AWID Forum: Co-creating Feminist Futures
In September 2016, the 13th AWID international Forum brought together in Brazil over 1800 feminists and women’s rights advocates in a spirit of resistance and resilience.
This section highlights the gains, learnings and resources that came out of our rich conversations. We invite you to explore, share and comment!
What has happened since 2016?
One of the key takeaways from the 2016 Forum was the need to broaden and deepen our cross-movement work to address rising fascisms, fundamentalisms, corporate greed and climate change.
With this in mind, we have been working with multiple allies to grow these seeds of resistance:
- Our Seed Initiatives, has helped 20 ideas that emerged at the Forum to grow into concrete actions
- The video “Defending people and planet” and guide “Weaving resistance through action” put courageous WHRDs in the spotlight and present concrete strategies they use to confront corporate power.
- With our animations about the State of Our Feminist Movements and Climate and Environmental Justice, movements now have creative tools to support their advocacy work.
- The compiling artistic expressions of our #MovementsMatter series continues to inspire stronger and more creative organizing around the world.
- Movements can also benefit from new methodologies on Visioning Feminist Futures (Coming up soon!)
And through our next strategic plan and Forum process, we are committed to keep developing ideas and deepen the learnings ignited at the 2016 Forum.
What happens now?
The next AWID Forum will take place in the Asia Pacific region (exact location and dates to be announced in 2018).
We look forward to you joining us!
About the AWID Forum
AWID Forums started in 1983, in Washington DC. Since then, the event has grown to become many things to many peoples: an iterative process of sharpening our analyses, vision and actions; a watershed moment that reinvigorates participants’ feminisms and energizes their organizing; and a political home for women human rights defenders to find sanctuary and solidarity.
Related Content
Y a-t-il des sujets à ne pas aborder, à éviter dans nos propositions ?
Les Forums de l’AWID ont toujours été des espaces où les difficiles mais nécessaires conversations ont lieu. Nous accueillons ces propositions dès lors que la personne ou organisation qui la suggère garantit un espace à la fois respectueux et sûr pour celles et ceux qui y prennent part.
Disintegration | Content Snippet
On Wednesday a note arrives
with an address on the back.
5 pm, tonight.


The handwriting on the invitation—
coily and brusque—
I’ve seen it five times in five years.
My body rouses,
feverish.
I need to fuck myself first.
The tide is high tonight and
I get
off.
I want to slow everything down,
taste time and space, etch them
into memory.
*
I’ve never been to this part of town before.
Unknown places excite me,
the way limbs and veins and bones
resist decay,
their fate uncertain.
At the door, I think twice.
The hallway is pitch black
and it makes me pause.
On the other side,
a portal of smell and color
opens like a curse,
into a sunny afternoon.


The breeze
makes my hair dance,
piques its curiosity,
compels it to move.
I hear the wheelchair whirring,
shaping the shadows.
Then I see them:
a lynx face
and a body like mine
and I find myself desiring both
again.
The creature motions me closer.
Their gestures write a sentence;
as I move toward them,
I notice its details:
wither, flesh, bliss
On their command, the vine that covers the hallway
hugging warm stones,
snakes up the wall.
It becomes a verb,
“to climb,”
and I’m reorientated when their claws point
to the vine-bed in the center.
I hear the wheels behind me,
then that sound.
It reverberates
like no other.
Their long black wings
elevate toward the ceiling
then they lunge forward.
The feline vision scans every detail,
every change,
every longing.
Can desire liquefy your muscles?
Can it act sweeter than the strongest
of tranquilizers?


A lynx sews the world
across our differences,
weaving lace around my knees.
Can desire crush the distance of the world,
compressing the seconds?
They come closer still,
lynx eye meeting human eye,
sniffing the air,
turning body into
urgency.
They beat down their wings.
Stirred,
the vines tangle around my waist/waste.
Their tongue thins time,
shifting grounds,
soothes, with their magic,
what stirs beneath.
I see the world in you, and the
world is exhausted.
Then they plead:
Let me feast on you.