In September 2016, the 13th AWID international Forum brought together in Brazil over 1800 feminists and women’s rights advocates in a spirit of resistance and resilience.
This section highlights the gains, learnings and resources that came out of our rich conversations. We invite you to explore, share and comment!
One of the key takeaways from the 2016 Forum was the need to broaden and deepen our cross-movement work to address rising fascisms, fundamentalisms, corporate greed and climate change.
With this in mind, we have been working with multiple allies to grow these seeds of resistance:
And through our next strategic plan and Forum process, we are committed to keep developing ideas and deepen the learnings ignited at the 2016 Forum.
AWID Forums started in 1983, in Washington DC. Since then, the event has grown to become many things to many peoples: an iterative process of sharpening our analyses, vision and actions; a watershed moment that reinvigorates participants’ feminisms and energizes their organizing; and a political home for women human rights defenders to find sanctuary and solidarity.
Lara fue una muy conocida y querida DJ de radio en la FM Motsweding, en Sudáfrica.
Fue una de las primeras conductoras abiertamente transgénero en una estación de radio comercial. Trabajó mucho para echar luz sobre los temas LGTBI.
El activismo de Lara comenzó a temprana edad, cuando defendía vivamente su derecho a vestirse y comportarse de una forma que le resultara cómoda y lo hacía frente a integrantes de su comunidad que todavía no entendían qué significaba ser transgénero.
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EN CHIFFRES
Com base na nossa história de 20 anos de mobilização de mais fundos de melhor qualidade para a mudança social liderada por feministas, a AWID convida a participar da nova edição da nossa pesquisa principal:
(WITM)
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Maria a consacré la majeure partie de sa vie à l’intégration d’une perspective féministe et de la parité hommes-femmes dans les activités institutionnelles et organisationnelles, ainsi qu’au renforcement des capacités.
Enfant, Maria s'intéressait beaucoup à l'art, à la communication, à la nature, à la littérature et à la justice, en particulier pour les femmes et les groupes marginalisés.
Elle a milité en faveur droits sexuels et reproductifs et était membre du Conseil national pour une éducation intégrale à la sexualité. Celleux qui l’aimaient se souviennent d’elle comme d’une « combattante passionnée et infatigable », résolument engagée en faveur des droits des femmes et des enfants
by Gabrielle Tesfaye
When I created my short animation film, The Water Will Carry Us Home, my mind was plugged into a magical world of fearless resilience and ancestral mermaids who transformed their deepest scars into a new generation of life. Set during the time of the transatlantic slave trade, I was pulled to show this history of African enslavement in a different way than it has ever been told on screen. I wanted to give my ancestors the commemoration they never received. I was motivated to reclaim the history that continues to paint us as helpless victims. Essentially, I wanted to tell the truth. To reclaim and reimagine our history and perspective, means to simultaneously heal our generational traumas that exist today. It is this important work that so many women through the African continent and the African diaspora are doing today, igniting our collective Feminist Realities.
In the making of the film I researched religiously, and in what was written, I saw what was not. There were many times I felt I was hitting a wall trying to find something that was not there, and it was in those voided places that I realized the storytellers of today are filling the voids. I found the most useful stories in contemporary art, film, and African diaspora folklore.
“... a truly unique, raw and representation of feminist power in action.”
- Hers is Ours Collective, organizers of the Outsider Moving Art & Film Festival
The Water Will Carry Us Home carried itself around the world into the hearts of the Diaspora. It also led me here, as the curator of the African and Diaspora film screenings of AWID’s Co-Creating Feminist Realities initiative. Whilst curating this collection of films, I looked for stories that were completely unique, raw and representational of feminist power in action. Consisting of three shorts and one feature, they reveal stories through many communities in Africa and the diaspora, including Ethiopia, Uganda, The Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Kenya. These films reposition African women as what they truly are- self governing and empowered through the unfiltered lens of their work.
“An incredibly beautiful, attentive, finely observed telling of the connection between Africa and its Diaspora formed form the trans Altantic slave trade. The visual universe it creates is just gorgeous… an echo of the fusion of spiritual traditions and non-linear time that speak to how we are still experiencing the moments of the past that formed 'new' worlds of diaspora blackness.”
