Founded in 2008, La Floraison’s mission is to mobilize, convene and support young women human rights activists in Fizi territory[1], a rural area in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to advance their social, cultural and economic wellbeing. Its mission is part of a broader vision for the emergence of a new group of young women concerned about their development and resolutely committed to becoming agents of sociocultural and economic progress within their environment. This brought about the slogan “Young women serving the community” which has been part of the association since its launch.

“I sacrificed all of my time to serve the most vulnerable, especially women victims of sexual violence,” Magdeleine Rusia Abwe, psychosocial assistant of one of the Floraison projects. 

The organization uses an approach they call ‘Our Voice’ which ranges from awareness-building and information-sharing via a theatrical troupe, a newspaper and community radio, to advocacy, and mobilizing resources for women’s groups. ‘Our Voice’ is proof of our support and engagement toward a world without violence,” says Loy Honore, founder of La Floraison. 

A counseling center for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence 

For three years, La Floraison has supported the psychosocial care and socioeconomic reintegration of women and girls who are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence within the Nemba, Katenga and Rubana health centers in Fizi territory. Through the counselling center the project seeks to inform communities about sexual violence against women and girls, available services, and women’s rights and their legal implementation, as well as provide victims with counseling, referral to medical and legal support services and ensure their economic reintegration through Village Saving and Lending Associations (VSLA), while strengthening community activism against gender-based violence.

In addition to documenting, counselling, supporting, and providing referrals to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, La Floraison mediates between survivors who have been shunned and their families. To compliment, the project includes community outreach on sexual and gender-based violence, creating and strengthening Committees for Surveillance and Alert, social and community conflict resolution, and women’s rights advocacy.

“Through the group, I found something worth more than money: solidarity!”

A 17 year old Burundian survivor of violence, and beneficiary of La Floraison support, tells her story:

“At 15, I gave birth to my first child with an old loyal client who offered a cow to my mother. The brutality of that old drunkard – beatings, death threats – wouldn’t allow for a moment’s peace at home. I came home but my mother wasn’t pleased with my behaviour. In October 2013, an old Congolese man, older than 49, presented the need to bring me to the DRC with him, my mother gave him her permission for marriage without asking me and the suiter gave 3 goats and 2 pairs of loincloths[2] as my dowry.

When we arrived in the DRC, I found out that he had 3 wives and that I had become the fourth; he had children older than me. After a month, the three first wives didn’t want me on the plot of land. The husband abandoned me without any support. I went to see the village chief but there was a language barrier. Without any ration or means of survival, I started to cultivate for people so that I could eat. When my husband learned that I was working for someone, he would come and threaten them by saying that I was his wife and that no one could use me without his consent. I did not understand anything because everything was happening in a language I don’t understand. Many people were scared to give me work. One day, three men came to my unprotected home around midnight. They raped me one by one. One of them heard my screams in Kirundi – who was also Burundian – and asked his friends to let me live. He advised me to leave because my husband was planning to kill me. In the morning, the neighbours came to my rescue.         

I didn’t tell anyone what happened to me that night – the rape – because according to our customs, if others find out that you have been raped, no one can marry you any longer. In light of these threats, the village chief brought me to his home and the police came to investigate. It was not easy to help me because I was in the DRC illegally, but they began to look for my husband. My life became very difficult because I had already sold all of the goods I had for survival, and those of my child. I asked the village chief to send me to Burundi. That cost more than $30, it was not easy.

One day, a women working at the health centre came to look for me and asked me to come to the health centre for a private meeting. I was scared, but when I arrived at the location, she welcomed me very kindly, she reassured me, but I was so emotional and the meeting couldn’t take place because of all my crying. She gave me a new meeting, and this time, I told her everything that happened beginning from Burundi. The nurse also saw me and I went to Sebele[3] for care. She helped me a lot, with counselling and visits, even though I don’t speak fluent Swahili. I would go and see her at the health center and one day she came with me to the police station to follow-up on the progress of my case and asked the police officer to facilitate my repatriation to Burundi.

She also recommended that I join a savings and credit group founded in the village so that I could receive a loan to conduct small business transactions. Through the group, I found something worth more than money: solidarity! I didn’t know that I could find such generous people by my side, especially during such hardship. I received a small loan of 16,000FC, which allows me to sell fry (12,000FC) and corn flour (4,000FC). I can’t starve to death anymore.     

Mentally, I feel good, but I still need to return to my country to live with my mother.”

