While Colombia’s peace talks continue in Havana, Cuba, back home in the region of North Cauca, Black Colombians have found their cries for access to their ancestral lands met with tear-gas and rubber bullets.

The recent Zika outbreak in Latin America and the Caribbean has highlighted some areas where different sectors of the global feminist movement need to deepen reflection and dialogue about how to develop tactics and strategies for moving our collective rights and justice agendas forward.

The Movement for Black Lives, or as it’s more commonly known, #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) in the United States, has grown beyond a call to action in response to police brutality and the extrajudicial killings of Black people—Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and too many others—to a movement that challenges multiple layers of racial inequality.

A year ago today, 1,800 feminists and women’s rights advocates from all corners of our movements gathered on the shores of Bahia for the 13th AWID International Forum.

The Black Feminisms Forum (BFF) takes place 5 - 6 September 2016, ahead of the AWID Forum in Bahia, Brazil.

The BFF will connect Black and Afrodescendant feminists from many regions of the world to celebrate the contribution of Black feminisms to knowledge, practice and struggles for self-determination and justice, while building solidarity and collective power.

AWID spoke to Ana Cernov, program coordinator for Conectas South-South, about the current political crisis in Brazil. Cernov’s analysis aims to help us to understand the long-term effects on civil society and human rights in Brazil.

Video interview with Brazilian activist Jurema Werneck, Medical Doctor and Technical Coordinator at Criola.

Watch video of Brazilian feminist Nilcea Freire. She is running for Councillor in Rio de Janeiro´s municipal election in October 2016

Interview with the writer and feminist activist Schuma Schumaher, executive coordinator of the non-governmental organization REDEH.

In this first conversation – AWID's Arts & Culture Coordinator Amina Doherty sits down with donors, artists, and activists from diverse social movements, contexts and backgrounds to discuss their work, alternative strategies for organising and the value of supporting (and funding!) art.