Jacky Sutton
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 world is a much different place than it was a year ago, and it will continue to change.
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!
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
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In response to these challenges, we collaborated with Impactmapper to co-create a comprehensive resource that combines two powerful tools to strengthen the funding ecosystem for social justice movements.
Nominate bold feminists to join AWID's Board of Directors
Every year, AWID seeks to renew and enrich the perspectives and experience reflected in our Board of Directors by bringing in new members.
Currently, we are looking for individuals to serve 3-year terms on AWID’s Board, starting in early 2023. This is an opportunity to contribute to our organisation’s governance and to be part of an amazing group of feminists from around the world.
Please help us to identify thoughtful and bold feminists to nominate for election by July 29, 2022.
Please also share this invitation to nominate with your networks!
Who are we looking for?
First and foremost, we are looking for candidates who are committed to AWID’s mission, who can make connections between local and global struggles, and who can help us to be thoughtful about how to best leverage AWID's positioning and strengths in a constantly evolving context. Candidates must be willing to uphold the legal duties and responsibilities of the AWID Board in the best interests of the organization.
This is a voluntary role that requires commitment and engagement throughout the year. Board members are expected to commit a minimum of 10-15 days per year to attend in-person and virtual meetings, and contribute to other communications.
We aspire for our Board to reflect diversity in all its forms, particularly in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation, age, geography and background. Additionally, we seek Board members with experience relevant to AWID’s priority areas of work.
While we will consider all candidates, in light of the current composition of the board, priority consideration will be given to:
Candidates with experience working at the intersections of women’s rights/gender justice and :
- Finance
- Climate justice
- Disability justice, and/or
- Technology
Candidates from the following regions:
- Africa
- South America
What Board members bring to AWID
The Board of Directors is key to inform AWID’s strategic direction and support our organisation to fulfill its mission in coherence with the world we live in and the needs of our movements.
Board members contribute to the organization in many ways: bringing governance experience from other spaces, perspectives from diverse sectors of feminist movements, and substantive expertise in areas relevant to AWID’s strategy.
The candidates who are ultimately elected will be joining the AWID Board in 2023, accompanying us for the launch of our new strategic plan led by AWID’s new Co-Executive Directors, and the planning of our next international Forum.
Do you know someone with this profile?
(You can nominate yourself or someone you know - with their consent)
Please also share this invitation to nominate with your networks!
While anyone can nominate a person for the AWID Board, only AWID members can vote in our Board Elections - Become an AWID member today!
Thank you, in advance, for helping us find our next wonderful Board members to support AWID in its journey ahead!
Ayanda Denge
“I am a wonder… Therefore I have been born by a mother! As I begin to stutter, my life has been like no other…” - Ayanda Denge (read the whole poem below)
Ayanda Denge was a transwomxn, sex worker, activist, poet. She was Xhosa, from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. After travelling through different cities of the country, she moved to Cape Town.
As a committed and fervent social justice activist, she fought for the rights of sex workers, trans persons, and for those of people living with HIV and AIDS. She was also a motivational speaker on cancer awareness, and campaigned for affordable and social housing, especially for poor and working-class people. Ayanda stood tall as a mountain against different and often abusive faces of discrimination.
“Being transgender is not a double dose, but it’s a triple dose of stigmatisation and discrimination. You are discriminated against for your sexual identity, you are discriminated against for your work, and you are discriminated against for your HIV status.” - Ayanda Denge, 2016
She was acting chairperson at the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and also worked as an Outreach Coordinator at Sisonke, a national sex workers’ movement in South Africa.
“From us, from our regional head office, to SWEAT where I sit on the board, to Sisonke, a movement of sex workers in Cape Town. We all amalgamate, we have one cry and it’s a cry that is recognised internationally by international sex workers. We want decriminalisation of sex work.” - Ayanda Denge, 2016
She lived in the Ahmed Kathrada House, which was being occupied by the Reclaim the City campaign for social housing. In 2018, Ayanda was elected house leader. On 24 March 2019, she was stabbed to death in her room. The year prior, another resident was killed.
