Resourcing Feminist Movements

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Around the world, feminist, women’s rights, and allied movements are confronting power and reimagining a politics of liberation. The contributions that fuel this work come in many forms, from financial and political resources to daily acts of resistance and survival.
AWID’s Resourcing Feminist Movements (RFM) Initiative shines a light on the current funding ecosystem, which range from self-generated models of resourcing to more formal funding streams.
Through our research and analysis, we examine how funding practices can better serve our movements. We critically explore the contradictions in “funding” social transformation, especially in the face of increasing political repression, anti-rights agendas, and rising corporate power. Above all, we build collective strategies that support thriving, robust, and resilient movements.
Our Actions
Recognizing the richness of our movements and responding to the current moment, we:
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Create and amplify alternatives: We amplify funding practices that center activists’ own priorities and engage a diverse range of funders and activists in crafting new, dynamic models for resourcing feminist movements, particularly in the context of closing civil society space.
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Build knowledge: We explore, exchange, and strengthen knowledge about how movements are attracting, organizing, and using the resources they need to accomplish meaningful change.
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Advocate: We work in partnerships, such as the Count Me In! Consortium, to influence funding agendas and open space for feminist movements to be in direct dialogue to shift power and money.
Related Content
#1 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet AR
مفضّلتي: لا مزاح في حضرة القوى العظمى

عزمي الوصول الى الذروة الجنسية، كفيلة بإيقاظ الأجداد من مثواهم الأخير وإعادتهم الى صفوف الثورة التقدميّة
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The AWID Forum is the world’s largest event that wholeheartedly centers feminist and gender justice movements in all their diversity. It is a transformative space created by and for the movements - where Global South feminists and historically marginalized communities take centerstage, strategize to shift power, and connect with allied movements, funders and policy-makers. And so it is with full and fiery hearts that we share…
The 15th AWID International Forum will take place from December 2-5, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand!
We hope to gather 2,500 in-person and 3,000 online/hybrid participants. When thousands of feminists come together, we create a sweeping force of solidarity that has the power to change the world! We’re excited, and we know you’re excited too - so stay tuned for more
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Welcome message
Hakima Abbas, AWID
"We're using the tools that we have to share our resistance, strategies and continue to build our power to take action and create new brave and just worlds."
Fatima Mernissi
How can I fund my participation in the AWID Forum?
If your group or organization receives funding, you might want to discuss with your funder already now if they are able to support your travel and participation to the Forum. Many institutions plan their budgets for next year early in 2023, so better not delay this conversation for next year.
Marren Akatsa-Bukachi
CFA 2023 - breadcrumbs Menu _ awid-forum-thai
María Fabiola Jiménez de Cifuentes
CFA 2023 - Tiytle Hybrid like never before: in person - EN
Hybrid like never before
For the first time, the AWID Forum offers three modes of participation
Obiageli “Oby” Nwankwo
With a legal career spanning more than 30 years, Oby was known across Africa and around the world as a champion for gender justice and human rights.
She founded and served as Executive Director of the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), a Nigerian NGO which sponsors trainings and network-building activities for members of civil society, parliamentarians and other key stakeholders to promote human rights, good governance and access to justice and rule of law.
Oby is remembered fondly by activists in Nigeria as an “extraordinary activist who displayed energy and passion towards the fight for gender equality and gender justice in Nigeria and across Africa.”
CFA 2023 - Call for Activities is live- ar
فتح باب الدعوة للأنشطة!
الموعد الأخير لتقديم المقترحات: 1 فبراير/ شباط 2024
انطلاقًا من روح موضوع المنتدى، ندعو إلى التقديم على مجموعة متنوعة من الموضوعات وأشكالها التي:
- تسهل الاتصال والتفاعل الحقيقي بين المشاركين/ات
- تعزز الشفاء والتجديد بأشكال مختلفة، كأفراد ومجتمعات وحركات
- تلهمنا وتتحدانا لنزدهر معًا كمجتمعات وحركات
Sue Hoya Sellars
Sue was an artist, activist and teacher born in 1936 in Maryland, USA.
Sue created art for women, about women. As a lesbian feminist, and for a time, a separatist, she was committed to creating women-only spaces. In 1976 she purchased land that is still held by women who visit to make art. Sue took a fierce stand on the protection of women and girls.
With her groundbreaking futuristic, classical and anthropological approach, she filled any room she entered with intellect, authentic eccentricity, unforgiving wit, and humor. Her ideas about consciousness and creativity continue to inspire many people.
2019: Feminist Realities in a changing world
AWID began preparing this annual report just as the global pandemic began to unravel how we gather, organize and live our lives. It is impossible to review what we have done without COVID-19 tinting our assessment.
Download the full 2019 Annual review

