Young Feminist Activism
Organizing creatively, facing an increasing threat
Young feminist activists play a critical role in women’s rights organizations and movements worldwide by bringing up new issues that feminists face today. Their strength, creativity and adaptability are vital to the sustainability of feminist organizing.
At the same time, they face specific impediments to their activism such as limited access to funding and support, lack of capacity-building opportunities, and a significant increase of attacks on young women human rights defenders. This creates a lack of visibility that makes more difficult their inclusion and effective participation within women’s rights movements.
A multigenerational approach
AWID’s young feminist activism program was created to make sure the voices of young women are heard and reflected in feminist discourse. We want to ensure that young feminists have better access to funding, capacity-building opportunities and international processes. In addition to supporting young feminists directly, we are also working with women’s rights activists of all ages on practical models and strategies for effective multigenerational organizing.
Our Actions
We want young feminist activists to play a role in decision-making affecting their rights by:
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Fostering community and sharing information through the Young Feminist Wire. Recognizing the importance of online media for the work of young feminists, our team launched the Young Feminist Wire in May 2010 to share information, build capacity through online webinars and e-discussions, and encourage community building.
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Researching and building knowledge on young feminist activism, to increase the visibility and impact of young feminist activism within and across women’s rights movements and other key actors such as donors.
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Promoting more effective multigenerational organizing, exploring better ways to work together.
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Supporting young feminists to engage in global development processes such as those within the United Nations
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Collaboration across all of AWID’s priority areas, including the Forum, to ensure young feminists’ key contributions, perspectives, needs and activism are reflected in debates, policies and programs affecting them.
Related Content
6. Menez une recherche documentaire
La recherche documentaire peut se dérouler tout au long de votre initiative. Elle peut vous aider à encadrer vos travaux, à choisir des questions de sondage et à comprendre vos résultats.
Dans cette section
- Préciser le contexte
- S’appuyer sur les connaissances existantes
- Sources éventuelles d’information pour la recherche documentaire
1. Sites Web et rapports annuels des donateurs
2. Sources d’information en ligne
Préciser le contexte
La réalisation de recherches documentaires tout au long de votre initiative peut vous aider à encadrer vos travaux, à choisir les questions de sondage et à vous fournir une clarté contextuelle, tout en rehaussant votre compréhension des résultats de votre sondage. Vous pourriez notamment comparer les similarités et les différences entre les résultats de votre sondage et l’information diffusée par la société civile et les donateurs.
Il se peut que vous déceliez des tendances dans les résultats de votre sondage et que vous souhaitiez mieux les comprendre.
Par exemple, vos données de sondage pourraient révéler que les budgets des organisations diminuent, mais cela ne vous dit pas pour quelle raison cette situation se produit. L’analyse des publications vous donne un contexte et vous révèle certaines des raisons pour lesquelles ces tendances surviennent.
Exploiter les connaissances existantes
La recherche documentaire garantit également que vous appuyez votre recherche sur les connaissances existantes touchant à votre sujet d’intérêt, confirmant ainsi la validité et la pertinence de vos résultats.
Vos résultats pourraient être complémentaires ou contradictoires par rapport aux connaissances actuelles, mais ils doivent faire référence aux données existantes sur le sujet.
Pour que votre recherche soit complète et englobe tout le panorama du financement qui entoure votre sujet, examinez une gamme de secteurs de financement.
Vous pouvez notamment considérer :
- Les fonds pour les femmes
- Les fondations privées et publiques
- Les organisations non gouvernementales internationales (ONGI)
- Les agences bilatérales et multilatérales
- Les acteurs et actrices du secteur privé
- Les philanthropes
- Les groupes de financement participatif
Inclure tout secteur pertinent dans le cadre de référence de votre recherche.
Par exemple, vous pourriez décider qu’il est important d’effectuer des recherches sur les organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) locales.
