Highlights of recent Global Fund for Women grantees challenging violence.
San Francisco, CA—On January 31st, 2011, the Global Fund for Women Board approved $1.8 million in grants to 128 women's rights groups in 64 countries around the world.
“Women are challenging violence by first making it visible and then resisting pressure from their communities to ignore or accept violence as normal. It is remarkable how women continually find innovative ways to end violence against women and girls. Some engage directly with religious leaders, while others fight for laws that protect women,” - Dr. Zeina Zaatari, Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa.
While our grantees work to improve all aspects of women's human rights, we're highlighting the work of women challenging gender-based violence as it remains a critical priority for feminist activism and is among our core funding priorities. Here are a few examples of the diverse ways in which our grantee partners are contributing to a powerful global women's movement to end gender-based violence:
In Ukraine, the Kharkov Gender Resource Center established the nation's first Gender Museum and toured its large-scale exhibition, “World Without Violence,” across the country and globally to raise public awareness of the issue.Grant in this docket: $14,000
In Southeast Nigeria, the Center for the Eradication of All Forms of Violence Against Women, a network of our grantees, is transforming traditional societal values that perpetuate gender violence by educating and engaging traditional and religious leaders to become allies in the movement to end gender violence. Grant in this docket: $9,000
Our first ever grantee in the Maldives, the Maldivian Network on Violence Against Women is promoting women's local political participation as a way to advance laws and policies that protect women. Grant in this docket: $9,000
In Argentina, the Instituto de Género, Derecho y Desarrollo, builds links between the indigenous and women’s movements to learn from each other and work collaboratively to end gender violence. Grant in this docket: $10,000
In Egypt, Nadim Center in Egypt addresses violence against women at the individual and systemic level by providing counseling and legal aid services to women survivors of domestic and state violence while advocating for protective laws. Grant in this docket: $52,000 over two years
For more information about our work, or to schedule an interview, please contact: Deborah Holmes Vice President of Communications Ph: 415-248-4800 dholmes[at]globalfundforwomen.org
About the Global Fund for Women
The Global Fund for Women is the world’s largest public foundation investing exclusively in women’s rights globally. Since 1987, the Global Fund has played a vital role in catalyzing a global women’s rights movement by mobilizing nearly $85 million dollars from more than 20,000 individuals and institutions to invest in over 4,200 women’s groups in 171 countries. By funding and linking grantees, donors, activists and policymakers, we have fostered a global network of women and men committed to a world of equality and social justice.
Listen to an inspiring feminist podcast featuring Betsy Hoody, GFW's Program Officer for Europe and Central Asia (ECA), and Masum Momaya from the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID).
In an era of shrinking resources, the Global Fund for Women was able to sustain its commitment to women's groups with over $1.5 million in grants, as the first part of our 2011 funding cycle. By providing support to local and regional women’s groups worldwide, we continue to connect and strengthen women’s groups to be a part of the vibrant global movement for women’s full, universal human rights.
Kavita Ramdas, senior advisor and former CEO of the Global Fund for Women, discusses the challenges and successes of funding the global women's movement in 2009-10.
Violeta Krasnic recently joined the Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (ECIS) program team as its director. She brings more than 15years of experience as a human rights advocate, gender-based violence counselor, and trainer for non-profit management. Violeta was previously with WITNESS, a New York-based international human rights organization that uses video as an advocacy tool to raise awareness of human rights issues.
How can the global women's movement address and change the invisibility of lesbian rights within the movement? How can more women's organizations be encouraged to hire lesbian staff?
Join the discussion with Kavita N. Ramdas, Senior Advisor of the Global Fund for Women, and three GFW grantee partners: Pinar Illkaracan, from Women for Women's Human Rights, Turkey; Deborah Kaddu Sarwada from, Icon Partners and Associates, Uganda; and Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, Femlink Pacific, Fiji.
The Roma Women's Center Bibijain Serbia, a Global Fund grantee for ten years, has provided literacy and employment training to over 5,000 Roma women from 50 settlements. Due to their systematic exclusion by governments, most of the women the Center organizes are illiterate; only 5 percent have finished high school. Through extensive community education programs, free legal services, and psycho-social counseling, the Center is improving the lives of Roma women in Serbia.
But Roma are not the only women struggling for justice and equality in the former communist bloc.
Twenty years after the Berlin Wall fell, women are trying to preserve the greater access to education, health care, and social services that they secured during the communist era. At the same time, women’s movements are still working to undo the communist legacy that prioritized collective rights over individual rights and rendered the most marginalized women invisible.
Over the past 20 years, for example, we have supported 90 groups throughout the region working to advance the rights of LGBTIQ communities, such as Zagreb Pride in Croatia. Pride festivals are just one part of a coordinated strategy used by LGBTIQ movements to raise awareness, foster national dialogue and promote policies to advance the rights of sexual and gender minorities. These groups are building new, diverse movements that advance all women’s rights while also highlighting the unique challenges of the previously invisible: ethnic and religious minorities, queer activists, sex workers, women with disabilities, and refugee and displaced women.
In March 2010, religious fundamentalists disrupted the fourth regional conference of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Association (ILGA) Asia in Surabaya, Indonesia. They threatened the conference organizers, including our advisors on the ILGA Board. Participants from 100 organizations across Asia returned home shaken, while those within Indonesia feared for their safety.
“We all have the right to live as we are, and to love who we love.” — GFW grantee ILGA
The experience confirmed the entrenched discrimination still faced by sexual minorities in the region. Lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals and communities face hostile environments across Asia and Oceania, and in some parts of the region, homosexuality continues to be a crime.
“This incident has not weakened our movement but has only made us stronger,” ILGA Asia reports. “For we know our work is important and what we do changes the lives of so many people around Asia and the world. Our work is not over until all people can live in a world that accepts us for who we are.”
In May, two months after the attacks in Surabaya, we brought together the broader women's movement to strengthen sexuality rights within Indonesia. Working with grantee partner Institute Pelangi Perempuan, along with Just Associates South East Asia, we convened representatives of 25 women's groups from across Indonesia, including many grantees. With one LBTI and feminist group from each province, groups embarked on a long-term process of collaboration, joint strategizing, and mutual support that began in the room. We witnessed the true strength of social justice movements –especially in the face of fear and violence—through fostering deep alliances and broad solidarity for a more feminist future.
GFW's Christine Ahn was interviewed on Change.org, where she highlights how Global Fund grants support crucial work led by women at both grassroots and international levels. Read the interview »
Earlier this year on a trip to India, I met Aniruddh Vasudevan, a phenomenal gay rights activist in my home city of Chennai. Aniruddh's infectious zest to transform India’s pervasive homophobia and decriminalize homosexuality in Chennai energized me at a time when I was struggling to see how my perspectives and capacity as an activist based in the global north could support movements and work back home in India.
Earlier this year on a trip to India, I met Aniruddh Vasudevan, a phenomenal gay rights activist in my home city of Chennai. Aniruddh's infectious zest to transform India’s pervasive homophobia and decriminalize homosexuality in Chennai energized me at a time when I was struggling to see how my perspectives and capacity as an activist based in the global north could support movements and work back home in India.