Reclaim the City draws a connection between the safety of the house residents and the Provincial Government withholding electricity and the human right to water:
“We cannot separate the safety of women and LGBTQI people living in the occupation from the refusal by the Western Cape Provincial Government to turn the electricity and water back on at Ahmed Kathrada House.
The house is pitch black at night. We need lights to keep each other safe. It is as if the Province wishes to punish poor and working class people, whose only crime is that we needed a home. While they may disagree with our reasons for occupying, they should be ashamed of themselves for putting politics before the safety and dignity of residents of this city.
Rest in Peace comrade Ayanda Denge, we shall remember you as we carry the torch forward in the struggle for decent well-located housing.”
Poem by Ayanda:
I am a wonder…
Therefore I have been born by a mother!
As I begin to stutter,
My life has been like no other.
Born in pain
Nourished by rain
For me to gain
Was living in a drain.
As I shed a tear
I stand up and hold my spear.
Voices echo, do not fear
Challenges within a year,
Challenges of hurt are on my case;
Community applauds as they assume I have won my race;
But in reality my work strides at a tortoise pace;
On bended knee I bow and ask for grace.
For the Lord
Is my Sword;
To remind humanity
That he provides sanity.
Why Lord am I this wonder?
The Lord answers me with the rain and thunder,
For questioning my father
Who has in the book of lambs
A name called Ayanda.
From the streets my life was never sweet
The people I had to meet;
At times I would never greet;
Even though I had to eat;
I’d opt to take a bow
Rather than a seat
Listen to the poem in Ayanda’s voice
“For my life represents that of a lotus flower, that out of murky and troubled waters I bloomed to be beautiful and strong...” - Ayanda Denge, watch and listen
Tributes:
“Ayanda, I want to say to you that you are still a survivor, in our hearts and minds. You are gone but you are everywhere, because you are love. How beautiful it is to be loved, and to give love. And Ayanda, that is the gift that you have given us. Thank you for all of the love, we truly did need you. Going forward, I promise to you that we will all commit to continue with the struggle that you have dedicated so much energy and your time to. And we will commit ourselves to pursuing justice in this awful ending to your life.” - Transcript of a message, in a farewell Tribute to Ayanda
“Ayanda was an activist by nature. She knew her rights and would not mind fighting for the rights of others. For me, it was no shock that she was involved with many organizations and it was known that she was a people’s person. It did not need to be the rights of LGBTI but just the rights of everyone that she stood for.” - Ayanda’s sister
When can I register for the Forum? How much does it cost to register? What does Registration Include?
Registration will start early 2024. We will announce the exact registration date and registration fee soon. Registration will include participation in the Forum, plus lunch and snacks (breakfast to be provided at the hotels), and one onsite dinner.
ours chapter 3 fr
Chapitre 3
Les discours antidroits
Les discours antidroits continuent à évoluer. Outre le recours à des arguments religieux, culturels et traditionnels, les acteur·rice·s antidroits s’approprient le langage de la justice sociale et des droits humains pour travestir leurs véritables programmes et gagner ainsi en légitimité.
Paula Kantor
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Registration status:
Search for funders based on their requirements for groups to be registered.
Las Triple Cripples: ¡hablemos de sexo, nena!
por Nandini Tanya Lallmon, República de Mauricio (@nandini_tanya)
Olajumoke «Jay» Abdullahi y Kym Oliver son feministas revolucionarias en más de un sentido.
Las dos amigas se llaman a sí mismas las «Triple Cripples» [«Triples Inválidas»] porque, como mujeres discapacitadas negras, se ven sometidas a tres niveles de discriminación. Jay, actualmente de 31 años, contrajo polio cuando era bebé y utiliza una férula y unas muletas como sostén, mientras que Kym, de 25 años, tiene esclerosis múltiple y se moviliza en silla de ruedas. El nombre del dúo surge de un esfuerzo por redefinir la palabra «inválida» que, según ellas, «ha sido un término habitualmente usado contra las personas discapacitadas como injuria, como una forma infalible de recordarnos que estábamos “falladas” y que siempre íbamos a ser “menos que”.»
