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AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisation committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights

AWID Forum: Co-creating Feminist Futures

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!


What has happened since 2016?

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.

What happens now?

The world is a much different place than it was a year ago, and it will continue to change.

The next AWID Forum will take place in the Asia Pacific region (exact location and dates to be announced in 2018).

We look forward to you joining us!

About the AWID 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.

Learn more about previous Forums

Related Content

Snippet FEA Get Involved 1 (FR)

ENGAGEZ-VOUS!

Vous pouvez suivre le travail de ces collectifs sur les réseaux sociaux et sites internet suivant:

Juana Raymundo

Juana was an Indigenous Mayan Ixil, professional nurse and coordinator of the Farmers’ Development Committee (Comité de Desarrollo Campesino – CODECA).

CODECA is a human rights organisation of Indigenous farmers dedicated to promoting land rights and rural development for Indigenous families) in the Nebaj Quiché micro-region. She first joined CODECA as a member of its youth branch (Juventud de CODECA). At the time of her death had been elected to be part of the Executive Committee of the Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (MLP).

Juana’s body was found by neighbours by a small river on the road near Nebaj and Acambalam Village, Guatemala. According to CODECA, her body showed signs of torture.


 

Juana Raymundo, Guatemala

Snippet - WITM Our objectives - EN

Our WITM research objectives

1

Provide AWID members, movement partners and funders with an updated, powerful, evidence-based, and action-oriented analysis of the resourcing realities of feminist movements and current state of the feminist funding ecosystem.

2

Identify and demonstrate opportunities to shift more and better funding for feminist organizing, expose false solutions and disrupt trends that make funding miss and/or move against gender justice and intersectional feminist agendas.

3

Articulate feminist visions, proposals and agendas for resourcing justice.

Do I have to be an AWID member to participate in the Forum?

No, you don't have to be an AWID member to participate but AWID members receive a discounted registration fee as well as a number of other benefits.

Learn more on how to become an AWID member

Snippet FEA EoS The Cover (FR)

Illustration of a pink human in white underwear doing a power pose

La puissante
Autoprotection et renforcement

Kagendo Murungi

Kagendo es cariñosamente recordada por su familia y amigxs como una férrea activista feminista africana, artista y realizadora cinematográfica

Dedicó más de 20 años a defender los derechos y la dignidad de las personas LGBTIQ y de género no normativo de África. Lxs colegas de Kagendo la recuerdan como alguien con una personalidad jovial, convicciones férreas y amor a la vida. Kagendo murió por causas naturales en su hogar de Harlem, el 27 de diciembre de 2017.

Al producirse su fallecimiento, la escritora y activista keniata Shailja Patel destacó «el compromiso de toda la vida de Kagendo para establecer una relación entre todas las formas de opresión, mostrando de qué manera el colonialismo alentó la homofobia en el continente africano, para convertir así a Kenia en un país donde las personas queer y las mujeres libres puedan vivir y progresar».


 

Kagendo Murungi, Kenya

Our Companion Sites

The Young Feminist Wire

An online community for and by young feminists working on women’s human rights, gender equality and social justice around the world.

Visit the site

The Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)

The platform is the go-to place for information and resources on safeguarding the universality of rights in international and regional human rights spaces.

Visit the site

The Young Feminist Fund-FRIDA

Provides funding for young feminist-led initiatives. It aims to strengthen the capacity of young feminist organizations to leverage resources for their work and to increase donors’ and allies’ commitments to resourcing young feminist activism.

Visit the site

Online Directory of Urgent Responses for WHRDs

A go-to site to learn about the urgent responses undertaken to protect women human rights defenders and to find tools and resources to support the work and wellness of WHRDs.

Visit the site

IM-Defensoras (Mesoamerican Initiative for Women Human Rights Defenders)

A regional initiative created to prevent, respond, document and make public all cases of violence against women human rights defenders in the Mesoamerican region.

Visit the site

The WHRD International Coalition

The WHRD IC is a resource and advocacy network for the protection and support of women human rights defenders worldwide.

Visit the site

Post-2015 Women´s Coalition

A Coalition of feminist, women´s rights, women´s development, grassroots and social justice organisations working to challenge and reframe teh global development agenda. 

Visit the site

Women´s Major Group on Development

The role of the Women’s Major Group is to assure effective public participation of women’s non-governmental groups in the UN policy processes on Sustainable Development, Post2015 and Environmental matters. 

