The escalating panic and fear surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic is palpable across the social spectrum.

The Governor of California, the US State where I live, has ordered the entire state to “shelter in place” for the foreseeable future, meaning we can leave home only for essential tasks. Yes, the virus is yet to be fully known and controlled; yes, the incidence of infection is increasing and cannot be predicted accurately; yes this virus causes death. And yes, we must keep washing our hands and taking other precautions and maintaining physical distance.

What if we had trillions of public dollars for all people and communities hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis? Our policy brief and workshop facilitation guide can turn these "what if we had these resources" into "what we can use these resources for".

Feminists have mobilized on a massive scale to generate our own autonomous resources for daily acts of solidarity and survival and to respond politically, collectively, and powerfully to this moment. Many of these actions are coming from within communities and movements in some of the hardest hit and less privileged places, and especially amongst Black, LBTQI+, disability, migrant, land & labour movements. Some of the responses are localised, while others are global.

In recognition of this particular moment in time, and knowing that so many movements may be relying more and more on organising remotely for the next few months, APC, AWID and FRIDA share some of what we have learnt around how to organise politically in virtual worlds.

In just weeks, the spread of COVID-19 has drastically changed the landscape of our lives. Long-standing deficiencies in systems of care, We can’t predict what the short or long-term effects will be. However, funders can - and should - take stop-gap measures to support organizing now.

As we write this text, the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, growing authoritarianism and fundamentalisms along with severe economic inequalities are magnifying what has been known by many - the exploitation of people’s labor and the earth’s natural resources in the name of market-based neo-liberal economics cannot and will not save us.

It’s on everybody’s lips – Covid-19, more commonly referred to as the Coronavirus! Perhaps, like me, you have been glued to the media networks, social media channels and other news outlets trying to understand the scale and scope of one of the biggest surprise epidemics of our times.

The trans house confirms the transformative force of social movements: if no one helps nor provides for us, if the State ignores us, then we’ll do it ourselves.

As I am writing this, the world is celebrating the 100th anni-versary of the International Women’s Day, and while some newspaper articles and blog posts are reflecting on the historical importance of this day, others are asking: Do we still need a special day just for women?

I come from a region where the political situation is always volatile. The Middle East has gone through more than 10 major wars in the past 60 years and has been prime ground for expansive imperialist projects of European and American powers. The last few months have been especially tumultuous beginning with the revolution in Tunisia causing a chain reaction of events across the region in Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan, not to mention the recent ‘yes’ vote for the secession of Southern Sudan from the North and the fall of the Lebanese parliament.