The full “Where is the Money for Feminist Organizing” report will be published in 2026.

To learn more how AWID has been shining a light on money for and against feminist movements check out the work of our Resourcing Feminist Movements Initiative here.

"I participated in a member-only activity and I was particularly moved to see how there was space for everyone to share and that there was no judgment whatsoever. The entire session was energetic and vibrant."

- Kirthi Jayakumar, Founder, The Gender Security Project, India 

For each AWID Forum we call for contributions from a wide range of feminist and social justice movements to propose activities and create the Forum program.

For the 14th AWID international Forum, we want to make the program truly representative of the diversity of the movements.

That is why we put in place a new and engaging way to choose the proposals that will generate the final Forum program: the Participatory Selection Process (PSP).

What is the Participatory Selection Process (PSP)?

The Participatory Selection Process is the final step in reviewing the activity proposals and selecting those that will be part of the official Forum program. 

This is how it works: 

1. Activity proposals have originally been submitted via our Call for Forum Activities, open to everyone - groups and individuals - interested in presenting their feminist reality at the Forum.
2. Out of all the activities submitted, AWID staff pre-selects the ones best reflecting the Forum theme and presenting a creative approach for audience engagement.
3. Activities are then reviewed and short-listed by different Forum Committees to ensure a good diversity of regions, movements and ideas.
4. The selected proposals are then reviewed and rated by individuals and groups whose proposals have also been short-listed. The proposals which receive the most votes from fellow candidates will become part of the final Forum program.

The whole activity selection process at a glance:

Why did AWID decide to organize a PSP for the 14th AWID Forum activities?

We think a PSP is relevant for the AWID Forum because:

• It places at the centre of the decision making process the communities who live the feminist realities that will be showcased and discussed at the Forum 

• It is consistent with our identity and our role as a movement support/ accompaniment organization. 

• It is in line with our vision of the Forum as co-created with different feminist and social justice movements, who shape the Forum through their participation in committees (content and methodology, access, artivist and host country), creating and facilitating activities as partners with AWID and also making decisions about the Program through the PSP.

• It allows for greater diversity in the textures that will make up the Forum fabric (or in the voices that will compose the Forum song). It ensures we go beyond AWID itself and the movement partners that we already know and work with. It opens the door to the unexpected.

How did AWID come up with this PSP idea?

This is the first time AWID is considering such a process.

The initial idea came from AWID’s Co-EDs and staff. Before committing to a decision, we consulted some of the community funds that have been implementing participatory selection processes for years. These included FRIDA: The Young Feminists Fund, the International Trans Fund, UHAI - East Africa’s fund for sexual minorities and sex workers - and the Central American Women’s Fund. We consulted them to learn from their extensive experiences and get their feedback.

Pre-selected activities

• Financial autonomy, breaker of silence
  ORGANISATION DES FEMMES AFRICAINES DE LA DIASPORA (OFAD) ASSOCIATION LES PETITES MERES PRODADPHE ASSOCIATION AMBE KUNKO (AAK)

• Contribution of feminist organisations to the fight against violent extremism in Niger
  Femmes Actions et Développement (FAD)

• Self-financing: home banking for women 
  Rassemblement des Femmes pour le développement endogène et solidaire RAFDES

• Food and food sovereignty for rural women
  Association Song-taaba des Femmes Unies pour le Développement (ASFUD)

• Feminist leaders, investing in positive masculinity, creating a new balanced social order: how to change mentalities? 
  Une societe cooperative, la chefferie traditionnelle des localites, les autorites administratives et les autres associations feminines ONG Centre Solidarite "Investir dans les Filles et les Femmes

• Co-creating the sponsorship methodology.
  NEGES MAWON

• Millennium of opportunities to save the earth (MOST) by supporting climate justice for local and Indigenous communities in Congo Basin. 
  Jeunesse Congolaise pour les Nations Unies (JCNU), Association Genre et Environnement pour le Développement (AGED)

