Anit-Racism Movement (ARM) / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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.
Around the world, feminist, women’s rights, and allied movements are confronting power and reimagining a politics of liberation. The contributions that fuel this work come in many forms, from financial and political resources to daily acts of resistance and survival.
AWID’s Resourcing Feminist Movements (RFM) Initiative shines a light on the current funding ecosystem, which range from self-generated models of resourcing to more formal funding streams.
Through our research and analysis, we examine how funding practices can better serve our movements. We critically explore the contradictions in “funding” social transformation, especially in the face of increasing political repression, anti-rights agendas, and rising corporate power. Above all, we build collective strategies that support thriving, robust, and resilient movements.
Our Actions
Recognizing the richness of our movements and responding to the current moment, we:
Create and amplify alternatives: We amplify funding practices that center activists’ own priorities and engage a diverse range of funders and activists in crafting new, dynamic models for resourcing feminist movements, particularly in the context of closing civil society space.
Build knowledge: We explore, exchange, and strengthen knowledge about how movements are attracting, organizing, and using the resources they need to accomplish meaningful change.
Advocate: We work in partnerships, such as the Count Me In! Consortium, to influence funding agendas and open space for feminist movements to be in direct dialogue to shift power and money.
Related Content
Snippet FEA Metizneres (EN)
Metzineres
When walking in the heart of the Raval district of Barcelona, you might come across Metzineres, a feminist cooperative by and for womxn2 who use drugs surviving multiple situations of vulnerability.
Imagine a place free of stigma, where womxn can be safe. A safe place that provides shelter, support and accompaniment for womxn whose rights are systematically violated by the war on drugs and those who experience violence, discrimination and repression as a result.
Right outside the entrance, passers by and visitors are greeted with a massive chalkboard that outlines tips, tricks, wishes and drawings by drug users. There is also a calendar that boasts a range of activities self-organized by the Metzineres community. Whether it’s hairdressing and cosmetics workshops, radio shows, theater, communal meals offered to the community, or self-defense classes - there is always something going on.
The cooperative provides safe consumption sites as well as utilities that cover people’s basic needs. There are beds, storage spaces, showers, toilets, washing machines and a small outdoor terrace where people can chill or have a goat gardening.
Metzineres operates within a harm reduction framework, which attempts to reduce the negative consequences of using drugs. But harm reduction is so much more than a set of practices: it is a politics anchored in social justice, dignity and rights for people who use drugs.
2 Womxn is a term used by the collective to describe cis and trans women as well as non-binary people
As part of AWID’s Feminist Realities journey, we invite you to explore our newly launched Feminist Film Club: a collection of short and feature films selected by feminist curators and storytellers from around the world, including Jess X. Snow (Asia/Pacific), Gabrielle Tesfaye (Africa/African Diaspora), and Esra Ozban (South West Asia, North Africa). Alejandra Laprea is curating the Latin & Central American program, which we’ll launch in September during AWID’s Crear, Résister, Transform: A Festival for Feminist Movements. In the meantime, look out for announcements on special films screenings and conversations with filmmakers!
“It’s the indigenous knowledge and the practices that have always supported food sovereignty and this knowhow is in the hands of the women … Ecofeminism for me is the respect for all that we have around us.”
This year we are honoring 18 Women Human Rights Defenders from the Latin America and the Caribbean region. Alone 15 of those were murdered, among which 6 are journalists and 4 LGBTQI and/or sex workers’ rights defenders. Please join us in commemorating the life and work of these women by sharing the memes below with your colleagues, friends and networks and by tweeting using the hashtag #AWIDTribute.
Our individual and institutional members come from ALL regions of the world and 163 countries. Our latest members join us from France, South Sudan, the United Kingdom, and Lebanon. All of our members bring with them a rich and diverse array of perspectives, experiences, knowledge, energy and inspiration!
Did you know about our weekly member profiles?
One of the benefits of being an AWID member, is having your story featured on awid.org, in our newsletters which go out to 35,000 subscribers, and via our social media channels which have over 60,000 followers.
If you have any difficulties and require support with the sign-up process, please do not hesitate to contact us at membership@awid.org
What Our Members Say
"We have found AWID to be a very exciting network and we are involved in many of its platforms." - Engabu Za Tooro (AWID institutional member)
"I am looking forward to a fruitful engagement with the team. Feeling great. Thanks for accepting me as a member." - R. Chakraborty (AWID individual member)
"Thank you so much AWID, your work is tremendous. I really appreciated your efforts." - E. Khan (AWID individual member)
Contesting the premise that a country’s economy must always ‘grow or die’, de-growth propositions come to debunk the centrality of growth measured by increase in Gross domestic product (GDP).
Definition
A de-growth model proposes a shift towards a lower and sustainable level of production and consumption. In essence, shrinking the economic system to leave more space for human cooperation and ecosystems.
The proposal includes
Downsizing resource-, energy- and emission-intensive superfluous production, particularly in the North (e.g. the automotive and military industries)
Directing investments instead into the care sector, social infrastructure and environmental restoration
Feminist perspective
Feminist perspectives within de-growth theory and practice argue that it also needs to redefine and revalidate unpaid and paid, care and market labour to overcome traditional gender stereotypes as well as the prevailing wage gaps and income inequalities that devalue care work.
Learn more about this proposition
In “The Future WE Want: Occupy development” Christa Wichterich argues that in order to break up the hegemonic logic of unfettered growth and quick returns on investment, three cornerstones of another development paradigm must combine: care, commons and sufficiency in production and consumption.
Equitable, Ecological Degrowth: Feminist Contributions by Patricia Perkins suggests developing effective alternative indicators of well-being, including social and economic equity and work-time data, to demonstrate the importance of unpaid work and services for the economy and provide a mechanism for giving credit to those responsible.
"We know everything is against us and there is very little chance to change that. But we believe in intervention and I do think we have a chance and should use it. That’s why we're doing everything we're doing. We're willing to push for things that are unheard of."
