In mid-2006, JASS launched its Movement-Building Initiative, which builds on the experiences gained through our strategic initiatives described below. Going forward, much of our learning, action, knowledge and communications activities are centered around the movement-building efforts to strengthen the voice, leadership and collective power of women to advance justice for all.
Overview of Strategic Framework: Our shared analysis and strategies are shaped by an intersectional perspective on power, integrating race, class, sexuality, location and other factors. The web of relationships that bond the JASS global community, along with the local-to-global organizational affiliations that each woman brings, constitutes a key political resource that enables JASS to multiply its impact and strategise with agility.
Read more about JASS' Movement-Building Initiative
Regional Movement Building
Mesoamerica
JASS' allies in MesoAmerica united around a commitment to overcome the fragmentation within feminist and other social movements and to build the collective power of women. This initiative consists of:
Observatorio/Women Crossing the Line - is an alternative political organizing and media strategy that mobilizes solidarity and utilizes creative communications with Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE) to spotlight and reinforce women’s transformative roles and local actions in struggles across Mesoamerica.
Sea Change Feminist Leadership Schools - Through participatory learning and action – grounded in feminist theory, artistic expression, and core concepts of rights, power, democracy, policy, organization and consciousness – the Sea Change program aims to build more accountable, collaborative and responsive women leaders and organizations.
Newsletter and Radio Program - Distributed online and by other stations, the programs tap into the tremendous power of radio as a tool for sharing and linking women’s voices. The electronic and print newsletter, La Petatera, documents happenings and insights from each Observatorio and Sea Change gathering.
JASS-Southeast Asia works to revitalise movements of women, especially young feminists. This initiative aims to:
strengthen and diversify women’s leadership for movement-building through political education and strategizing, skill-building, reflection and visioning, and cross-border action;
bridge gaps between generations, between rural and urban areas, between activists from grassroots and professional levels, and between women’s and other movements;
connect and exchange with JASS initiatives in other regions.
In Southern Africa, JASS works with diverse women activists who are living with and active on HIV/AIDS, one-half of them young women, many from mixed PLWHA groups (people living with HIV/AIDS). This initiative aims to:
strengthen and nurture new forms of activist leadership, organizing strategies, and alliances;
shape – from the ground up – an integrated rights agenda to address HIV/AIDS;
make women’s demands visible and influential at all levels of decision-making;
develop women’s communications skills, channels and political voice; and generate practical, usable knowledge about movement-building in a rapidly changing world.
JASS documents and shares movement-building stories, steps and analysis through newsletters, radio and podcasts, YouTube videos, digital stories, songs and an ever-expanding interactive website. With innovative partners such as Radio Feminista in Costa Rica, Women's Net in South Africa, and PEKKA in Indonesia, JASS weaves theory with action, popular education methods with appropriate ICTs. The JASS community of practice spans a vast spectrum of movement-building expertise, from indigenous leaders to activist academics, and from political strategists to story-tellers. Through cross-regional materials and meetings, JASS shares this wealth of experience between countries, generations and sectors, linking face to face organizing with evolving communications technologies.
We began this process in 2006 with the following questions: What do “women’s movements” look like in this NGO-dominated moment? How do women build collective power that responds to and addresses our diversity and challenges privilege among us– how do we apply an intersectional analysis to our alliances, strategic choices, agendas, resource distribution, etc? How to build movements agile enough to respond to women’s pressing needs and diverse realities but also guided by a long-term strategy to advance women’s rights? How to build more effective cross-movement alliances?
Two years later in November 2008 when we came together for a cross regional dialogue in Cape Town our questions were: How are changing power dynamics in the local-to-global context shaping women’s lives, freedoms and agendas? How do 21st century feminists build movements, especially across sector, age, class, location and other differences – what are challenges and what does collective organizing power look like in each context? What does it take to be a feminist movement-builder and an activist leader? How does new communications technology interact with valuable, old-fashioned organizing? What fresh, relevant visions are emerging, to make feminist agendas appealing to all of society?
For more information on the MBI methodology, click here.
The Mesoamerican feminists involved in the JASS movement-building initiative in that region use the word “transgression” to describe how women push against the grain, pushing back in subtle and big ways. Important points to note:
Nothing changes without pressure;
Nothing changes without conflict;
Change comes from the inner self but will not be sustained without the collective.
Respect for differences and the ability to understand them are critical, if organizations are to work through the dynamics of change.