Sources éventuelles d’information pour la recherche documentaire (liste non exhaustive)
1. Sites Web et rapport annuels des donateurs
Voici des sources directes d’information sur les actions des bailleurs de fonds qui contiennent habituellement des renseignements sur les politiques et les budgets. Si vous réalisez vos recherches avant d’interviewer les donateurs, vos questions seront mieux ciblées et vos interviews plus solides.
2. Sources d’information en ligne
- Alliance Magazine (en anglais)
- Lettre d'information du Council on Foundations (en anglais)
- Blogs & nouvelles de Devex (en anglais)
- Ressources du Foundation Center (en anglais)
- Les articles rédigés par les activistes et les organisations faisant partie de votre population cible
- La liste des donateurs de l’AWID (en anglais)
- Philanthropy Journal (en anglais)
- Institute of Development Studies (en anglais)
Étape précédente
Étape suivante

Temps estimé :
• 1-2 mois
Personnel requis :
• 1 personne (ou plus) chargée de la recherche
Étape précédente
Étape suivante
7. Synthétisez les résultats de votre recherche
Êtes-vous prêts-tes ?
Snippet Forum Location Announcement Body (FR)
Le Forum de l’AWID est le plus grand événement mondial axé sur les mouvements féministes et de justice de genre dans toute leur diversité. Il s'agit d'un espace de transformation créé par et pour les mouvements féministes, où les féministes du Sud Global et autres communautés historiquement marginalisées occupent le devant de la scène, élaborent des stratégies pour changer le pouvoir et se connectent avec les mouvements alliés, la philanthropie et les politiques. C'est donc avec le cœur plein que nous vous annonçons que...
Le 15e Forum international de l'AWID se tiendra du 2 au 5 décembre 2024 à Bangkok, en Thaïlande !
Nous espérons réunir 2 500 participant.e.s en personne et 3 000 participant.e.s en ligne/hybride.
Lorsque des milliers de féministes se réunissent, nous créons une force de solidarité écrasante qui a le pouvoir de changer le monde. Nous sommes enthousiastes, et nous savons que vous l'êtes aussi, alors restez à l'écoute pour plus de détails, y compris l'inscription et nos plans pour un programme plein de magie féministe.
Film club - Films from Nuestramérica
Our final Feminist Film Club program is now available to view: “Films from Nuestramérica” is a film series on Latin/Central American Feminist Realities curated by Alejandra Laprea (Venezuela).
Snippet - WCFM Contact us- En
If your funding institution is already a part of the Database and you would like to contact us to update your record, or if you would like to leave some feedback for us, please use the form above.
Cristina Bautista
“If we stay quiet they kill us and if we talk [they kill us] too. So, let’s talk.” - Cristina Bautista, 2019
A tireless defender of the rights of Nasa people, Cristina spoke strongly and loudly against the violence directed at her community. In a speech before the United Nations, she called for the protection of Indigenous women’s lives and their involvement in different spheres of life. In 2017, Cristina was a UN Human Rights Office Indigenous fellow and she was awarded a grant from the UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples in 2019.
“I would like to bring to light the current situation of the Indigenous people in Colombia, the killing of Indigenous leaders, the repression of social protest. Instead of helping, the peace deal has increased war and the exploitation of sacred territories in Colombia… In the current situation, in almost all Indigenous nations as women we have been working to find a better future for our families. I don’t want more women from the countryside to continue living under these circumstances. We need opportunities for Indigenous women to participate in politics, in the economy, in society and in culture. Today gives me true strength, to see all these women here and that I am not alone.” - Cristina Bautista, 2019
On 29 October 2019, Cristina was murdered along with four unarmed Indigenous guards in an attack which was allegedly carried out by armed members of “Dagoberto Ramos”, a FARC dissident group.
According to Global Witness, “the murder of community and social leaders has risen dramatically in Colombia in recent years.”
“The Nasa community has repeatedly raised the alarm with the authorities about threats to their safety. Despite efforts by successive Colombian Governments, indigenous peoples continue to face great risks, especially religious or community leaders like Cristina Bautista.” - UN press briefing, 1 November 2019
Watch a speech by Cristina Bautista in August 2019 in which she denounced previous murders of Indigenous guards (Spanish only)
5 Major Threats
In the current context, we have identified five major threats to the struggle towards feminist just economies.