• Envisioning an Asian Queer Feminist Politics
  ASEAN Feminist LBQ Womxn Network Sayoni

• Supporting the Self-Managed: Abortion Doulas, Acompanantes, and Radical Networks of support
  inroads

• Online Feminisms: How Women Are Taking Back The Tech
  Feminism In India

• Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Sex Workers
  Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW), The International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW AP)

• Sustainable Feminist Leadership and Organizing - Personal and Collective Experiences
  HER Fund, Institute for Women's Empowerment (IWE) ,Kalyanamita, AAF

• Caribbean Realities: Black Sauna Radio
  WE-Change Jamaica

• Telephone Helplines Care and Women Experience
  Generation Initiative for Women and Youth Network (GIWYN),Youth Network for Community and Sustainable Development (YNCSD), Community Health Rights Network (CORENET)

• Sensuality as resistance; body movement workshop
  UHAI EASHRI

• Lesbian Disco Eastern European Style
  Sapfo Collective

• FitcliqueAfrica Feminist Utopia Installation, Trauma Healing and Self Defense Camp
  FitcliqueAfrica (Fitclique256 Uganda Limited)

• Queering Communications for an Open Internet
  Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice

• Is the Way you Think about Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRHR) Ableist? Good Practices for Disability Inclusive SRHR Programmes and Advocacy.
  Asia Pacific Network of Women with Disabilities and Allies

• Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication
  API Equality-LA, Sayoni, ASEAN Feminist LBQ Womxn Network

• Feminist centred approaches to prosecuting sexual harassment in the world of work
  Women's Legal Centre

• Women in Conflict in Myanmar
  Women's League of Burma, Rainfall

• Caribbean Feminist Spaces, Creative Expressions & Spiritual Practices for Community Transformation
  CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice

• POP-UPS: Just Power: Popular Education Tools for a Feminist Future
  JASS/Just Associates

• UnAnonYmous: Queering Black African Diaspora Feminist Practices Sobriety

• Digital Witchcraft: Magical Thinking for Cyberfeminist Futures
  The Digital Witchcraft Institute

• Building Womanifestos: Grassroot Women's Agenda for Change in Asia Pacific
  Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development

• Designing your astral travels
  EuroNPUD, narcofeminists as a loose group

• Collective Care
  RENFA Rede Nacional de Feministas Antiproibicionistas

• Music of our movements
  Radical imagination

• From waste to Ecofriendly coal
  KEMIT ECOLOGY SARL

• Collective care and insurgency of feminist antiracist movements under authoritarian and violent contexts
  CFEMEA - Feminist Center of Studies and Advisory Services, CRIOLA - black women`s organization, Iniciativa Mesoamericana de Mujeres Defensoras

• Breaking Patriarchal Religion's Stranglehold on Family Laws that Affect Our Lives #FreeOurFamilyLaws
  Musawah

• Feminist approach to claim and control over lands within investment
  Badabon Sangho, APWLD

• Women's Global Strike: Our resistance, our future
  Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law & Development, ESCR-Net, Women's March Global

• Towards an Inclusive ‘Mother Earth’
  Disability Rights Fund, Open Society Foundation

• From Inclusion to Infiltration: Strategies for Building Intersectional Feminist Movements
  Mobility International USA (MIUSA)

• The hidden stories of women with invisible disabilities: Art in action
  The Red Door, Merchants of Madness, Improving Mental Wellbeing through Art

• Public-Private Partnership and Women´s Human Rights: learnings from case studies in the Global South
  Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)

• The Interconnected Journey: Our Bodies, Our Sci-Fi! <3
  The Interconnected Journey Project, Laboratorio de Interconectividades

• Compiling and Building: Alternative feminist vision to challenge the dominant world economic order
  IWRAW Asia Pacific

