Sagal Salad Osman
Young Feminist Activism
Organizing creatively, facing an increasing threat
Young feminist activists play a critical role in women’s rights organizations and movements worldwide by bringing up new issues that feminists face today. Their strength, creativity and adaptability are vital to the sustainability of feminist organizing.
At the same time, they face specific impediments to their activism such as limited access to funding and support, lack of capacity-building opportunities, and a significant increase of attacks on young women human rights defenders. This creates a lack of visibility that makes more difficult their inclusion and effective participation within women’s rights movements.
A multigenerational approach
AWID’s young feminist activism program was created to make sure the voices of young women are heard and reflected in feminist discourse. We want to ensure that young feminists have better access to funding, capacity-building opportunities and international processes. In addition to supporting young feminists directly, we are also working with women’s rights activists of all ages on practical models and strategies for effective multigenerational organizing.
Our Actions
We want young feminist activists to play a role in decision-making affecting their rights by:
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Fostering community and sharing information through the Young Feminist Wire. Recognizing the importance of online media for the work of young feminists, our team launched the Young Feminist Wire in May 2010 to share information, build capacity through online webinars and e-discussions, and encourage community building.
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Researching and building knowledge on young feminist activism, to increase the visibility and impact of young feminist activism within and across women’s rights movements and other key actors such as donors.
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Promoting more effective multigenerational organizing, exploring better ways to work together.
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Supporting young feminists to engage in global development processes such as those within the United Nations
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Collaboration across all of AWID’s priority areas, including the Forum, to ensure young feminists’ key contributions, perspectives, needs and activism are reflected in debates, policies and programs affecting them.
Related Content
L’AWID EN 2014 : Renforcer les processus d’organisation en faveur des droits des femmes dans le monde entier
Disintegration | Content Snippet AR
وصلتني رسالة يوم الأربعاء
مصحوبة بعنوانٍ على ظهرها.
الخامسة مساءً، اليوم
خطّ كتابة الدعوة –
متحفّظ وجاف –
رأيته خمس مرّات في خمس سنوات.
جسدي مُستنفَر،
محموم.
أحتاج لمضاجعة نفسي أوّلًا.
المدُّ عالٍ الليلة
وأنا
أنتشي.
أريدُ إبطاءَ كلَّ شيء،
واستطعام الوقت والفراغ،
أن أحفرهما
في الذاكرة.
*
لم آتِ أبدًا إلى هذا الجزء من البلدة.
الأماكن المجهولة تثيرني،
[كذلك] الطريقة التي تقاوم بها الأشلاء والعروق والعظام
الاضمحلال،
مصيرهم غامض.
عند الباب أعيدُ التفكير.
الرواق قاتم السواد
يجعلني أتوقّف.
على الناحية الأخرى،
مثل اللعنة، يُفتَح باب
من الروائح والألوان
على عَصْرٍ مُشمس.
النسيم
يجعل شعري يرقص،
يثير فضوله،
يدفعه للحركة.
أسمعُ أزيزَ الكرسي المتحرّك،
يشكّل الظلال.
عندها أراهم:
وجه فهد
وجسدٌ مثل جسدي
وأجِدني راغبة بكليهما
مرّة أخرى.
يقترب المخلوق منّي.
إيماءاتهم تكتب جملة؛
كلّما اقتربت منهم،
أتبيّن تفاصيلها:
ذبول، لحم، غِبطة
بأمر ٍمنهم، تزحف الكرمة
التي تغطّي الرُواق
مُعانقةً الصخور الدافئة
وتتسلّق الحائط كالأفعى.
لقد أصبح فعلًا،
«أن تقفز»،
أُعيدَ توجيهي عندما أشارت مخالبهم
نحو سرير الكرم في المنتصف.
أسمع العجلات خلفي،
ثم أسمع ذلك الصوت.
يُدوي
بشكلٍ لا مثيل له.
أجنحتهم الطويلة السوداء
ترتفع نحو السقف
ثم تندفع للأمام.
عينا الهرّة تفحص كلّ تفصيلة،
كلّ تغيّر،
كلّ تَوق.
هل يمكن أن تُذيب الرغبة عضلاتك؟
هل يمكن أن تكون أحلى من أقوى المهدّئات؟
فهدٌ يخيط العالم،
عبرَ اختلافاتنا،
غازلًا الدانتيل حول ركبتيَّ.
هل يمكن للرغبة أن تسحق تباعُد العالم،
أن تكثّف الثواني؟
مازالوا يقتربون،
تلتقي عين الفهد بعين الإنسان،
تتنشّق الهواء،
تُحوِّل الجسد إلى
إلحاح.
يخفقون بأجنحتهم للأسفل.
هائجة،
تلتفّ الكرمة حول خصري/ خسارتي.
لسانهم يرقّق الوقت،
تتبدّل الآراء،
يُسكِّن، بسحرهم،
ما يشتعل أسفل [السطح].
أرى العالم فيك، والعالم مُنهَك.
ثم يتوسّلون:
دعيني أقتات عليك.
Benjaline Hernandez
2019: Feminist Realities in a changing world
AWID began preparing this annual report just as the global pandemic began to unravel how we gather, organize and live our lives. It is impossible to review what we have done without COVID-19 tinting our assessment.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Co-Creating Feminist Realities is no longer just an AWID Forum theme - it is a rallying cry in response to a pandemic that has laid bare the failures of social, political and economic systems.
It is an urgently needed affirmation that there are other, more just ways of organizing our lives. During 2019 hundreds of groups shared their experiences and proposals for feminist realities with us, ranging from radical networks of community support in Latin America facilitating self-managed abortion, to practices of community-centered economies in Indonesia and community-centered food systems in India and the US, to a re-imagination and new practice of harm-free rites of passage in Sierra Leone. These are the experiences that will chart a path forward for a “new normal”.