Visit the site

Women Working Group on Financing for Development

An alliance of women’s organizations and networks to advocate for the advancement of gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights in the Financing for Development (FfD) related UN processes.

Visit the site

Why should I consider responding to the survey?

There are many reasons why your response to the WITM survey matters. The survey offers the opportunity to share your lived experience of mobilizing funding to support your organizing; claim your power as an expert on how money moves and who it reaches; and contribute to collective and consistent advocacy to funders moving more and better funding. Over the last two decades, AWID’s WITM research has proven to be a key resource for activists and funders. We wholeheartedly invite you to join us in its third iteration to highlight the actual state of resourcing, challenge false solutions, and point out how funding must change for movements to thrive and meet the complex challenges of our times.

My question isn’t answered here

For additional questions, please use our contact form, and select “14th AWID Forum" from the dropdown menu.

Contact us

Snippet FEA Ecofeminism (EN)

WEST AFRICA

NOUS SOMMES LA SOLUTION
We are the Solution

ECOFEMINISM:

Respect for all we have around us

Benoîte Groult

Benoîte était une journaliste, écrivaine et militante féministe française.

Elle a publié plus de 20 romans et de nombreux essais sur le féminisme

Son premier livre « Ainsi Soit-Elle » a été publié en 1975. Le livre explore l’histoire des droits des femmes ainsi que la misogynie et la violence à l’égard des femmes.

Son dernier livre, « Ainsi Soit Olympe de Gouges», a exploré la question des droits des femmes pendant la Révolution française, se concentrant sur la figure de l’ancienne féministe française Olympe de Gouges. De Gouges fut guillotinée en 1793 pour avoir défié l'autorité des hommes et publié la « Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne » deux ans auparavant. 


 

Benoïte Groult, France

English article

English article created from Spanish site

En nuestro caso, reorientamos dinero a nuestros socios beneficiarios y nos identificamos como fondo de mujeres/feminista, ¿deberíamos responder la encuesta?

No. Valoramos muchísimo su trabajo, pero no estamos buscando respuestas de fondos de mujeres/feministas por el momento. Alentamos a compartir la encuesta con sus socios beneficiarios y con sus redes feministas.

Why did AWID choose Taipei as the location for the Forum?

We see Taipei as the location in the Asia Pacific region that will best allow us to build that safe and rebelious space for our global feminist community.

Taipei offers a moderate degree of stability and safety for the diversity of Forum participants we will convene. It also has strong logistical capacities, and is accessible for many travellers (with a facilitated e-visa process for international conferences).

The local feminist movement is welcoming of the Forum and keen to engage with feminists from across the globe.

Read more about our considerations when choosing Taipei

Snippet FEA Mariama Sonko (EN)

This is Mariama Sonko, an inspiring small-scale rural farmer, eco-feminist and a woman human rights defender.

She lives in Niaguiss, a town in the southwest of Senegal. Growing up in a family and community of rural farmers, she witnessed the essential role of women in food production and seed preservation from a very early age, while also being immersed in the rhythms and working of the land. Mariama has been defending local agricultural knowledge and peasant practices since the 1990s. As a mother of five children, the food she grows herself is the main source of sustenance for her family.

She is currently the president of “Nous Sommes la Solution'' and is involved in promoting agroecological practices and family farming, encouraging food sovereignty, biodiversity and farmer seed preservation, and demanding equitable access to resources and land for women across West Africa.

Source: AWID’s Feminist Realities Festival Crear | Résister | Transform - Day 2/ 2ème jour/ 2º día

Stella Mukasa

Stella began her career at the Ministry of Gender and Community Development in Uganda engaging with policymakers for law reform, including the 1995 Ugandan Constitution, which established some of the most progressive reforms for women in the region.

She is revered throughout the region for her tireless efforts to create and enforce gender-responsive laws and policies. She played a key role in drafting Uganda’s Domestic Violence Act and in mobilizing support for gender-responsive constitutions in both Uganda and in Rwanda.

Through her work with International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), she worked on violence against children, and worked to strengthen the capacities of grassroots organizations addressing gender-based violence. She was a lecturer on gender rights and the law at Makerere University and served on the boards of Akina Mama wa Afrika, ActionAid International Uganda and the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa.


 

Stella Mukasa, Uganda