1. Financialisation of the world economy.
“Financialisation refers to the increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions, and financial elites in the operation of the economy and its governing institutions both at the national and international levels”. - Gerald Epstein
Epstein Gerald A. 2006: Financialization and the World Economy. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Financial institutions exert a strong influence over economic governance and the direction of development policy. The growing dominance of the corporate sector and international financial institutions in defining local and global public policies, has resulted in the capture of the State in the interest of capital. The current financial system, including controversial credit and debt policies, are integral to the reproduction and expansion of capital accumulation processes.
This raises important questions of how to regulate and re-think the global financial system, not only to avoid serious negative consequences of debt-driven crises,but to allow for sustainable livelihoods and the realization of economic and social rights without retrogression.
For more details, see the article by Balakrishnan and Heintz “Debt, Power, and Crisis: Social Stratification and the Inequitable Governance of Financial Markets”
2. Harmful trade agreements.
For the past 20 years, trade agreements (both bilateral or multilateral) have expanded their role demonstrating increased interest in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to be given to corporations.
IPR has clearly benefitted transnational corporations with huge impacts on the ability of poorer nations and peoples to realize human rights, notably:
- the right to food,
- the right to conserve,
- the right to use and sell seeds, and
- the right to access to essential medicines.
In addition, agriculture import liberalisation resulting in an influx of cheap goods jeopardise women’s self-employed farmers in poor countries and food security. Investment protection clauses included in trade agreements limit the policy space of national governments to create and enforce regulations on issues as crucial as environmental protection, labour rights, and the duration of copyrights.
Feminist movements have been, and are, at the forefront of resistance to these agreements exposing its pitfalls.
(See for example, the reactions by feminist networks around the globe to both the Transatlantic and TransPacific Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement negotiations.)
3. Unprecedented scale of threat to ecosystems and biodiversity.
The commodification of the Earth’s resources and resulting environmental degradation and climate change produced by decades of aggressive industrialisation, plunder and extractivism of the world’s resources, have damaged biodiversity and ecological resilience. These damages are now threatening the existence of human society itself.
The international community has failed to address production and consumption patterns sitting at the root of the problem. Instead, governments –with the support of large corporations interested in making a profit - are leaning towards a “green economy” approach promoting “energy-efficient technologies” (including nuclear energy, biofuels, genetically modified organisms and geo-engineering) and carbon trade schemes as the silver bullet.
4.Commodification of land and accelerating global phenomenon of land and resource grabbing.
While the processes of land and resource appropriation is not new – in fact, they are central struggles in colonial histories- what is new is the advanced means by which land and natural resource wealth are becoming commodities in new markets.
International Financial Institutions play a central role in promoting land markets in developing countries. These institutions finance land reforms that enable powerful actors to use land for speculative gain in exchange of meagre promises of jobs and growth. Land-grabbing has far reaching negative impacts on local peoples’ access to essential goods and services apart from displacement and environmental degradation that are associated with it.
People who are resisting land grabbing, among them women human rights defenders, face diverse forms of violence including physical attacks and sexual abuse, on a daily basis.
5. Entrenched patriarchal foundations that structure the capitalist system
This patriarchal foundation is particularly hegemonic in today’s neoliberal models.
The many ways in which political economy and development are connected to sexuality or gender is evident: think how capitalism defines what can even be characterized as labour and ties human worth to wage-labour productivity.
For the most part, women’s position in the global economy continues to be one of gender-based labour exploitation with women’s work undervalued in precarious jobs, domestic subsistence, reproduction, and in unwaged household production. Because reproductive labour has been naturalized as women's unpaid work, it has provided an immense subsidy to capitalism at the same time as a source of gender oppression and subjugation.
This situation is aggravated by the fact that as social protection mechanisms begin to dwindle, women’s care burden increases.