• Self-publication as a feminist act
  International Women* Space

• Good Practices of legal protection for gender & sexual minorities in Pakistan and their Intersectionality
  Activists Alliance Foundation, Khawja Sirah Society, Wajood Society, Wasaib Sanwaro

• Feminist Approaches to Counter Trafficking
  IWRAW Asia Pacific, Business & Human Rights Resource Center

• Critiquing individualism and state policies: transnational organizing against targeted violence
  Masaha: Accessible Feminist Knowledge

• Decolonizing Intimacy: How Queer Identities Challenge Heteronormative Family Structures
  WOMANTRA

• Yeki Hambe - Sex worker theatre
  Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Task Force

• Creating the Indigenous feminist reality: honoring the sacred feminine and building new paths for Indigenous women
  Cultural Survival, International Funders in Indigenous Peoples

• Eyes on Anti-prohibitionism by Brazillian Women
  Mulheres Cannabicas, Tulipas do Cerrado

• Black Feminist Truth Commission: Addressing Injustices to Revolutionize Intersectional Feminism as the New Reality
  Black Women in Development

• Community care is self care: true stories are told in safer spaces
  Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, Metzineres, Urban Survivor’s Union, Salvage women and children from drug abuse

• NO MOVES BARRED:Dancing connections between Disability,trans & sexual rights against violence
  National Forum of Women with Disabilities, Autonomy foundation, Nazyk kyz

• The Impact of Corporate Capture on Feminist Realities: Developing Tools for Action
  ESCR-Net | Economic, Social, Cultural Rights Network

• Reimagining AIDS: building a feminist HIV response
  Frontline AIDS, Aidsfonds, IPPI (Indonesian Network of Women Living with HIV), UHAI-EASHRI (East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative)

• Advancing Economic Justice towards Realizing Our Vision of a Feminist Planet
  International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ESCR-Net

• Sex Workers Cafe
  Hydra e.V.

• Adopting an ecofeminist approach in dealing with climate change and food security
  Umphakatsi Peace Ecovillage, Human Rights Educational Centre

• Connecting the grassroots with the international: experience from creative sex worker mobilisation in Europe
  International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe, STRASS - French Sex Worker Union, APROSEX, Red Edition

• Experiment with how innovative tech can help us feel safer when navigating our cities
  Soul City Institute for Social Justice, Safetipin, Womanity Foundation

• question “Are hierarchies within organisations UNfeminist?”
  Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya National, Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

• We all are different, but we do have joint shared values
  UNWUD (Ukrainian network of women who use drugs), JurFem Association, Women's Prospects

• A World Without Class
  Bunge La Wamama Mashinani (Grassroots Women's Parliament)

• Women Empower the Community
  Institute for Women's Empowerment (IWE), Solidaritas Perempuan, ASEC Indonesia, Komunitas Swabina Pedesaan Salassae (KSPS)

• Feminist Organizing: Transformational Leadership - Women Workers in Latin America Creating a Feminist Labor Movement and a Feminist World of Work
  Solidarity Center

• Acting Out, Acting Up : Disability-Feminism decolonising narratives of Stigma thro' Participatory theatre
  Rising Flame, National Indigenous Disabled Women Association, Nepal, The Spectrum & Union of Abilities, The Red Door

• Valuing and centering rest, pleasure and play
  ATHENA Network

• The African feminist judgment project
  The Initiative for strategic Ligation in Africa (ISLA)

• Voices from the frontlines: Bolstering collective power to end the incarceration of women worldwide
  International Drug Policy Consortium, Equis Justicia para las Mujeres, National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, Women and Harm Reduction International Network

• Queer Youth Organising: imagining in an era of human rights and sustainable development
  African Queer Youth Initiative, Success Capital Organisation

• Our Struggles Our Stories Our Strengths
  Oriang Lumalaban, Pambansang Koalisyon ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan

• Breaking barriers for collective Indigenous climate action in Southeast Asia
  Cuso International, Asia Indigenous Peoples' Pact

