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Special Focus

AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisation committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights

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:

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Promoting more effective multigenerational organizing, exploring better ways to work together.

  • Supporting young feminists to engage in global development processes such as those within the United Nations

  • 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

Snippet - WITM to claim - AR

لتجسيد قوتكم/ن كخبيرات عن وضع التمويل للحركات النسوية

Snippet FEA Nadia Echazu (FR)

La Coopérative Textile Nadia Echazú porte le nom d'une pionnière dans la lutte pour les droits des personnes trans en Argentine. À bien des égards, le travail de la coopérative célèbre la vie et l'héritage de Nadia Echazú, qui a eu une carrière militante remarquable.

La Coopérative Textile Nadia Echazú porte le nom d'une pionnière dans la lutte pour les droits des personnes trans en Argentine. À bien des égards, le travail de la coopérative célèbre la vie et l'héritage de Nadia Echazú, qui a eu une carrière militante remarquable.

Peu de temps après sa mort, ses collègues militantes ont fondé la coopérative en son nom, pour honorer la marque profonde qu'elle a laissée sur l'activisme trans et travesti en Argentine.

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Efua Dorkenoo

Affectueusement connue sous le nom de « Mama Efua », Efua a lutté contre les mutilations génitales féminines (MGF) pendant trois décennies et a contribué à attirer l'attention et l'action de la communauté internationale pour mettre fin à cette pratique néfaste.

En 1983, Efua a cofondé FORWARD (fondation pour la santé, la recherche et le développement des femmes), qui est devenue une organisation de premier plan dans la lutte contre les MGF. Son livre intitulé « Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation »  (couper la rose), publié en 1994, est considéré comme le premier ouvrage sur les mutilations génitales féminines. Il figure parmi « Les 100 meilleurs livres africains du XXe siècle » de l’Université de Columbia.

Originaire du Ghana et infirmière de formation, Efua a rejoint l'OMS en 1995 et a réussi à faire en sorte que les mutilations génitales féminines fassent partie des agendas politiques des États membres de l'OMS. Elle a également travaillé en étroite collaboration avec le gouvernement nigérian pour élaborer une politique nationale globale qui servirait de base légale aux lois nigérianes contre les mutilations et qui est toujours en vigueur à ce jour.

Son travail de pionnière a abouti à une campagne menée par l'Afrique intitulée « The Girl Generation », qui s'est engagée à mettre fin aux MGF en une génération. Efua a montré comment une seule personne peut devenir la voix unificatrice d'un mouvement : « Une identité partagée peut aider à rassembler des activistes d'horizons différents dans un but commun ». Ces mots, emplis de sagesse, sont plus pertinents que jamais.


 

Efua Dorkenoo, Ghana

Snippet - WITM Survey will remain open - RU

Опрос будет открыт до 31 июля 2024 года

Пройти опрос!

Пожалуйста выберите язык, на котором вы хотите отвечать на вопросы в правом верхнем углу страницы

Если вы хотите узнать больше, присоединяйтесь к нашей встрече участников исследования «Где деньги?», которая пройдет 27 мая, понедельник, в 9:00 UTC – с синхронным переводом на французский и английский языки. 14:00 UTC – с синхронным переводом на испанский и английский языки.

Становиться участником (in English).

Snippet FEA Map of Georgia (EN)

This image is a close-up of Georgia in coral pink with a yellow pin indicating “Georgia Solidarity Network”

Su’ad Al-Ali

Su’ad was a strong advocate of women’s and children’s rights, and was the head of Al-Weed Al-Alaiami - an Iraqi human rights organisation.

She participated in the July 2018 demonstrations that took place in Basra and several other Iraqi cities protesting unemployment and demanding jobs and proper public services for citizens, as well as calling for the elimination of rampant corruption.

On 25 September 2018, Su’ad was assassinated in the Al-Abbasiyah district in downtown Basra. A video of the incident showed a person approaching her as she was getting into her car, firing a bullet at the back of her head and pointing another bullet at her driver Hussain Hassan, who was injured in the shoulder. Al-Ali was 46 and the mother of four children.