Como mujeres negras, Kym y Jay han sido víctimas del estereotipo racial globalizado que hipersexualiza la piel oscura. En su libro Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain [Corazón de la raza: las vidas de las mujeres negras en Gran Bretaña], Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie y Suzanne Scafe describen cómo las mujeres negras han sido históricamente definidas como un «riesgo de alta promiscuidad» por los doctores, debido a su libido y su fertilidad. Jay explica que «la gente piensa que estoy siempre dispuesta a hacer de todo y cualquier cosa todo el tiempo porque soy una mujer negra». Aunque ambas mujeres han sido sometidas a una intensa fetichización debido a su color de piel, sus discapacidades han confundido a muchas personas. Kym describe así su experiencia como mujer con curvas: «Tengo el tipo de cuerpo que la gente quiere manosear, y les parece que yo debería poder aceptarlo, pero, al mismo tiempo, existe esta idea de que yo no debería tener pretensiones, por mi discapacidad.»
En las plataformas de citas en línea, a Jay le han preguntado si puede realizar ciertas posiciones sexuales, dado que ciertas potenciales parejas «han decidido que quieren estar contigo de este modo y quieren saber si tu corporalidad puede facilitarlo.» Durante una consulta de control, Kym hizo disculparse a unx profesional médicx que, mientras completaba un formulario de admisión, le preguntó cuántas parejas sexuales ha tenido con un tono que implicaba «yo sé que estas preguntas no son aplicables en tu caso, pero tenemos que seguir el proceso estándar del cuestionario.»
El error de pensar que la falta de autonomía física equivale a una falta de deseo sexual es generalizado.
En la escuela, Jay era excluida de las clases de educación sexual, porque se presuponía que estaba incapacitada para tener sexo. Ella explica que incluso las organizaciones bien intencionadas que promueven el acceso a los servicios de salud sexual y reproductiva a menudo no tienen en cuenta las necesidades específicas de las mujeres discapacitadas. Por ejemplo, las píldoras son consideradas con frecuencia un método anticonceptivo efectivo, sin ninguna mención de que pueden agravar los riesgos de coágulos de las mujeres que usan sillas de ruedas.
Con sede en Londres, las Triple Cripples esperaban ansiosamente participar, junto con el equipo Decolonising Contraception [descolonizar la contracepción], en el SexFest2020, un festival de un día organizado para personas de color y dedicado a la salud y el bienestar sexuales. Desafortunadamente, el evento fue cancelado debido a la pandemia del COVID-19. A pesar de ello, sin desanimarse, Jay y Kim se volcaron a sus plataformas de activismo en línea, para oponerse a la forma en que la sexualidad es vista desde una perspectiva estrictamente heteronormativa y para desafiar la idea de que la femineidad está definida por la capacidad de procrear. El dúo inauguró un canal de YouTube y un podcast (también llamado «The Triple Cripples») para promover la representación de las personas discriminadas de múltiples formas como seres humanos holísticos. Sus planes a futuro incluyen un documental creativo y una muestra fotográfica dedicada a luchar contra la discriminación y a difundir las voces de personas de color discapacitadas.
La experiencia de discriminación basada en la raza, el género y la discapacidad es más que acumulativa.
Si bien las mujeres discapacitadas de color comparten experiencias de discriminación por motivos de discapacidad con otras personas discapacitadas, experiencias de sexismo con otras mujeres, y experiencias de racismo con otras personas de color, estas experiencias interactúan y no pueden ser separadas: las mujeres discapacitadas de color experimentan una discriminación singular como mujeres discapacitadas de color.
Si bien las Triple Cripples reconocen que las ideas anticuadas y superficiales sobre la diversidad no se transformarán, como por arte de magia, en espacios inclusivos de un día para otro, siguen confiando en que sus pequeños hachazos finalmente lograrán derribar los grandes robles que las prácticas discriminatorias representan para ellas.
«Bloomed» [En flor]
de Titash Sen, Kolkata, India (@unzeroed)
La alegría de aceptarse y crecer al calor de esa luz.
“Asignado Nderentendei Al Nacer”
de Bastión Moral, Asunción, Paraguay (@basti0nmoral)
La mujeridad obligatoria es un dispositivo colonial heterocispatriarcal de violencia hacia cuerpos asignados femeninos al nacer. Los cuerpos trans seguimos resistiendo a pesar de la invisibilización y apagamiento histórico. No soy mujer, me asignaron un género a partir de mis genitales.
