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.

The Black Feminisms Forum (BFF) is scheduled to take place in early September this year in Salvador, Brazil, ahead of the 2016 Association for Women’s Rights in Development Forum. It will bring together Black feminists from different communities and contexts across the globe to celebrate the contribution of Black feminisms to knowledge, practice and struggles for self- determination and justice, while building solidarity across the boundaries of nation states.

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.

When organizations and movements are asked what they need to grow stronger, many are clear about their answer - better relationships and alliances across their sector and across movements.

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.

African feminist movements are diverse. But we can, and must, learn from decades of transformational organising on the continent.

The Black Feminisms Forum is a space unlike any I’ve ever been a part of. There aren’t words to describe the feeling of sitting in a room full of Black women from across the world, all speaking different languages, all hailing from different contexts, all here and present in one space with the fire of our different feminisms and activisms in our bellies.

The Forum opened with an invitation for us all to collectively celebrate our victories, acknowledge our wounds, and co-create the futures we aspire to.