Yet long histories of oppression and violence can make it difficult to imagine the possible. A key part of our work in 2019 was to spark these explorations through a toolkit AWID launched to support groups interested in unearthing the stories and aspirations that are the building blocks of feminist propositions.
While we focus on our proposals for a different world, we recognize the challenging context around us.
Through the Observatory on the Universality of Rights, Feminists for a Binding Treaty, Count Me In! and other alliances, AWID has continued to push back against unfettered corporate power and fascist and fundamentalist agendas that undermine women’s rights and gender justice. With dim prospects for transformative change through multilateral processes and limited responsiveness from most states, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that feminist movements, in all their diversity, are resourced in ways that match the critical roles they play - supporting their communities, demanding rights and responding to crises. In 2019 we introduced feminist principles and approaches to ground-breaking funds like the Spotlight Initiative and the Equality Fund, and succeeded in leveraging resources through feminist reality seed grant funding from feminist funders.
As we look ahead, it is clear that the context is calling for a transformation of our organizing strategies:
- we are learning to navigate global advocacy confined to online channels,
- we grapple with the uncertainty of when and how we can convene in person, and
- we use the tools at our disposal to tighten connections across local to global spheres.
AWID is embarking on a new membership model that lowers barriers to access and emphasizes opportunities for engagement and cross-member connection. We will continue to experiment with different online tools and processes for building community. Cross-movement engagement will stay at the center of our work. AWID’s actions in solidarity with oppressed movements and identities, even and especially where these are marginalized in feminist movements, are important to drive change and support broad and inclusive movements for all.
Crisis is not new to feminist and social movements.
We are resilient, we adapt, and we show up for each other. And we have to keep doing better. Thank you to all who are part of the journey with us.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Embodying Trauma-Informed Pleasure | Small Snippet FR
Incarner un plaisir en pleine conscience des traumatismes
Le traumatisme, ce n’est pas l’événement, c’est la manière dont nos corps répondent aux événements qui nous semblent dangereux. Et le trauma reste souvent coincé dans notre corps, jusqu’à ce que nous l’abordions. Il n’est pas possible de faire autrement – c’est ainsi que notre corps l’entend.
Shifa Gardi
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Nadine Gordimer
2024: Strengthening Movements, Sustaining Change
From the rising right in many countries and the flurry of funding cuts hitting hard civil society of the Global Majority, to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the intensification of violent conflicts in Sudan, and climate crisis in many parts of our planet, we are facing real forces of fascism and a world order of impunity. This makes our opportunities to come together and build solidarity particularly valuable and imperative for our survival as a global feminist community. Of course, in 2024, the 15th AWID International Forum finally happened, and what a powerful space it was.
Download the full 2024 Annual Report
As we look ahead, we build on the powerful calls to action made by feminists at the AWID Forum; Together we can build a world where justice, liberation and care are not aspirations but realities.
A Collective Love Print | Small Snippet ES
Una huella de amor colectiva
«Si podemos heredar un trauma, ¿podemos heredar una huella relacionada con el amor?»
Yaneth Alejandra Calvache Riveros
Contenido relacionado
C.R.I.C Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca: Cauca: Denuncian Nuevo Homicidio de una Defensora de Derechos Humanos
Marie-Lise Semblat-Frere
Isabel Marler
Biography
Isabel est une féministe du Royaume-Uni avec plus d'une décennie d'expérience de réponses féministes aux fascismes, aux fondamentalismes et aux tendances antidroits. À l'AWID, son travail se concentre sur le renforcement des connaissances. Elle a notamment dirigé la production de la série Droits en danger en collaboration avec l'Observatoire sur l'universalité des droits (OUR). Elle est titulaire d’un master en études sur le genre de l’École d’études orientales et africaines (SOAS) et a précédemment travaillé avec Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). Elle est passionnée par le travail intermouvements, la construction de connaissances centrées sur les mouvements et l’utilisation de l’expression créative pour perturber les systèmes d’oppression. En dehors du travail, Isabel est active dans divers espaces de justice liée au handicap, aux soins collectifs, à l’apprentissage et au plaidoyer.
Position
Responsable de l’initiative de Promotion des Droits Universels et de la Justice
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Clone of Crear | Résister | Transform: un recorrido por el Festival - smaller snippet
Crear | Résister | Transform:
un recorrido por el Festival
Mientras el capitalismo heteropatriarcal continúa forzándonos al consumismo y el acatamiento, observamos que nuestras luchas están siendo compartimentadas y separadas por fronteras tanto físicas como virtuales.
Idaly Castillo Narváez
Fariha Al Berkawi
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Biography
Margo Okazawa-Rey is an activist-educator and transnational feminist working on issues of militarism for nearly 30 years. She is a founder member of the International Women’s Network against Militarism and Women for Genuine Security, the US group of the Network. She has long-standing activist commitments with Du Re Bang/My Sisters Place in South Korea and Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling in Palestine. She also serves on the International Board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe in Bern, Switzerland and is President of the Board of Directors of Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID). Her foundational activist/life principle is that love is a radical act. She is also known as DJ MOR Love and Joy.
Position
President
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Clone of #6 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet ES
¡Está siempre dispuestx a explorar nuevas experiencias!
Yo: Señor, ¿probó por el culo?
Él: No, no probé.
Yo: Piénselo, porque me gustaría cogérmelo / joderlo tal como a lxs trabajadorxs nos cogen / joden en los trabajos cuando lo que nos pagan no alcanza para vivir.
Prudence Nobantu Mabele
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Rahma Abdulkadir
