by Alejandra Laprea, Caracas, Venezuela (@alejalaprea)

I live in a country of the impossible, where there are no bombs yet we are living in a war.

A war that exists only for those of us living in this territory.

I live in a country no one understands, which few can really see, where various realities co-exist, and where the truth is murdered time and again.

I live in a country where one has to pay for the audacity of thinking for oneself, for taking on the challenge of seeing life another way.

I live in a country of women who have had to invent and reinvent, time and again, how they live and how to get by.

I live in Venezuela, in a time of an unusual and extraordinary threat.

Since 2012 my country has been subjected to an unconventional war. There are no defined armies or fire power. Their objective is to dislocate and distort the economy, affecting all households, daily life, the capacity of a people to dream and build a different kind of politics, an alternative to the patriarchal, bourgeois, capitalist democracy.

Venezuelan women are the primary victims of this economic war. Women who historically and culturally are responsible for providing care, are the most affected and in demand. However, in these years of economic and financial embargo, Venezuelan women have gone from being victims to the protagonists on the front lines defending our territory.  

Battles are fought from the barrios, kitchens, and small gardens. We defend the right of girls and boys to go to school, and to be given something so simple as some arepas for breakfast.

Arepas are a kind of corn cake that can be fried, roasted or baked and served sweet or savoury as a side or main dish. It is a staple in the diet of all Venezuelans.

In Venezuela, arepas mean culture, family, food sovereignty, childhood nostalgia, the expert hands of grandmothers molding little balls, the warmth that comforts you when recovering from illness.

Arepas connect us as a people with the pre-Colombian cultures of corn, a resistance that has endured for more than five centuries. They are the Caribbean expressed differently on firm ground.

They are an act of resistance.

When my mother was a girl, they would start grinding the dry corn early in the morning to make arepas. The women would get up and put the kernels of corn in wooden mortars and pound it with heavy mallets to separate the shells. Then they would boil, soak, and grind the corn to make dough, and finally they would mold it into round arepas. The process would take hours and demand a lot of physical effort.   

In the mid-20th century a Venezuelan company industrialized the production of corn meal. For an entire generation that seemed like an act of liberation, since there was now a flour that you could simply add water to and have hot arepas in 45 minutes time.

But that also meant that the same generation would lose the traditional knowledge on how to make them from scratch. My grandmother was an expert arepa maker, my mother saw it as a girl, and for me the corn meal came pre-packaged.

In the war with no military, the pre-cooked corn meal came to be wielded as an instrument of war by the same company that invented it, which was not so Venezuelan anymore: today the Polar group of companies is transnational.

We women began to recuperate our knowledge by talking with the eldest among us. We searched in the back of the closets for our grandmothers’ grinders, the ones we hadn’t thrown away out of affection. Some families still prepared the corn in the traditional way for important occasions. In some towns there were still communal grinding stations which had been preserved as part of local history or because small family businesses refused to die. All of these forms of cultural resistance were activated, and we even went so far as to invent new arepas.

Today we know that in order to resist we cannot depend on one food staple. Although corn arepas continue to be everyone’s favourite, we have invented recipes for arepas made of sweet potato, cassava, squash, and celery root.

We have learned that we can use almost any root vegetable to make arepas. Cooperative businesses have developed semi-industrial processes to make pre-cooked corn meal. In other words, we have recuperated our arepas and their preparation as a cultural good that belongs to all.

“Entretejidas” [Interwoven women]

by Surmercé, Santa Marta (@surmerce)

My artivism aims to decolonize our senses in everyday life. I like to create spaces that communicate how we weave together our different struggles, and that render visible dissident (re)existences, other possible worlds, and living bodies here in the SOUTH.

“We carry one another towards the future”

by Marga RH, Chile, UK (@Marga.RH)

Let's take care of one another

As we continue to fight in our struggles, let us remember how essential it is that we support each other, believe each other, and love ourselves and our sisters. When this system fucks us over, we must take time to look after our (physical and mental) health, that of our sisters, and to understand that each one of us carries unique stories, making us fighters in resist

Until dignity becomes a habit

These portraits are inspired by the voices of resistance and protest movements in Latin America, especially by the key role that feminised bodies play in these struggles. It is a tribute to the grassroots feminist movements in resistance.

Priority Areas

•   Resourcing Feminist Movements
•   Building Feminist Economies
•   Advancing Universal Rights and Justice

Да, пожалуйста! Мы просим распространить ссылку на опрос среди своих коллег по сети. Чем больше различных точек зрения мы соберем, тем более полным будет наше понимание финансового положения феминистских организаций.

Estas obras son un trabajo colaborativo de fotografías e ilustraciones realizadas por Siphumeze y Katia durante el confinamiento. Muestran narrativas negras queer de sexo y placer, bondage, sexo seguro, juguetes, salud mental y sexo, y mucho más. Fueron creadas para acompañar la antología Touch.

About the Artists:

Liberar a la Iglesia, descolonizar la Biblia para las mujeres de Papúa Occidental

por Rode Wanimbo

«Señor, somos indignas. Somos las que pecaron, porque Eva comió el fruto en el Edén. Solo somos mujeres que cultivan batatas, cuidan cerdos y dan a luz niñxs. Creemos que tú moriste en la cruz para liberarnos. Gracias, en el nombre de Jesús, amén». (...)

