Cultivating self/collective care and wellbeing is both deeply personal and deeply political. When we nurture wellbeing at the personal level, we improve our ability to care and have compassion for others. We are interested not in hiding from our busy lives and stress, but in finding and sharing ways to fully embody our politics and principles, making our contributions sustainable.
We all engage with activism and become part of wider movements for our own reasons. While activism can help us feel free and grow as individuals, the road to imagining our collective futures and the effort that goes into building just, equal, free societies can be physically dangerous and emotionally draining.
Our hearts get broken. In romantic relationships, in our families, in our organizations and movements, the hurt is real. Raising resources is not easy. Building alliances and deepening relationships takes time. The lessons come most often through adversity.
The year continues on and the year seems to get more and more difficult to manoeuvre. From terrorism, to protests, to taxes, to paying the rent to hating your boss. It would seem that everyday there is some new cluster storm to deal with and as a black woman there is always just that little extra element of misogynoir flavour to add to the mix.
The AWID Forum was a time for celebration, reflection and creativity. That’s what you get when some 1800 feminists get together. But amidst the energy, the inspiration and the sleep deprivation, a serious process also took place.
By Laura Contrera
Being fat is part of the great diversity of humans, yet from a hegemonic medical perspective all kinds of fat are considered a medical risk, limiting the issue to a simple arithmetic calculation of unhealthy consumption and lack of exercise.
"I tell the girl how thoughtful it is of her to reach out. And then I ask her why she is so tired. She explains she has splinters in her palms from the umbrella she has been carrying all evening; and all the grown ups are still making her carry all the bags." By Fungai Machirori
Today, we come together to declare that our bodies, health, and choices are our own, and cannot be held back by oppressive fundamentalisms and discourses that seek to lay claim to us.
To the development community on International Day of Action for Women’s Health: don’t curtail our rights by legitimising conservative religious ideologies.
Her name is Suhair al-Bata’a. The 13-year-old Egyptian girl dreamt of one day becoming a journalist. In 2013, she was taken by her father to Dr Raslan Fadl Halawa’s clinic to undergo female genital mutilation, also known as FGM. She senselessly died at the hands of Halawa.