![“Asignado Nderentendei Al Nacer” [Assigned Nderentendei at Birth] by Bastión Moral](https://web.archive.org/web/20210928161447/https://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/web_bastion-nderentendei.png "“Asignado Nderentendei Al Nacer” [Assigned Nderentendei at Birth] by Bastión Moral")
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How feminist art can rock CSW
¿AWID proporciona becas para asistir al Foro?
Nuestro Fondo de Acceso ofrecerá un número limitado de becas para financiar la participación de activistas que de otra manera no podrían asistir y que no tienen relaciones con donantes que puedan cubrir su participación. Por lo tanto, si tienes otras posibilidades, te animamos a explorarlas. Haremos todo lo posible para ofrecer la mayor cantidad de becas y compartiremos más información sobre este proceso y cómo postular a principios de 2024.
Rights at Risk: Time for Action
Report:
Rights at Risk: Time for Action
The most recent report from the Observatory on the Universality of Rights unpicks discourses like “gender ideology”, “prenatal genocide”, and “cultural imperialism”. It also digs into CitizenGo, Alliance Defending Freedom, and anti-rights funding flows. You’ll also find analysis on regional human rights systems and successful feminist strategies and wins!
Marge Frantz
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Key factors impacting
budget size
→Region
→Level of organizing
→Registration status
→Priorities and Agendas
Love letter to feminist movements: A Letter from Inna and Faye
Dear feminist movements,
Love is what keeps our feminist fire burning. Along with care for our communities, anger and rage in the face of injustice, and the courage to take action.
In September 2022, we stepped with great excitement into our leadership roles at AWID, as Co-Executive Directors. We felt the warmth and embrace of the feminist sisterhood as you welcomed us.
Reflecting on our most precious memories as feminists, we recall powerful moments of togetherness at street protests, sharp analysis, and brave voices shaking the status quo at gatherings. We held those intimate conversations into the night, laughed for hours, and danced at parties together.
Feminist fires need to be fed, especially in difficult times when there is no lack of external challenges, from the climate crisis and the rise of right-wing forces to exploitative economies and persisting patterns of oppression within our own social movements. It's these fires, burning ablaze everywhere, that light our ways and keep us warm, but we can’t disregard the exhausting effects of political violence and repression directed against many of our struggles, movements, and communities.
We understand the desire to change the world as an essential ingredient of feminist organizing. We can never forget that we are the ones we have been waiting for, in building alternatives and shaping our future. Yet, vibrant feminist energy cannot be taken for granted and must be safeguarded in many ways. In this, we will continue to be vigilant. Greater and equal access to care and wellbeing, to healing and pleasure, are not only instruments to prevent burnout and sustain our movements, though that is an important function; first and foremost, they are the way in which we hope to live our lives.
We are thrilled to roll up our sleeves and work with you. AWID’s new strategic plan “Fierce Feminisms: Together We Rise” reflects our conviction that now is the time for us to be fierce and unapologetic in our agendas while making an effort to connect across movements and truly get to know each other’s realities, so that we may rise together - because, for us, this is the only way.
Our plans include the long-awaited AWID Forum! We look forward to meeting you all in person and online in 2024. We are hearing from you the need to connect and recharge, to rest and heal, to be challenged and inspired, to share good food, and to laugh and dance together. Few things in this world are as powerful and transformative, as feminists from all parts of the world coming together, and we truly hold our breath for this moment, because we know the magic that we can create together.
Our membership engagement has taken on a life of its own through the AWID Community (our online platform for members), and our focus on building connection and solidarity resonates with many of you. Please join and connect with us and others in feminist movements around the world. We know the importance of connection in a time and space where the rules are not made for us, and we hold close our community, where each of us matters.
Together with our fantastic AWID colleagues, we promise to do our best to support feminist movements, as is the mission and purpose of AWID. Please hold us to account.
For the past 40 years, you - feminist movements - have shaped AWID’s history, and pushed us to be braver, creative, and radical. 40 is a fabulous age, and we look forward to another 40 years with you all. We are looking forward to the partnerships, calls to justice, collaboration, policy influencing, and badass feminist power that you all bring in navigating the ever-increasing backlash on gender, racial and environmental justice. We have so much to learn from you and from each other, as we collectively build the worlds we believe in.