Co-Creating Feminist Realities is no longer just an AWID Forum theme - it is a rallying cry in response to a pandemic that has laid bare the failures of social, political and economic systems.
It is an urgently needed affirmation that there are other, more just ways of organizing our lives. During 2019 hundreds of groups shared their experiences and proposals for feminist realities with us, ranging from radical networks of community support in Latin America facilitating self-managed abortion, to practices of community-centered economies in Indonesia and community-centered food systems in India and the US, to a re-imagination and new practice of harm-free rites of passage in Sierra Leone. These are the experiences that will chart a path forward for a “new normal”.
Yet long histories of oppression and violence can make it difficult to imagine the possible. A key part of our work in 2019 was to spark these explorations through a toolkit AWID launched to support groups interested in unearthing the stories and aspirations that are the building blocks of feminist propositions.
While we focus on our proposals for a different world, we recognize the challenging context around us.
Through the Observatory on the Universality of Rights, Feminists for a Binding Treaty, Count Me In! and other alliances, AWID has continued to push back against unfettered corporate power and fascist and fundamentalist agendas that undermine women’s rights and gender justice. With dim prospects for transformative change through multilateral processes and limited responsiveness from most states, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that feminist movements, in all their diversity, are resourced in ways that match the critical roles they play - supporting their communities, demanding rights and responding to crises. In 2019 we introduced feminist principles and approaches to ground-breaking funds like the Spotlight Initiative and the Equality Fund, and succeeded in leveraging resources through feminist reality seed grant funding from feminist funders.
As we look ahead, it is clear that the context is calling for a transformation of our organizing strategies:
- we are learning to navigate global advocacy confined to online channels,
- we grapple with the uncertainty of when and how we can convene in person, and
- we use the tools at our disposal to tighten connections across local to global spheres.
AWID is embarking on a new membership model that lowers barriers to access and emphasizes opportunities for engagement and cross-member connection. We will continue to experiment with different online tools and processes for building community. Cross-movement engagement will stay at the center of our work. AWID’s actions in solidarity with oppressed movements and identities, even and especially where these are marginalized in feminist movements, are important to drive change and support broad and inclusive movements for all.
Crisis is not new to feminist and social movements.
We are resilient, we adapt, and we show up for each other. And we have to keep doing better. Thank you to all who are part of the journey with us.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
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Travelling to Bangkok
Peni Moore
Peni was a radical feminist philosopher, poet, writer, playwright and songwriter.
As the first coordinator for the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, she left a legacy that was infused with her deep concern for women’s human rights, justice and peace. Peni’s commitment to social, economic and ecological justice and her outstanding work gained local and international respect. She was one of the first in mainstream feminist movements in Fiji to work with, and beside LGBTQI people as a real accomplice, and provided practical assistance to the early Fiji sex worker movement.
Her colleagues described her as a formidable individual and visionary leader for change. She inspired many by her creativity and courage. Her work provided platforms for people to be heard, attain new skills and forge new pathways both at the personal and community level.
Priscilla Hon
Priscilla has nearly two decades of experience working in the non-profit sector with social justice organizations that worked on women and youth rights, conservation, peacebuilding and development. Her interests are in setting up progressive processes and systems that will help an organization live to their values and principles and thrive, and finding ways to support organizations and fundraisers to locate and secure the resourcing they need to do good work. . Priscilla joined AWID in 2018 as Resource Mobilization Manager and in July 2023, took on the role of Director of Operations and Funding Partnerships.
Priscilla holds an MSc in International Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a growing pile of books she is still trying to find time to read, and sits on the Board of Hodan Somali Community, a London-based charity.
Forum 2024 - FAQ - General Information - Thai
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Su’ad Al-Ali
Su’ad was a strong advocate of women’s and children’s rights, and was the head of Al-Weed Al-Alaiami - an Iraqi human rights organisation.
She participated in the July 2018 demonstrations that took place in Basra and several other Iraqi cities protesting unemployment and demanding jobs and proper public services for citizens, as well as calling for the elimination of rampant corruption.
On 25 September 2018, Su’ad was assassinated in the Al-Abbasiyah district in downtown Basra. A video of the incident showed a person approaching her as she was getting into her car, firing a bullet at the back of her head and pointing another bullet at her driver Hussain Hassan, who was injured in the shoulder. Al-Ali was 46 and the mother of four children.
Maria Olivo
Maria is a graphic designer and visual communicator. Maria has worked with NGOs and Human Rights like Profamilia and OXFAM. As a woman of the Global South, she feels especially called to use her skills to work with organizations that help protect the wellbeing, as well the rights of millions of girls and women in Latin America.