As she prepares to enter the next phase of her life as an activist and leader, Kavita Ramdas reflects on her 14 years as President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, the future of the Global Fund and the women’s movement.
GFW: You use the Arundhati Roy quote*—that graces our Annual Report – often. Why is it so significant to you?
KNR: I believe it speaks to the nature of the feminine in the universe. It is not just the work of women led organizations per se. It is the notion that, in our world, the balance between masculine and feminine is profoundly important. “A new world is on her way...” has that feminine spirit, that ability to be more in balance; it has that image of a world in which the Her is acknowledged, valued and respected. It is exactly what I think the Global Fund stands for, and what my own life’s work is about. And it also speaks very personally to me as a mother because when I think about the “new world that is on her way” I see my daughter Mira’s face.
KNR: The way in which the tragic events of 9/11 helped make visible to average Americans the oppression of women and the gender apartheid imposed on women in certain parts of the world. People in the United States made that connection, in no small part because of the trauma of 9/11, which suddenly shone a spot light on Afghanistan- which until then had been on nobody’s radar screen except for a few die hard feminist organizations. What surprised us most is how quickly 9/11 gave greater visibility to the work that we had been doing for the past 12 or 13 years– it achieved greater awareness than we could have ever dreamed about in any PR campaign.
“It's impossible to work at the Global Fund
and not feel a sense of incredible hope.” — Kavita N. Ramdas
GFW: The past year has been challenging for our grantees and the movement. And yet you are hopeful, talk about some of the reasons for hope.
KNR: I think it’s impossible to work at the Global Fund and not feel a sense of incredible hope. Even in Afghanistan, which one might argue was one of the bleakest places for women. Yet as we were watching these terrible pictures of gender apartheid, we were funding underground schools run by women before the Taliban were even out of power!
GFW: How does one maintain a sense of hope and possibility, in the face of such overwhelming odds?
KNR: For me, the real reason lies in the amazing stories of the women on the ground. And the fact that we at the Global Fund hear about so many of them – not just one story, from one country, once in a while - rather we are like a spring that is constantly being fed from the source. You know when you get spring water and there’s this constant bubbling up? We get it by being deeply connected to what is happening on the ground. And it’s impossible not to be affected by that sense of possibility, by all that bubbling up of potential and creativity.
*The theme for our annual report is based on a quote from author and activist Arundhati Roy who spoke these words at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, 2004: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
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