Cindy Clark and Hakima Abbas, thank you for paving the way for us and preparing us to fill your enormous shoes. We always appreciate all those on whose shoulders we stood and continue to stand. We understand ourselves to be part of a broader movement landscape, feminist histories, presents, and daring futures.
AWID’s Board of Directors, we are grateful to you for the support and feminist love you show us, and for your commitment to Global South leadership and the co-leadership model. We send our love and respect to each and every AWID colleague, we feel honoured to be working with such an exceptional feminist team of dedicated professionals.
This is our first time writing a love letter together, how could we conclude it without expressing love, care, and respect for each other? It’s a pretty intense relationship we’ve stepped into! We both bring our different and diverse perspectives and skills to our work, and as individuals, we also bring our lived experiences and authentic selves.
Together with you all, we are a story in the making, a part of a beautiful woven - and often beautifully challenging - tapestry that continues into the future. We had fun starting this journey together with each other and with you, and we very much hope to keep the romance alive.
In solidarity, with love and care
Inna and Faye
Save the date!
21 February 2023, Member Mixer 5 on Feminist Politics with Faye and Inna.
Not a member yet? Find out more about AWID Membership.
Y aura-t-il des rassemblements régionaux, thématiques ou autres avant le Forum ?
Nous pensons que oui ! Le processus de planification n'en est qu'à ses débuts, alors restez à l'écoute car les plans sont en pleine préparation.
Animación: ¡Llamando a todas las superheroínas feministas!
Animación:
Llamando a todas las superheroínas feministas!
Sigue a nuestra superheroína mientras se embarca en una misión para recuperar las narrativas capturadas por los actores antiderecho en todo el mundo.
Nelly Amaya
WITM - Refreshed Intro Text (EN)
Where is the Money? An Evidence-Driven Call to Resource Feminist Organizing
This new report shines a light on the resourcing realities of feminist and women’s rights organizations amid unprecedented political and financial upheaval. Drawing on over a decade of analysis since AWID last Where is the Money? report (Watering the Leaves, Starving the Roots), it takes stock of the gains, gaps, and growing threats in the funding landscape.
The report celebrates the power of movement-led initiatives to shape resourcing on their own terms, while sounding the alarm on massive aid cuts, shrinking philanthropy, and escalating backlash.
It calls on funders to invest abundantly in feminist organizing as essential infrastructure for justice and liberation. It also invites movements to reimagine bold, self-determined models of resourcing rooted in care, solidarity and collective power.
Carta de amor a los movimientos feministas #10
Nunca supe que tenía una familia cercana que me ama y que quiere que crezca. Mi mamá siempre ha estado presente para mí, pero nunca imaginé que tendría miles de familias por otros sitios, con las que no estoy relacionada por lazos de sangre.
Descubrí que la familia no son solo las personas relacionadas por lazos sanguíneos, sino la gente que te ama de forma incondicional, a quienes no les importa tu orientación sexual, ni tu estado de salud, ni tu estatus social, ni tu raza.
Al pensar en los momentos invaluables en que escuché a mis hermanas de todo el mundo que son firmes feministas –gente a quien no he conocido físicamente, pero quienes me apoyan, me enseñan, luchan por mí– me faltan las palabras: las palabras no pueden expresar cuánto las amo a ustedes, mis mentoras, y a las demás feministas. Ustedes son una madre, una hermana, una amiga para millones de chicas jóvenes.
Ustedes son maravillosas, ustedes luchan por personas a quienes no conocen –y eso es lo que las hace tan especiales–.
Mi corazón se alegra de expresar esto por escrito.
Las amo a todas y seguiré amándolas. Nunca he visto a ninguna de ustedes en forma física, pero parece que nos conociéramos desde hace décadas.
Somos feministas y estamos orgullosas de ser mujeres.
Vamos a seguir diciéndole al mundo que nuestra valentía es nuestra corona.
Una carta de amor de FAITH ONUH, una joven feminista de Nigeria
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For additional questions, please use our contact form. We will keep updating this document based on the queries we receive from you!