About JASS

Mission

JASS is committed to
strengthening women’s voice,
visibility, and collective organizing power
to create a just and sustainable world for all.

JASS (Just Associates) is an international feminist organization driven by the partners and initiatives of its regional networks in Mesoamerica, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia. JASS is dedicated to strengthening and mobilizing women’s voice, visibility and collective organizing power to change the norms, institutions and policies that perpetuate inequality and violence, in order to create a just, sustainable world for all. Founded as a learning community by a group of activists, popular educators and scholars from 13 countries in 2002, JASS generates knowledge from experience, with the intention of improving the theory and practice of women’s rights, development and democracy.

.In Brief: JASS (Just Associates)

JASS Annual Report

JASS is pleased to share our 2010 Annual Report – a vivid snapshot of the thinking, strategies, alliances, and women driving our work to strengthen and mobilize women’s collective organizing power for justice and equality in Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, Mesoamerica, and internationally.

Previous Annual Reports

JASS Movements Newsletters

JASS Movements is JASS' quarterly e-newsletter with up to date content and stories about our Movement Building Initiatives across the globe.

Aims

• Strengthening activist leadership with women from all backgrounds and walks of life
• Expanding grassroots organizing linked to mobilization and advocacy
• Forging new alliances and agendas between women from distinct locations, sectors, movements, ages, ethnicities and backgrounds
• Making women leaders and feminist messages more visible and appealing to the broader public (challenging prejudice, taboos and stigma)
• Increasing women’s access to/use of resources, rights and freedoms

Context & Challenges

As we analyze this particular moment in history, particular forces and dynamics drive JASS’ strategies.

• Fundamentalist ideologies are using state power and resources to close democratic space and reverse women's rights gains.
• The widening inequality gap forces many women to focus on survival needs and limits opportunities for democratic participation.
• The capacity of governments to ensure access to justice and provide a basic safety net is shrinking.
• Corporate globalization promotes western, consumer culture and fuels backlash.
• Citizens face growing violence and fear; organized crime and gangs; and lawlessness.
• With the institutionalization of civil society (“NGO-ization”), citizen campaigns focus on branding and turf battles rather than promoting justice.
• Technical solutions have been over-emphasized, promising quick fixes to complex social problems.
• Women’s and other social movements have been fragmented and demobilized.

Our conclusion:

There are few places in the world where women can exercise their rights as individuals fully. Our freedoms are shrinking. We must organize and mobilize the power of our numbers for safety, visibility and influence, and to resist, question and transform ideologies of exploitation and oppression.

History

JASS was founded in 2002 by a group of long-time colleagues from 12 countries connected by common political struggles, over decades in some cases. A uniquely agile global network of respected human rights activists, community organizers, popular educators and scholars, the organization is known for pioneering social justice and women’s rights education, training, strategies and action-research, and for accessible how-to materials about political and social change. Innovative programs through our history combine the tried-and-tested local to global activism of our network, a long history of strong political and personal relationships, and opportunities presented by evolving communications. Within feminist movements and social justice struggles, JASS uses our many connections to participate as an activist; from the outside, JASS takes the part of strategist and “honest broker,” facilitating connections at local, national and regional levels.