 

Su'ad Al Ali, Iraq

Snippet - WITM Acknowledgements - PT

Agradecimentos

A AWID agradece sinceramente às várias pessoas cujas ideias, análises e contribuições moldaram a pesquisa e a defesa do “Onde está o dinheiro” ao longo dos anos.

Em primeiro lugar, os nossos mais sinceros agradecimentos aos membres da AWID e às ativistas que participaram nas colaborações com o WITM e testaram este questionário connosco, ao partilhar tão generosamente o seu tempo, análise e espírito.

Agradecemos aos movimentos feministas, aos aliados e aos fundos feministas, incluindo, mas não se limitando ao Black Feminist Fund, Pacific Feminist Fund, ASTREA, FRIDA Young Feminist Fund, Purposeful, Kosovo Women's Network, Human Rights Funders Network, CEECCNA Feminist Fund e PROSPERA, pelas suas investigações rigorosas sobre o estado de financiamento, pela análise perspicaz e pela defesa contínua de mais recursos de melhor qualidade e poder para a organização feminista e de justiça de género em todos os contextos.

Junte-se à comunidade global de feministas que se manifestam sobre o estado de financiamento, e exigem mais recursos de melhor qualidade e poder para feministas globalmente.

Snippet FEA collaborator and allies Photo 1 (ES)

La foto muestra a Sopo Japaridze, uno de los cofundadores de Union Solidarity Network. Sopo tiene cabello castaño largo, con flequillo, ojos marrones y usa una máscara roja del Sindicato de la Red de Solidaridad. La foto está tomada de noche.

Fahmida Riaz

“Afterwards
After love the first time,
Our naked bodies and minds
A hall of mirrors,
Wholly unarmed, utterly fragile,
We lie in one another's arms
Breathing with care,
Afraid to break
These crystal figurines.” - Fahmida Riaz

Fahmida Riaz broke social taboos by writing about female desire in her poetry, creating alternative narratives about women’s bodies and sexuality, and setting new standards in Urdu literature.

Her work faced harsh criticism from conservatives, who accused her of using erotic and “pornographic” expressions in her poetic language. 

Fahimida was eventually blacklisted and charged with sedition under Section 124A of the Pakistan Penal Code) during the dictatorship of Zia Ul Haq. Forced into exile in 1981, she spent almost seven years in India before returning to Pakistan. 

As part of the preface to “Badan Dareeda” ('The Torn-Bodied'), a collection of poetry published in 1974, she wrote: 

If, indeed, I am forced to stand before this maqtal today and face the gallows, I should face them with my head held high. My poems are the trace of a mangled head: emanating sounds even as it is suspended from ropes... A Body Torn has taken the form of a razmia, or the sound of rupture. And if such rupture indeed shocks a people, then consider the poet as having achieved her purpose: she has managed to disturb them. (translation from Urdu by Asad Alvi)

The brilliance of Fahmida was in defying any singular logic or categories of gender, nation, religion or culture. She refused to be put in the role of a ‘woman poet’, breaking with traditional definitions of feminine poetry and concepts and themes (ranging from political consciousness, body, culture, desire, religion, home) and knocking down inhibitions put on her gender. 

“You have to understand that culture can have no essence. Cultures move, flowing into one another, forming new cultures. Culture is born this way. There is no clash of cultures.” 

Fahmida authored more than 15 books on poetry and fiction including her poem ‘Taaziyati Qaraardaaden’ (‘Condolence Resolutions’) that might serve as an appropriate tribute to her life and legacy and a collection of poems (Apna Jurm To Saabit He ‘My Crime Stands Proven’) published in 1988 during her time in exile. 

Fahmida Riaz was born in Meerut, India on 28 July 1946 and passed away on 21 November 2018 in Lahore, Pakistan.

مجموعتنا، منظمتنا و\أو حركتنا غير مسجلة. هل علينا تعبئة الاستطلاع؟

نعم! نريد أن نسمع منكم/ن عن تجربتكم/ن بالتمويل.

Snippet FEA Workers demonstrations in Georgia 2 (FR)

La photo montre une manifestation où une foule de personnes tient une bannière en géorgien qui se lit comme suit : « Le 8 mars pour les femmes travailleuses ».
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