Further, the phenomenon of global migration spurred on by thousands of economic refugees escaping oppressive poverty across the globe is not estranged to that of capitalist gender power relations. Remittances become a major source of development financing for the families and communities, but at a major cost for women migrants who struggle to earn a living wage in their new country.
In the same vein, we have seen how patriarchal capitalist systems are using violence and oppression to maintain their status quo. Rising global expenditures in militarism and violence, both perpetrated by state and non-state actors, is increasingly used to control dissent, women’s bodies and voice and settle economic, political and social disputes.
Across the world, violence, incarceration and discrimination disproportionately targets
- women, communities of colour,
- indigenous peoples,
- people with disabilities,
- sex workers,
- impoverished people, and
- LGBTQI people.
An intersectional analysis linking gender, race, ethnicity, age, ability, nationality, sexual orientation and gender identity, among other status is needed to challenge structural violence and its links with a capitalist global system.
A profound crisis in the current global governance system is also evident in the feeble inter-governmental agreements reached and how they often lack the most fundamental accountability mechanisms. The multilateral system that served global governance before is failing to respond to the current multiple crises. The same system continues to be deeply undemocratic, with increasing presence and power by corporations occupying the spaces where States used to be.
Rethinking, Renewing & Reactivating
These threats challenge feminists to re-think our framework and strategies. To renew and reactivate our commitment to movement building with others for a just economy.
They challenge us to consider broad agendas for socio-economic transformations, from a feminist perspective, in ways that address the realities of the majority of the impoverished. Now is the time to bring about change for a just economy and to address the persistent systemic challenges.
See also
What is the AWID International Forum?
Every three to four years, AWID hosts its flagship international event. It is the world’s largest event that wholeheartedly centers feminist and gender justice movements in all their diversity. It is a global gathering of feminist activists, allied movements, scholars, funders and policymakers. The Forums rotate between different regions and countries in the global South.
Crear Resistar Snippet
Crear | Résister | Transform
Crear | Résister | Transform es para ti y para todxs lxs increíbles activistas feministas y por la justicia social que conozcas. Reunámonos para compartir nuestras estrategias de resistencia, para crear conjuntamente algo de magia feminista, y para transformar juntxs este mundo.
Ronnie Gilbert
Clone of Snippet - WITM About the survey - FR
In 2023, feminist and
women's rights organizations
had a median annual budget of $22,000
In contrast, over $1 billion went to three anti-rights groups 2021-2022, with funding for anti-gender networks still rising.1
1 Global Philanthropy Project, 2024
Paulina Cruz Ruiz
Paulina Cruz Ruiz, de la región de Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, en Guatemala, fue una autoridad ancestral Maya Achí (Indígena) y una defensora de los derechos humanos. Paulina se involucró activamente en la organización comunitaria y la resistencia, lo cual incluyó la adopción de medidas legales contra los proyectos mineros en territorios Indígenas, proyectos que afectarían y perjudicarían severamente el tejido socio ambiental.
"El modelo de industria extractiva promovido por el gobierno guatemalteco y la construcción de proyectos de desarrollo a gran escala en tierras indígenas, sin el consentimiento de la comunidad afectada, ha sido una fuente de disputas permanentes con los movimientos de resistencia". - Minority Rights Group International
Paulina también formó parte de la Marcha por la Dignidad, la Vida y la Justicia, del 1º de mayo de 2019, en la cual miles de guatemaltecxs iniciaron una marcha de ocho días contra la corrupción y la impunidad en la persecución y el asesinato de dirigentes de derechos humanos, líderes campesinxs e indígenas y defensorxs de la tierra.
Paulina fue asesinada el 14 de septiembre de 2019 cerca de su casa en la aldea de Xococ.
Según el Grupo Internacional de Derechos de las Minorías: "actualmente, uno de los principales problemas que afectan a las comunidades mayas es la creciente actividad de la industria minera".