• Love Positive Women: Going beyond romantic love to deep community love and social justice
  Eurasian Women's Network on AIDS

• Intersex and Feminism
  Intersex Russia

• Understanding the reproductive health experiences and needs of transgender and gender diverse people
  Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN)

• Because She Cares: Critical conversations on HIV activism as (un)caring work
  Because We Care Collaborative

• The Mississippi Food Systems Manifesto
  Center for Ideas, Equity & Transformative Change, National Council of Appropriate Technology - Gulf South, MS Food Justice Collaborative, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

• Kurdish Women's Movement co-presidency experience as an example of a radical feminist realization: Co-presidency is our PURPLE line!
  The Free Women’s Movement (TJA)

• WOES -"Walking on Egg Shells"
  Eldoret Women For Development (ELWOFOD), Mama Cash, Young women against Women Custodial Injustices Network

• FREEDOM

• Prison Isn’t Feminist: Exploring the impact and alternatives to reliance on police and incarceration
  Migrant Sex Workers Project, Showing Up For Racial Justice

• Bondo without Blood: A Feminist Reimagining of Sierra Leonean Rites of Passage
  Purposeful

• Liberated Land & Territories: A Pan-African Conversation
  Thousand Currents (USA), Abahlali baseMjondolo (South Africa), Nous Sommes la Solution (west Africa/regional), Movilización de Mujeres Negras por el Cuidado de la Vida y los Territorios Ancestrales (Colombia), and Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (Brazil)

• Popular Education and Organizing for a Feminist Economy
  Jamaica Household Workers Union (JHWU), United for a Fair Economy, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL)

• So You Wish To Mobilise With An Empty Wallet? Let’s Make It Happen!
  Breakthrough India

• Experience sharing establishing a network for women human rights defenders in East Africa: Ugandan perspective
  Women Human Rights Defenders Network Uganda

• Tech clinic
  Stichting Syrian Female Journalists Netowrk

• Building Inclusive Movements: Going Beyond Tokenism
  Rising Flame

• Justice & Healing for Survivors of GBV: an interactive debate on restorative justice and the anatomy of an apology
  One Future Collective

• Collective actions to ending transphobia through a feminist lens
  Asia Pacific Transgender Network, Iranti, Transgender Europe

• LBQ women & Asylum
  Sehaq

• Abortion and Disability: Towards an Intersectional Human Rights-Based Approach
  Women Enabled International

• Learn how to support the self-organizing of undocumented, migrant, and criminalized and sex workers communities
  Buttrerfly (Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network)

• Self Care: A Fundamental Tool for Sustaining LGBTQI & Feminist Organizing
  United and Strong Inc., S.H.E Barbados, Lez Connect

• Reclaiming Young African Feminist VOICES-REALITIES-POWER for climate justice
  Young Feminist organization Gasy Youth Up, Young African Feminist Dialogues

• Women in action & solidarity: performing our realities (Asia & Africa)
  Young Feminist organization Gasy Youth Up ( co-founder) , Young African Feminist Dialogues ( member)

• Women in action & solidarity: performing our realities (Asia & Africa)
  Women Performing the World (Asia/Africa)

• Challenging patriarchy: Workers in entertainment sector
  Women Forum for Women in Nepal (WOFOWON)

• The non-citizens: issues of women's citizenship in the context of migrant, vulnerable communities in South Asia
  NEthing

• Visioning for voice in migration and climate crises
  Women's Refugee Commission, The Feminist Humanitarian Network, ActionAid

• In It Together: Women's Funds and Feminist Movements Co-Creating Feminist Realities
  Mama Cash, Global Fund for Women, Urgent Action Fund - Africa

• Co-creating magic with young feminist movements - participatory practices that spark joy
  Feminist organizing, FRIDA The Young Feminist Fund (Community), Teia

• Protection right of woman’s in difficult realities 3 organizations of women from marginally communities
  NGO Asteria, Ermolaeva Irena and Bayazitova Renata. NGO Ganesha Musagalieva Tatiana. NGO Ravniy Ravnomu Kucheryavyh Tanya