- Jessica Horn, PanAfrican feminst strategist, writer and co-creator of the temple of her skin
Our short documentary film, Women Hold Up the Sky, created by the WoMin African Alliance, tells the story of women activists in Uganda and the Democractic Republic of Congo who are actively reclaiming their land rights, threatened by mining and other extractives in their homes. The film not only exposes the corruption of extractivism, but finally shares what we have been missing on screen - how grassroots African women are actively organizing, strategizing, and analyzing within their communities to create women-centred and community-driven alternatives. Margaret Mapondera of WoMin explains it beautifully, that they are the “custodians of lands, forests, waters, rivers and territories; the ways in which women hold and transmit the stories / herstories of our past and our futures; the powerful and transformative ways of being that women embody in their relationships to each other, to the environment and in themselves.”
“A refreshing and much-needed piece of cinema highlighting the many ways African women are coming together to create women-led and community-driven alternatives… The fight is on and
women hold the key.”
- Hers is Ours Collective, organizers of the Outsider Moving Art & Film Festival
Pumzi, created by critically acclaimed director Wanuri Kahiu, bridges Africa and science fiction around climate and environmentalism. Pumzi imagines a futuristic world where humankind has been forced to settle on another planet. While Pumzi seems afro-futuristic and new for Africa on the surface, Kahiu reveals the truth that science fiction and fantasy is something that has always existed in African storytelling, but never recognized. Kahiu creates a world where women are truth seekers and heroes who pioneer us into a new world, the opposite of images that position Africans as victims of war and destruction. Instead, Pumzi writes the narrative of African women being their own saviors and problem solvers, who stop at no cost to follow the cryptic visions they channel in their dreams.
“A pioneering African sci-fi film, situating women as scribes of the future and opening up our visions about other worlds, other universes we might occupy as Africans - always an important exercise as we imagine our way out of present crises.”
- Jessica Horn, PanAfrican feminst strategist, writer and co-creator of the temple of her skin
Our feature film of the program, Finding Sally is set in 1970’s Ethiopia during the time of The Red Terror war, documenting the striking history of director Tamara Mariam Dawit’s activist aunt, Sally Dawit. Throughout the film we learn of Sally’s incredible journey as a young and courageous woman activist navigating one of the most violent times of Ethiopian history. Sally’s story not only reveals the gravity of this time, but the reflection of her own personal evolution as a young woman. Dawit was intentional to tell the film through the lens of women, untouched by male voices. Due to so much Ethiopian history being told by men, the making of this powerful story preserved its reality of honoring the feminist perspective. Dawit explains, “Women in revolution and war are often only included as someone's spouse or someone who did cooking or typing work. I wanted to look at the activism around the revolution only through the memories and voices of women.” Finding Sally demonstrates the reclamation of history sought by current filmmakers today. It is an igniting of feminist power and our connected realities throughout time.
“The responsibility falls on us, to remember these women that came before us and their brilliant work so they are not forgotten like the thousands of women already forgotten while fighting the good fight. Sally is such a woman and may she never be forgotten.”
- Hers is Ours Collective, organizers of the Outsider Moving Art & Film Festival
Register here to watch this film from June 18-22
These films have became a part of my own psyche, empowering me to continue building powerful alternatives towards justice from within. They affirm that I am a woman among a world of women, holding up the skies and actively building indestructible Feminist Realities. These films are more than stories of African women - they are globally relatable, inspiring and set the example of Feminist Realities for all of us around the world.
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لجعل الواقع المركّب لتمويل الأشكال المختلفة من التنظيم النسوي، مرئي
So'oalo was a fervent human rights advocate, especially pertaining to the rights of the LGBTQI community in the Pacific.
She was a member of the Samoa Fa’afafine Association (SFA) and a passionate advocate for the acknowledgement of a third gender in the island country. Under her leadership, the SFA pushed for the recognition of the validity and rights of the fa’afafine community.
She was also a pioneer in articulating the links between human rights, exploitation of fa’afafines in Samoa and the Pacific, and the health, wellbeing and security of the LGBTQI community.
She was an inspiration, a visionary and her dedication to the pursuit of rights for her community is admirable and will be remembered.
En China, el movimiento #MeToo [«Yo También»] se encendió en enero de 2018, empujado por el ímpetu del movimiento #MeToo de todo el planeta. Fue una respuesta a los problemas culturales y sistémicos relacionados con el género y el poder dentro de China. Las bases del movimiento habían sido establecidas durante décadas, y los muchos años de debate y promoción de la igualdad de género, finalmente, hicieron erupción con tremenda fuerza en toda la sociedad. El movimiento #MeToo fue impulsado fundamentalmente por jóvenes, que incluyen a innumerables mujeres anónimas y sus aliadxs, en busca de oportunidades para hacer realidad el principal «sueño chino»: transformar a China en un país con igualdad de género.
