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As part of AWID's ongoing commitment to building creative cross-movement work, we are exploring multiple ways of working with and learning from artists and cultural makers from diverse social movements as a means of building solidarity, stimulating creative connections, and facilitating mutual learning.

In just over a month nearly two thousand individuals from diverse cultural and political spheres and social movements will gather together in Bahia, Brazil for the upcoming AWID Forum.

Amandine Gay, afro-feminist actress, researcher and filmmaker takes a moment to talk about her new feature-length documentary, “Speak Up/ Make Your Way (2016)”. The film simultaneously addresses the diverse identities and similar experiences, in some cases trauma, of black women in Western and white supremacist spaces.

In the wake of the ‘Global Gag Rule’ (GGR)’s reinstatement, we asked women’s rights and feminist organisations around the world what this means for their work with women and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and how the news of the GGR and the Dutch fund will affect women in their regions.

By Cindy Clark "Whilst working to resist oppressions, we also need to radically confront challenges within our own movements. The Women’s March on Washington, and the hundreds of sister marches that took place across the globe are a timely reminder of that call to action."

By Laura Contrera Being fat is part of the great diversity of humans, yet from a hegemonic medical perspective all kinds of fat are considered a medical risk, limiting the issue to a simple arithmetic calculation of unhealthy consumption and lack of exercise.

Fat activism has links to the civil rights movements as well as to some feminist and radical lesbian expressions, in English-speaking countries. In recent years, it has started to exist in Latin America. AWID spoke with Laura Contrera, bodily diversity activist, about fat activism and the book she co-authored.

"I tell the girl how thoughtful it is of her to reach out. And then I ask her why she is so tired. She explains she has splinters in her palms from the umbrella she has been carrying all evening; and all the grown ups are still making her carry all the bags." By Fungai Machirori

By Fungai Machirori "Their violet T-shirts match the jacarandas – in full spring bloom – as the protesters make their way through downtown Johannesburg in remembrance of Fezekile ‘Khwezi’ Ntsukela Kuzwayo who bravely brought forward a charge of rape against Jacob Zuma in 2005, and died towards the end of last year aged 41."

Bringing 1500+ activists and organizers from myriad movements to the 13th AWID International Forum brings up the inevitable family gathering question: Who is everybody and how are we all related?