• Feminnale - traditions against art and expression
  Bishkek Feminist Initiatives

• Resistance through knowledge, arts and activism: creation of a feminist library in Armenia
  FemHouse, Armenia

• Conquering the UN System with Feminist Strategies (You Don’t Need to be a Lawyer to Have Fun)
  Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative "Feminita", IWRAW Asia Pacific, ILGA World

• Data. Huh. What is it good for? Feminist data and organizing for feminist outcomes
  International Women's Development Agency, Women's Rights Action Movement, Fiji Women's Rights Movement

• Criminalized Women’s voice, leadership and influence on laws, policies and practices in Kenya
  Keeping Alive Societies Hope-KASH, Katindi Lawyers and Advocates, Vocal Kenya

• From Colombia to the world, African women's changing force
  Proceso de Comunidades Negras en Colombia -PCN, Solidarité Féminine por la Paix el le Develppment Integral -SOFEPADI,

• Afro Queer Listening Lounge and Story-Telling Booth
  AQ Studios, None on Record, AfroQueer Podcast

• Reclaiming Bodily Integrity
  GBV Prevention Network : Coordinated by Raising Voices

• Learning from diversity
  Circulo de Mujeres con Discapacidad -CIMUDIS, Alianza Discapacidad por nuestros Derechos -ADIDE, Fundación Dominicana de Ciegos -FUDCI, Filial Puerto Rico de Mujeres con Discapacidad

• Football as a feminist tool
  Fundación GOLEES (Género, Orgullo, Libertad y Empoderamiento de Ellas en la Sociedad)

• Migratory constellations
  LasVanders

• Ecofeminist dialogues to defend territories
  CIEDUR (Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre el Desarrollo), Equit, Foro permanente de Manaos y Amazonia

• La Frida BikesMoviment
  La Frida Bike

• Witchcraft, shamanism and other insurgent knowledge against patriarchy.
  Colectiva Feminista MAPAS-Mujeres Andando Proceso por Autonomías Sororales

• Experiences, learnings and challenges in managing holistic security of horizontal feminist organisations and of gender-dissidence in times of social and political crisis. The experience of the popular uprising in Chile of 18 October.
  Fudación Comunidades en Interfaz

• Food that we all know about
  Las Nietas de Nonó, Parceleras Afrocaribeñas por la Transformación barrial (PATBA)

• Practices of resistance against climate change of Indigenous women in Peru and Guatemala
  Thousand Currents, Red de Mujeres Productoras de la Agricultura Familiar, Asociación de Mujeres Ixpiyakok (ADEMI, Ixpiyakok Women's Association)

• Building Feminist Cities
  CISCSA, Articulacion Feminista Marcosur

• Stand in my place
  Alianza Discapacidad por nuestros Derechos - ADIDE, Circulo de Mujeres con Discapacidad -CIMUDIS

• Clearing the way for women's fullness of life, healing collective and historical traumas
  Grupo de Mujeres Mayas Kaqla

• Zapoteca Indigenous women challenged by nature

• Houses of Care and Healing for Women Human Rights Defenders as part of Integral Feminist Protection: A Feminist Reality
  Iniciativa Mesoamericana De Defensoras de Derechos Humanos, Consorcio Oaxaca para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad A.C, Red Nacional De Defensoras De Derechos Humanos en Honduras, Coletivo Feminista de Autocuidado

• Healing your unicornix voice: Weaving ancient and digital technologies to sharpen the tongue

• Feminist trajectories for an assisted motherhood protocol for women with disabilities
  Circulo emancipador de mujeres y niñas con discapacidad de Chile, CIMUNIDIS, WEI

• School for trans feminist children
  Fundación Selena

• REDTRASEX: Experience of Organization and Struggle for the Rights of Women Sex Workers in Latin America and the Caribbean
  RedTraSex Red de mujeres trabajadoras sexuales LAC

