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.

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.

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.

As long as I can remember, my grandmother taught me to stand up straight, cross my legs, clear the table, cover myself, not to talk about periods, hide my maxi pads, not to use tampons because virginity is precious and should not be jeopardized.

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.

The recent AWID Forum that took place in Bahia, Brazil, invited participants to imagine “feminist futures.” But to do so, we must reckon with the extent to which the state and other forces are working to limit our imaginations. This was the focus of the session, Reclaiming Democratic Spaces, in which participants explored the clampdown on resistance taking place across national and international levels.