[1] Fizi territory includes four rural communities, 27 groups, 142 towns and 1,634 villages. The infrastructure is in poor condition, particularly for education, health, employment, transportation and recreation. The area lacks electricity and few households have access to potable water and proper sanitation.

Iniobong, an AWID member since January 2015, is an Irish citizen with Nigerian roots. In 2001, she migrated to Ireland because she was forced to leave Nigeria after experiencing domestic, sexual and reproductive abuse.

“I don’t think anyone should be put in that situation where they are a slave to someone…. It shouldn’t happen to anyone”, she says.

Her arrival to Ireland as an asylum seeker and a single mother was extremely difficult at the beginning.

“People judge you even without knowing your situation”, she says. But due to her determination, Iniobong completed post-secondary education and has since worked in different paid and voluntary positions.

For years Iniobong kept her experience of abuse and forced migration to herself. She feared her family’s reactions and did not want to be judged, pitied or labelled.

In 2014, Iniobong chose to break her silence.

She spoke out for herself but also “for people who are currently experiencing what I had gone through, for survivors, for those who have given up hope and those who want to make a fresh start.”

“I am grateful because I have a voice and I can use it freely.”

Iniobong also uses her voice to advocate for the rights of women and children who are facing different kinds of violence.

With the help of some friends, she founded Love and Care for People Worldwide, a non-governmental organisation that supports women, children and youth affected by abuse, poverty and other forms of social exclusion. “I wanted to offer people hope and make them know their determination combined with some support.” The organisation offers diverse activities to help strengthen children’s and women’s self-confidence, learning and vocational skills.

“I would not sell my happiness for anyone. I have to be happy for me. And not continue living my life to please every other person but me.”

Listen Iniobong's story in her own words

The Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) - advocating for free, safe, and legal abortion in Ireland - has been an AWID member since May 2015. It is a grassroots, non-hierarchical, all-volunteer organization and is autonomous in its pro-choice activism.

ARC partners with numerous social justice, human rights and gender equality groups working on issues that intersect with and are impacted by Ireland’s failure to support full sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs) for women since the 1983 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution.

Although ARC only formed in January 2013, it currently actively partners with over 15 organizations throughout Ireland and internationally including the women’s councils, transgender, immigrant, traveler and regional/rural groups.

Marching for Choice

As part of this year's Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, ARC held its 4th Annual March for Choice on 26 September 2015

The march is part of ARC’s wider mission to secure access to free, safe, and legal abortion, while challenging the restrictive, stigmatized, and patriarchal environment surrounding SRHRs in Ireland.

Cathie Doherty, one of the co-conveners of ARC tells us, “There is an appetite in Ireland for real change, contrary to the statement from the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach. We need to end the hypocrisy of travel and the hypocrisy which forces women who cannot travel to carry pregnancies or to break the law by importing the abortion pill. We can change Ireland. We can have a society which treats us as the valuable human beings that we are.”

In just one year (2013 – 2014), the march grew from 1,000 to 5,000 participants, and there were a reported 10,000 participants at this year's march. Marchers have brought wheelie suitcases to symbolize the thousands of women who have been forced to seek abortion elsewhere. Between January 1980 and December 2014, at least 163,514 women and girls travelled from the Republic of Ireland to access safe abortion services in another country.

Speaking out – Breaking Silence and Stigma

ARC works closely with women who have had abortions to tell their stories. They create a safe space where women can speak and be listened to. Ireland’s ‘Speak-Out’ organized in 2013 and again in 2014 gave a platform to women to talk about their abortions and reproductive health experiences abroad or illegally in Ireland. Some women have shared their stories with the press.

The Comedian and writer Tara Flynn recently spoke publicly about her experience in the Irish Times and said about the March for Choice that she will also MC for, “It’s time to acknowledge real women’s stories – women we all know – and actual facts: hundreds of thousands of women have had to travel and will continue to travel for healthcare they need, or put themselves at risk. Silence has got us nowhere. It’s time to talk.”

Dismantling Myths Through Social Media

For ARC, social media is an effective platform to campaign for and highlight bodily autonomy issues which often more traditional media fail to engage with.

“We strive to incorporate the use of new media and technologies into all of our advocacy work, with the aim of engaging as wide an audience as possible,” ARC said.

Ahead of International Women's Day in 2014, ARC ran the '8 days, 8 myths' campaign, dismantling the stigma and falsehoods surrounding abortion.

