We have been contacted by global and regional partners about some ideas for pre-Forum convenings and we will share more information about these ideas soon.

If you plan to organize a meeting before the Forum please let us know!

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Many beautiful things emerged from the 2016 Black Feminisms Forum (BFF) that was organized by an Advisory Group and funded by AWID. Some of the independent organizing that arose from the BFF include Black feminist organizing in Brazil. While we won’t have another BFF this year, we remain committed to sharing some key learnings with anyone interested in continuing work around Black feminist organizing.

One of the founding leaders of the cooperative was Lohana Berkins, an activist, defender and promoter of transgender identity. Lohana played a crucial role in the struggle for the rights of trans and travesti people. 

This brought about, among many other things, the passing of the Gender Identity Law. It is one of the most progressive legislations in the world, guaranteeing fundamental rights to trans and travesti people. Now, people can change their names and genders only with an affidavit, and have access to comprehensive healthcare without judicial or medical intervention/approval (Outright International, 2012).

This is an English article

- translated from the French article

Georgia's minimum wage is in the bottom percent of all countries in the world. This reality affects mostly women.

The country not only has a significant gender pay gap, but women also work longer, more unregulated hours before going home to take care of housework and their families. There is no maternity pay, no wage increase for overtime work, no unemployment insurance, and no pay for sick leave or other social protection. Pressured by Western organizations, Georgian oligarchic political parties have been implementing reforms that are destroying the welfare state, increasing austerity measures, and worsening worker exploitation - all for the benefits of big corporations which are applauding the country for its “ease of doing business”. Mass media, coerced by private and corporate interests, either remain silent or biased on these issues. Union organizing remains one of the very few options to fight for basic human rights, and for holding the State and corporations accountable in the face of daily, pervasive violations and persecutions, especially against women.

Sources: Minimum-Wage and Interview with Sopo Japaridze to OpenDemocracy

This section highlights key resources recommended by AWID so you can conduct your own WITM research.

In this section

• People needed
• Potential expenses
• Estimated time
• Resources needed
• Resources available

People needed

• 1 or more person(s) to lead overall implementation of research methodology and ensure all key pieces are on track (Sections 2-11)
• 1 or more person(s) to conceptualize the key research objectives and guiding questions
• 1 or more person(s) to refine and conduct the research methodology, including collecting data
• 1 or more person(s) to conduct relevant qualitative and quantitative analysis of collected data
• 1 or more person(s) to document and package research findings for desired audience(s)
• 1 or more person(s) to serve as an editor to your final products
• 1 or more person(s) to conduct outreach to spread the word about your survey and advocacy using your research results

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Potential expenses

1. Staff and/or consultant salaries
2. Data analysis software if conducting analysis of large dataset in-house. Options:
   - SPSS
   - Stata
   - R (this is free)
3. Cost of producing publications and research products
4. If desired, incentive prize that survey participants can win if they complete the survey
5. If desired, incentives to offer your advisors

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Estimated time

• For research process: 6 to 18 months, depending on size of dataset(s) and staff capacity
• For advocacy: 1-2 years, as determined by your organizational goals

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Resources needed

• List of advisor organizations, donors and activists
• List of online spaces and events/networks to distribute your survey and present your survey results
• List of donors, activists, and women’s rights organizations to interview
• Prepared interview questions
• List of publication sources to use for desk research

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Resources available

• Sample 1 of Research Framing
• Sample 2 of Research Framing
• Example: 2011 WITM Global Survey
• Sample WITM Global Survey
• Sample letter to grantmakers requesting access to databases
• AWID Sample Interview Questions: Donors
• AWID Sample Interview Questions: Activists & Women’s Rights Organizations
• Sample Advocacy Plan

Online tools

• Survey Monkey: Free
• Survey Gizmo: Converts to SPSS for analysis very easily
• Tutorial: Gentle Introduction to Cleaning Data
• Visualization Tools
• “Ready to Go?” Worksheet

Once you gather these resources, you can estimate the costs for your research using our “Ready to Go? Worksheet”

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Previous step

Before you begin

Next step

2. Frame your research

Previous step

Before you begin

Next step

2. Frame your research

The Ready to Go? Worksheet helps you estimate resources, staff and budget needed for your research

Download the toolkit in PDF

Context

Today, many community knowledge systems are at risk.

Fast-paced economic, political, and cultural changes are bulldozing environments, practices and livelihoods. Various forms of knowledge are being erased from practice, commodified and colonized in the massive swallow of globalisation and in the promise of short-term gains or band aid solutions.

Definition

Buen Vivir, a concept adapted from Andean Indigenous peoples’ knowledges, is described as the collective achievement of a life in fulfillment, based
on harmonic and balanced relations among human beings and all living beings, in reciprocity and complementarity. It means acknowledging that human beings are a part
of nature, we depend on nature and are inter-dependent among ourselves.

Inherent in Buen Vivir is a vision that integrates production and reproduction as inseparable processes of the economy, of wealth production and living conditions.

Feminist perspective

In this sense, a broad understanding of Buen vivir from a feminist lens values relationships and resources mobilized in production and reproduction cycles—favouring equilibrium of not just the market kind—to guarantee continuity and changes as long as they are compatible with economic justice and life sustainability.

From a feminist perspective there have also been criticisms of the binary conceptions of gender and complementary of men and women. Binary conceptions leave little space for a deeper discussion on heteropatriarchy and non-conforming gender relationships.

Nevertheless, one of the main contributions of centralizing the principle of Buen Vivir to political, economic and social frameworks, is that equality is no longer the paradigm of individual rights, but the transformation of society as a whole.

Learn more about this proposition:

• Buen Vivir: An introduction from a women’s rights perpective in Boliva by Martha Lanza challenges the notion that Buen Vivir is gender neutral and calls for the dismantling of patriarchal power structures that persist. In the same publication, Magdalena León takes a look through a gender lens at how the cosmovision of Buen Vivir seeks to overcome ideals of permanent expansion and growth and sheds light on gender biases that need to be addressed.
• Buen Vivir: Today's tomorrow, by Eduardo Gudynas
• Indigenous Women's Visions of an Inclusive Feminism by Myrna Cunningham highlights the contributions from indigenous women in building a more diverse, inclusive and ultimately stronger feminist movement are key.

Meet Sabrina Sanchez, remarkable trans migrant woman, sex worker, organizer, transfeminist and one of the founders of the union OTRAS.

Originally from Mexico City, she migrated to Spain 17 years ago after getting a degree in communications and started working as a sex worker.

It didn’t take long before she became involved with trans activism and sex worker activism in Barcelona. After joining the collective Asociación de Profesionales del Sexo (Association of Sex Workers, Aprosex), she started working in its secretariat and founded the Spanish sex workers union OTRAS.

She currently lives in Amsterdam where she works as the coordinator of the European Sex Workers’ Alliance.

Fun fact: she’s also a car mechanic and serious runner!