Building on JASS’ long-time involvement in Mesoamerican social justice struggles, the first regional institute (Panama 2007) gathered diverse women leaders and feminists from 7 countries, including indigenous women, trade unionists, rural activists and academics. The region, they concluded, faces ever-rawer forms of violence against women (femicides and trafficking), a pervasive culture of fear, and widespread government breakdown and corruption. Meanwhile, women’s and other social movements have become fragmented and depoliticized. As a strategy to build the power of women’s numbers to address this context, JASS forges old and new alliances to strengthen activist leadership, support mobilization and strategic actions, make creative use of new and traditional communications media, and harvest knowledge about movement building.
In the Spotlight
Frontline against Impunity
Women human rights defenders are often frontline movement activists who suffer threats, intimidation and even death for their work. The rising security crisis in Mesoamerica coupled with the deterioration of State institutions has left women human rights defenders in the region largely unprotected and under threat. JASS, in partnership with the Alianza Feminista Centroamericana, the Association for Women in Development (AWID), Consorcio para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad Oaxaca, and the Unidad de Protección a Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala (UDEFEGUA), convened a three-day meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico from April 23-25, 2010. Nearly 60 women human rights defenders from every country in the region and every justice struggle gathered to analyze and develop more effective strategies to respond and protect themselves. Read more about the context and event, and a translation of thefinal declaration. Read the full reportof the baseline research informing this initiative and its Executive Summary, available in Spanish.
Demanding Justice
for the Women of Atenco
JASS, with five allied organizations, organized a three-day advocacy campaign targeting high-ranking Mexican officials to demand justice for the women of Atenco. Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams met with members of Mexico’s Supreme Court, foreign ministry, Ministry of Governance, and congress, presenting each with a letter signed by 11 Nobel Laureates demanding respect for human rights. Read more
Elections Alone
Do Not Make a Democracy
Hondurans inaugurated a new president on January 27, following last November’s controversial elections. Feminists in Resistance joined the greater resistance movement in a march to the airport to bid farewell to the ousted president, Manuel "Mel Zelaya," who departed the country on the same day. JASS and the Nobel Women’s Initiative urge the Obama Administration to condemn violence perpetrated against women’s and human rights defenders since the coup. Read more.
Earthquake in Haiti
The worst earthquake in 200 years struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, causing catastrophic destruction in the hemisphere's poorest country. The quake struck near the capital Port-au-Prince, the most densely populated part of Haiti. We hope you will consider donating to MADRE, Partners in Health, the Global Fund for Women Crisis Fund or Grassroots International so that much needed medical assistance and supplies can reach the areas that have been hardest hit. For a feminist perspective in English or in Spanish.
Observatorio de la Transgresión Feminista, or Women Crossing the Line, is an alternative political organizing and media strategy that mobilizes in-person and virtual solidarity. Active partners Radio Feminista and the Nobel Women's Initiative help to spotlight and reinforce women's transformative roles and local actions in struggles across Mesoamerica. JASS provides local, regional and global solidarity, while the Petateras and the Observatorios command increasing attention and mobilize ever-greater numbers. Read More.
Strategic Action
Beginning with the idea of transgresión feminista - adapted by other regions to create the slogan "women crossing the line" - JASS Mesoamerica continues to blaze a new feminist path, co-creating with the Petateras and other allies a political understanding and strategy for resistance and transformation from the inner and personal realms through to the regional and global. Click here to review JASS Mesoamerica and allies' recent and past actions supporting feminist movements in the region.
Mar de Cambios/Sea Change Feminist Leadership School
Mar de Cambios/ Sea Change Feminist Leadership School addresses the urgent need for long-term, feminist, political capacity-building with a cross-section of women activists, including those in other social movements as well as indigenous and young women. Read More.
JASS' Communications Strategy in Mesoamerica documents and amplifies the voices, actions, and history of women's movement building through radio broadcasts, interactive websites, podcasts, blogs, newsletters, social networking, and videos. With innovative allies such as Radio Feminista, JASS weaves theory with action and popular education methodology with web 2.0 new media tools to spotlight women's organizing power.