• Gender based violence and the world of sex work in Mexico
  Brigada Callejera de Apoyo a la Mujer, "Elisa Martínez", A.C., Red Mexicana de Organizaciones Contra la Criminalización del VIH. Red Mexicana de Trabajo Sexual

• Migration forces us to draw the path as we walk
  Asociación de Trabajadoras del Hogar a Domicilio y de Maquila. ATRAHDOM

• New narratives for Black women: body, healing and pleasure

• Weaving memories and networks - Black Feminists strengthening Black feminisms in LAC
  Red de Mujeres Afrolatinoamericanas, Afrocaribeñas y de la Diáspora, Articulação de Organizações de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras (AMNB), Voces Caribeñas

Le principal objectif de l’enquête WITM est de faire la lumière sur la situation financière de divers mouvements féministes, de défense des droits des femmes, pour la justice de genre, de défense des personnes LBTQI+ et des mouvements alliés dans le monde entier. Sur cette base, nous souhaitons démontrer l’importance d’orienter davantage de fonds, de meilleure qualité, et de transférer le pouvoir vers les mouvements féministes.

Linda Porn es una otra heroína de la organización sindical feminista y del activismo de las trabajadoras sexuales a nivel nacional (en España) y transnacional.

Originaria de México, vive en España desde los años 2000. Es trabajadora sexual, activista, madre soltera y artista multidisciplinar.

Partiendo de estas diferentes identidades, utiliza la performance, el videoarte y el teatro para visibilizar las luchas en las intersecciones del transfeminismo, el trabajo sexual, la migración, el colonialismo y la maternidad. Combina el arte y el trabajo sexual mientras cuida a su hija como madre soltera.

Linda también pertenece a colectivos de trabajadoras sexuales que luchan por sus derechos, como el sindicato OTRAS y CATS Murcia. También cofundó el grupo 'Madrecitas' - que visibiliza y denuncia la violencia institucional racista contra las familias migrantes. Violencia de la que ella y su hija fueron objeto por ser trabajadora sexual y madre soltera migrante.

¡No te pierdas su trabajo artístico aquí!

El Foro de AWID estará organizado alrededor de 6 tópicos interconectados. Estos «ejes» se centran en las realidades feministas.

Explora

By Prinka Saraswati, Gianyar, Bali

The menstrual cycle usually lasts between 27 and 30 days. During this time, the period itself would only go on for five to seven days. During the period, fatigue, mood swings, and cramps are the result of inflammation.

In traditional Javanese culture, this is the moment for women to rest and take care of themselves. During this moment, a woman would take Kunyit Asam, a jamu or herbal drink to soothe the inflammation. This elixir consists of turmeric and tamarind boiled together in a pot.

I still remember my first period - it was one day before graduation day in elementary school. I remember pedaling my bike feeling something warm running between my thighs. When I arrived home I did all I could to clean myself and then put on a menstrual pad. My mother came home from work about four hours later. I told her what had happened. She looked me in the eye and asked how I felt. I told her that it was painful, that my body was swollen in every place. Then she asked me to go with her to the backyard. I followed her to our little jungle, my mother sat down on the soil and smiled.

“See this slender leaf? This is the leaf of Kunyit, *empon-empon that leaves the yellow stain on your fingers. What’s most important is not the leaf, but the roots. You dig the soil and slowly grab the roots.”, my mother showed me how to pick Kunyit or Turmeric roots. Then we went to the kitchen where she boiled water along with some tamarind. While waiting for it to boil, she showed me how to wash and grate the orangey-yellow root. Then, we put the grated turmeric into the boiling tamarind water. “Tomorrow, you can make it for yourself. This will help you to feel better!”.

I remember the first time I tasted it - a slightly bitter taste but also sour. My mother always served it warm. She would also put some in a big bottle which I would place on my stomach or lower back for further relief. For days after, my mother’s hands and mine were yellow. My friends could always tell every time I got period because my hands would be yellow.