4th Annual March for Choice Campaign

Rama is a young Senegalese feminist, researcher and writer. In her early twenties, she wrote her first novel La dernière lettre, published by Présence Africaine in 2008. A year later she was selected as a MILEAD fellow of the Moremi initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa. The fellowship is awarded to 25 young African women with extraordinary vision, courage and commitment to lead change in their communities.

"Becoming one's full and unapologetic self is a difficult but the most important of all achievements. I have methodically learned to un-learn and re-learn, to de-construct and re-construct all that I have been taught about how women should socialise..." 

As the 2015 Ibrahim Governance and Development PhD scholar, Rama is about to begin her doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She already holds an MSc in International Development specializing in African Economic Development and Gender and a Masters’ degree in International Cooperation and Development from the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies, France.

Rama is an Advisor of FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund and a member of the Political Economy and Globalisation Team of Development Alternatives with Women for a new Era (DAWN). In previous years, she worked as a Research Assistant at the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), briefly in the charity sector in France and at the UNDP country office of Mauritius.

"To become my true self, I have learned that my self-care and achievement of my dreams were more important than societal labels that do not even define me..."

In 2013, Rama contributed to a collective book by the Network of young African Researchers on Democracy and Development in Africa and has also been a columnist for Nouvel Horizon Senegal.

"To me being a feminist is accepting that I will have to question everything established by society to define who I should be or what I ‘should want’ because ‘should and want’ are antithetical. Wanting is powerful when liberated from the ‘should’ or ‘should not’. Be You. Period."

Listen to her recent speech

Rama spoke on behalf of the Women's Working Group on Financing for Development, at the 2nd Plenary Meeting of the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2015.

The story of Koogere

The Kitara Empire once encompassed present-day parts of eastern Uganda, some areas of northern Tanzania and of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In this Empire, it is told, a woman named Koogere reigned over the Busongara Chiefdom. It is said that she was an exceptionally wise chief, great leader and entrepreneur who, among other achievements, brought socio-economic prosperity to her communities. The Koogere oral tradition tells the story of Koogere’s leadership, carrying her legacy through generations of the community. 

“Busongora bwa Koogere mbere ikamwa niboroga, Amagita gatera amaato, amata geser’ente” (Busongora of Koogere the land of plenty of cattle and abundant dairy products).

Koogere’s Legacy Today

The Koogere Women Empowerment Programme of Engabu Za Tooro (Tooro Youth Platform for Action, EZT) is built around and inspired by this oral tradition. EZT, an AWID member since early 2015, is an indigenous Ugandan organisation founded in 1999 and working with communities in western Uganda. EZT works to strengthen the capacity of these communities, using cultural practices to promote gender equality, the rights of indigenous women and community self-reliance. Their main activities aim to promote grassroots women’s mobilization and leadership; encourage women’s production and marketing in agro-business and cultural enterprises; end domestic violence and promote women’s economic rights.

EZT works through images and film.

Watch a video about the Koogere oral tradition

EZT is accredited to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and is facilitating the nomination for their oral tradition to be inscribed by UNESCO on the world list of intangible cultural heritage during the 10th session of its Intergovernmental Committee for Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. The session will take place from November 30^th to December 4^th 2015 in Windhoek Namibia during which indigenous women and gender activists will showcase this oral tradition.

“Engabu Za Tooro: Impassioned for social equity and inclusion” 

Often known as a ‘poet of peace and friendship’, Caroline Nazareno-Gabis (an AWID member), a.k.a. Ceri Naz is a native of Pangsinan, Philippines, currently living and working in Vancouver, Canada. She is an award-winning poet, editor, journalist, public speaker, linguist, educator, peace and women’s rights advocate.

Caroline has won numerous international prizes for her work, including the The Frang Bardhi Literary Prize 2014 in Albania, the sair-gazeteci (Poet-Journalist Award) during the 34th KIBATEK International Festival of Literature and Arts in Turkey and the World Poetry Empowered Poet 2013 in Canada. She was also a featured poet at Vancouver Word On The Street and chosen as the World Poetry International Director for the Philippines by the World Poetry Canada and International.

“i am the greatest me
for i have accepted the whole,
the real me…”

Caroline’s poetry, children’s and feature stories have been published in various book anthologies and magazines worldwide. Currently, she writes for the Philippine Canadian Inquirer, the Songsoptok International Online Magazine and the e-journal Our Poetry Archive.

Beyond her literary work, Caroline has created the The Ceri Naz Literary Award through which she supports journalism students at the Pangasinan State University as well as emerging writers, poets and artists in the Philippines.

“…i am
fragile
but had put up
the broken pieces
to streams of strength and breadth…”