Para leer más sobre la comunidad Maya en Guatemala
Para leer más sobre la Marcha por la Dignidad, la Vida y la Justicia
Reivindicar los bienes comunes
Definición
La activista y académica Soma Kishore Parthasarathy señala que existen diversas formas de pensar los bienes comunes.
En un sentido más convencional, se los entiende como recursos naturales destinados a ser usados por quienes dependen de su uso. Sin embargo, el concepto de «bienes comunes» se ha expandido para incluir recursos como los conocimientos, la herencia, la cultura, espacios virtuales e incluso el clima. Es un concepto anterior al régimen de propiedad individual y que aportó las bases para la organización social. Las definiciones que aportan las entidades gubernamentales limitan su alcance a los recursos de la tierra y materiales.
El concepto de los bienes comunes se apoya en la práctica cultural de compartir espacios de subsistencia y recursos como dones de la naturaleza, para el bien común, y para la sostenibilidad de lo que es común a todxs.
Contexto
Los bienes comunes de la humanidad están cada vez más amenazados porque las naciones y fuerzas del mercado continúan colonizándolos, explotándolos y ocupándolos.
En algunos contextos favorables, los «bienes comunes» tienen el potencial de habilitar una posición de autonomía sobre todo para las mujeres bajo opresión económica desde la que pueden negociar sus múltiples necesidades y aspiraciones.
Perspectiva feminista
Cuando a las mujeres y a otros géneros oprimidos se les niega el acceso a los bienes comunes y la posibilidad de controlarlos, se refuerza el patriarcado.
Por eso, una economía feminista busca restaurar los derechos legítimos de las comunidades a estos recursos comunes. Esa autonomía les permite mantenerse a sí mismas al mismo tiempo que desarrollan sistemas más igualitarios de gobernabilidad y de uso de esos recursos. Una economía feminista reconoce los roles de las mujeres y les ofrece las mismas oportunidades para tomar decisiones, es decir, las coloca en igualdad de condiciones como demandantes de esos recursos.

Para leer más acerca de esta propuesta:
- Reclamando los bienes comunes para la justicia de género y económica: Luchas y movimientos en la India es una entrevista con la académica Soma Kishore Parthasarathy acerca de cómo las mujeres en la India rural están confrontando esta realidad y proponiendo una gestión compartida de los recursos comunes.
- Feminism And The Politics Of The Commons (en inglés) [El feminismo y la política de los bienes comunes] de Silvia Federici analiza la política de los bienes comunes desde una posición feminista determinada por la lucha contra la discriminación sexual y el trabajo reproductivo para aclarar en qué condiciones el principio de los bienes comunes se puede convertir en fundamento de un programa anticapitalista.
- En español y de la misma autora se puede leer Feminismo, capitalismo, bienes comunales y caza de brujas.
¿Qué hará diferente a este Foro?
Con una asistencia de hasta 2500 participantes presenciales y 3,000 conectadxs de manera virtual, este será el Foro de AWID más grande hasta ahora. Vislumbramos múltiples espacios para establecer conexiones significativas, aprender, intercambiar ideas, tener conversaciones estratégicas, sanar y celebrar. Es la primera vez que nos reunimos en este espacio desde la pandemia, y estamos muy deseosxs de hacerlo.
ours chapter 3
Chapter 3
Anti-Rights Discourses
Anti-rights discourses continue to evolve. As well as using arguments related to religion, culture, and tradition, anti-rights actors co-opt the language of social justice and human rights to conceal their true agendas and gain legitimacy.
Leila Alaoui
WITM - Refreshed INFOGRAPHIC 3 ES
¿Cómo se autofinancian las organizaciones feministas?
Las organizaciones feministas y por los derechos de las mujeres no solo dependemos del financiamiento institucional, también nos autofinanciamos. Son la pasión, el compromiso político, la solidaridad y el cuidado colectivo lo que empuja a nuestras organizaciones.
Estos recursos se autogeneran y son autónomos y, aunque a menudo no se reflejan en nuestros presupuestos, son la columna vertebral de las organizaciones.