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< arte: «Offerings for Black Life» [Ofrendas para las vidas negras], Sokari Ekine

I believe empowered women empower women and that is why I’ve had an incredible time being an AWID member. My knowledge and understanding of Feminism and intersectionality has been broadened by the exposure I received being part of the AWID Community Street Team. I hope more women join and share topics and ideas that will help other women.

- Loyiso Lindani, South Africa.

Colectivo Moriviví est un collectif artistique de femmes. Notre production artistique comprend du muralisme, du muralisme communautaire et des performances/actions de manifestation. Notre travail consiste à démocratiser l'art et à amener les récits des communautés portoricaines dans la sphère publique afin de créer des espaces où ils seront validés. Nous croyons qu’à travers l'artivisme, nous pouvons promouvoir la sensibilisation aux questions sociales et renforcer notre mémoire collective.

Dans le cadre de sa participation au Groupe de Travail d’Artistes d'AWID, le Colectivo Moriviví a réuni un groupe divers de membres, partenaires et personnel pour faciliter un processus collaboratif visant à imaginer, documenter et déterminer le contenu d'une fresque communautaire par le biais d'un processus de co-création en plusieurs étapes. Le projet a commencé par une conceptualisation à distance avec des féministes de différentes régions du monde réuni·e·s par l'AWID, avant d'évoluer vers sa re-contextualisation et sa réalisation à Porto Rico. Nous avons eu l'honneur de bénéficier de la contribution des artistes locaux·ales Las Nietas de Nonó(@lasnietasdenono), de la participation des femmes locales à la session de peinture communautaire, du soutien logistique de la municipalité de Caguas et du soutien supplémentaire du FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund.
 
La fresque explore la transcendance des frontières en présentant les corps tels des cartes, dans une étreinte qui met en évidence l'intersection des différentes manifestations, pratiques et réalités féministes.
 
Nous remercions également Kelvin Rodríguez, qui a documenté et capturé les différentes étapes de ce projet à Porto Rico : 

À propos du Colectivo Morivivi 

Notre quartier, nos réseaux, notre force

par Marta Plaza Fernández 

Le pouvoir de tisser des réseaux où nous nous soutenons les unes les autres: telle est la réalité féministe dont je veux vous faire part.  (...)

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illustration : « Guérir ensemble », par Upasana Agarwal >

#BloquerLesFascismes

#FreezeFascisms

Depuis l’adoption de la Déclaration et du programme d’action de Beijing il y a 30 ans, les groupes fascistes exercent un pouvoir et une influence croissantes dans les espaces multilatéraux, faisant reculer les acquis en matière d’égalité de genre et de protection des droits humains dans le monde.

À l’approche de la CSW69, nous co-organisons de courageuses initiatives horizontales, sur le terrain et en ligne, pour échanger des stratégies et bâtir un pouvoir féministe au-delà de Beijing+30. Notre présence collective perturbe les mécanismes d’exclusion des institutions dans ces espaces tout en soutenant les mouvements qui s’organisent autour d’alternatives féministes aux systèmes d’oppression.

Participez aux conversations du 10 au 21 mars 2025 pour, collectivement, faire de la CSW69 un espace de résistance et de solidarité.

Chapter 6

In the African Commission and the Inter-American System, anti-rights actors push essentialist notions of culture and gender to hamper progress on rights and undermine accountability. As we see, anti-rights actors are exerting influence in regional human rights systems, as well as international spaces. 

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has begun framing women’s and sexual rights as jeopardising its ability to deal with “real rights” and contrary to “African values”,   setting a worrying anti-rights precedent. The withdrawal of the Coalition of African Lesbians’ observer status is an example of this trend, and points to the way space for feminist, Pan-Africanist engagement is being stifled. 

In the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Human Rights System, anti-rights strategies include the NGOization of religious groups, the use of secular discourses, and the co-optation of discrimination frameworks. Anti-rights influence has materialized in a number of ways, including the intimidation of trans activists and the blocking the introduction of progressive language in resolutions.

Table of Contents

• Silencing Feminists in the African Human Rights System
• Anti-rights Groups in Latin America: Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly and the Inter-American Human Rights System
   

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¿Qué significa un Foro de AWID para las personas que estuvieron ahí? ¿Qué es esta magia que sucede cuando feministas de todo el mundo se reúnen para celebrar, elaborar estrategias, aprender y compartir la alegría?

AWID habló con más de cuarenta participantes del Foro para oír sus historias de las transformaciones que experimentaron ellxs mismxs como activistas, y que también cambiaron a sus organizaciones y a los movimientos a los que pertenecen. También aprendimos sobre qué cosas deberíamos mantener y desarrollar para que un Foro de AWID sea diferente, y de qué manera podemos mejorar.

Este informe contiene aprendizajes y consejos invaluables para cualquier persona que quiera organizar encuentros presenciales regionales y temáticos, y para nosotrxs en nuestro trabajo de planificación del 15° Foro Internacional de AWID.

¡Desliza para que descubras más!