lorena’s friend
"Lorena has done more than anyone else I know to shine a light on the epidemic of trafficking in transgender communities and to help other trans women escape exploitation." - Lynly Egyes (represented Borjas on behalf of the Transgender Law Center)
Upasana is a non binary illustrator and artist based out of Kolkata, India. Their work explores identity and personal narratives by using a visual remnant or evidence of the contexts they work with. They are especially drawn to patterns which to them communicate complex truths about the past, present and future. When Upasana is not illustrating they organise and run a queer and trans community art centre in the city.
2224x1253.jpg)