A year after my first period, I found out that you could get the bottled version in convenience stores. Still, I made my own Kunyit Asam every time I had my period because the one in the convenience stores was cold. It did not smell of wet soil and warm kitchen.

Fast forward, I am a 26 year old woman who casually makes this drink for friends when they have their periods. I’ve made some for my housemates and I’ve delivered some for friends who live in different towns. I do not grow turmeric roots in my garden, but I have grown and shared the love from my mom. What was once from garden to cup is now from *pasar to cup.

A couple of days ago, I asked my mother who taught her how to make the jamu.

“Who else? Yang Ti*! Your grandmother was not just a teacher”, said my mom. I was never close to my grandmother. She passed away when I was eight. All I knew from my mom was that she was a math teacher who had to teach courses after work. I had this image of my grandmother as a hard worker who was kind of distant with her children. My mom did not disagree with that but explained it came from her survival instinct as a mother. “She tried to make time. She tried. She taught me how to make jamu so I could take care of myself and my sisters”.

My mother is the second child out of seven, six of whom are girls. The reason my grandmother taught her is so that all of her children could take care of each other. While my mother was taught how to make the drink, my mother’s older sister was taught how to plant turmeric. Yang Ti knew which one loved the smell of soil more and which one loved the smell of the kitchen. My mother was the latter. She learned how to plant from my aunt, her older sister.

My grandfather worked in a bank but he got laid off when he was in his 40s. So, my grandmother had to do a side-hustle to support their children. My mother was in high school at that time when Yang Ti woke her and her older sister up at dawn. “Would you help me to pick some roots?”. Of course nobody said no. Especially if it was your mother, especially if you were born in Javanese culture where saying “no” sounded like a bad word. Together, the three of them went to the backyard, and they harvested empon - empon, rhizome, that was buried inside the soil. She grew many kinds of rhizome; temu lawak, temu putih, ginger, galangal, kunci, kencur, and kunyit. That was the day where my mother realized that her mother was never far away from her.

That was the day where she could spend more time with her mother. There, in the garden. There, in the kitchen.

“We’re sending these for Ibu Darti, the lady who lives across the river. Kunyit Asam for her and her daughters.”, said my grandmother to my mother and my aunt that day. They poured the Turmeric-Tamarind warm drink into a tall thermos and later my grandmother would deliver it on the way to school.

Over time, my grandmother got more orders for jamu. Everybody in the family helped her to make and deliver her jamu. The small business lasted only a few years, but that was what paid for my mother and her siblings’ education.

Today, my mother, who got laid off just a few days before I wrote this piece, harvested Turmeric and other roots. She’s making her Turmeric Tamarind drink from her kitchen.

My phone rang in the middle of this afternoon, a couple minutes after I boiled the rest of my grated turmeric. Today is one day after my period.

“Ingka, have you washed your pot after boiling those turmeric? It would forever be yellow if you don’t wash it right away!”

• *empon-empon = roots like ginger, turmeric, etc. coming from the Javanese word “Empu” which means, something or someone that has deep knowledge.

• *jamu = Indonesia’s traditional elixir made of roots, barks, flowers, seeds, leaves, and fruits.

• *Yang Ti = Javanese term for grandmother, taken from the term “Eyang Putri” the female you look up to.

• *pasar = the word for traditional market in Indonesian.

“Feminist Movement”

by Karina Tungari, Hamburg, Germany  (@_katung_)

The more women support other women, the quicker we’ll see progress. Together we are stronger and make even more impact.

No, we very much appreciate your work but are not asking for responses from women’s and feminist funds at this time. We do encourage you to share the survey with your grantee partners and feminist networks.

Domaines prioritaires

•   Ressources des mouvements féministes
•   Construction d’économies féministes
•   Promotion des droits universels et de la justice