En China, el contexto para el movimiento #MeToo es extremadamente adverso: el Estado de derecho, la justicia y la transparencia de las acciones gubernamentales y la libertad de expresión no pueden darse por descontados, pero estos son precisamente los objetivos por los cuales lucha el movimiento. Ha sido, desde el principio, una lucha intensa, y cada víctima o activista que se visibiliza corre enormes riesgos: desde ser silenciadx o humilladx o de sufrir represalias hasta poner en peligro su seguridad. Todos los éxitos del movimiento #MeToo han sido logrados por quienes son lo suficientemente valientes como para asumir los costos de manifestarse y desafiar la censura.
La exhibición «#MeToo in China» fue inaugurada en 2019 y recorrió cinco ciudades. Su objetivo es dar mayor prominencia a las experiencias personales de lxs víctimas y lxs activistas, para inspirar al público a unirse a la lucha a través del contacto con estas historias. La exposición misma se ha convertido en parte de la lucha #MeToo: ha debido enfrentar desafíos en su itinerario por toda China y, en más de una ocasión, fue amenazada con la clausura.
La Cooperativa Textil Nadia Echazú lleva el nombre de una pionera en la lucha por los derechos de las personas trans y travesti en Argentina. En muchos sentidos, el trabajo de la cooperativa celebra la vida y el legado de Nadia Echazú, que tuvo una notable trayectoria activista.
Era una de las cofundadoras de "El Teje", el primer periódico trans de América Latina, junto a Lohana Berkins, Diana Sacayán y Marlene Wayar. Nadia formó parte de la Asociación de Travestis, Transexuales y Transgéneros de Argentina (ATTTA) y fundó la Organización de Travestis y Transexuales de Argentina (OTTRA).
Poco después de su muerte, sus compañeras activistas fundaron la cooperativa en su nombre, para honrar la profunda huella que dejó en el activismo trans y travesti en Argentina.
Samira fue una activista siria bajo el régimen de Bashar al-Asad.
Desde muy joven, se opuso a todas las formas de despotismo, especialmente en relación al régimen autoritario en el que vivía. En 2013, Samira fue secuestrada junto a otrxs tres destacadxs activistas. Se cree que se la llevaron del Centro para la Documentación de Violaciones de Duma, en el área rural de Damasco.
El principal sospechoso de su desaparición es el Ejército del Islam (el cual niega estar involucrado). No ha habido una investigación formal de la desaparición de Samira y desde entonces no se ha sabido nada de ella. Samira estaba comprometida con su país y se negaba a abandonar Siria hasta tanto no sintiera que su trabajo por el empoderamiento de las mujeres y en la documentación de los crímenes ya no fuera necesario.
Une exposition de Nicole Barakat qui incarne sa reconnexion avec la diaspora d'objets provenant de ses terres ancestrales dans l'Asie du Sud-Ouest et l'Afrique du Nord.
Barakat présente une collection d'œuvres textiles en tant que manifestations de sa démarche consistant à travailler avec des objets déplacés, souvent volés, détenus dans les collections de musées occidentaux, notamment le Louvre, le British Museum et le Nicholson Museum.
Pour contourner les gardiens et pénétrer dans les vitrines contenant ces objets ancestraux, Barakat récupère des formes de connaissances précoloniales, non linéaires et réceptives qui sont souvent dévaluées et rejetées par les institutions coloniales et patriarcales. Elle utilise ainsi la cafédomancie, le travail du rêve, l'écoute intuitive et les conversations avec les objets eux-mêmes (source).
Ses œuvres comprennent des dessins en tissu et en papier cousus et découpés à la main, des formes sculpturales réalisées avec ses propres cheveux, du tissu et des matériaux végétaux, ainsi que des œuvres en direct où elle utilise sa voix comme matériau.
La pratique créative de Nicole s'enracine dans la re-mémoration et le re-couvrement de son savoir ancestral, y compris la cafédomancie et, plus récemment, le travail avec des plantes et des essences de fleurs pour le soin et la guérison de la communauté.