Feminist Movement Building

Southern Africa

In the Spotlight

Zimbabweans Demand Constitutional Protection for LGBTI Rights

Human rights advocates, including JASS partner Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), call for the inclusion of LGBTQ rights in Zimbabwe’s new constitution. President Mugabe dismayed human rights advocates by declaring that this would be “madness.” Civil society groups, including GALZ, are seeking signatures for a resolution declaring that “sexual orientation and gender identity are integral to every person’s dignity and humanity and must not be the basis for discrimination or abuse.” To sign the petition, contact GALZ at health@galz.co.zw. Meanwhile, prominent African clergy and more than 60 civil society and human rights groups throughout Africa endorsed a statement against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Malawian Women in Action

In February 2010, Sindi Blose and Hope Chigudu met with each of the grassroots women leaders who participated in the earlier processes to support progress on the action plans the women developed in November: Lilian Dindi and Judith Mkandawire of Mzuzu Women's Forum put their negotiation skills into action by lobbying key decision-makers in the district for mobile ARV clinics to ensure women's access to treatment and health services. Tiwonge Gondwe mobilized women through the Women’s Forum and Coalition of Women Farmers, with the support of ActionAid, to press local chiefs to grant land ownership rights to women. Read more.

Women Leading the Way in Zambia

JASS Southern Africa continues to bridge divides and to foster leadership and action to confront stigma and improve health and lives. Affirming the need for strong feminist leadership, Zambian women set specific, measurable personal and collective goals: Mary Chileshe hopes to wield recognizable influence in her district after one year, while Pesai Phiri plans to become a powerful political facilitator and stand for Member of Parliament by 2016. Read more about Zambia from Martha Tholanah.

Victoria, a teacher by profession, has been using the JASS training to ‘disorganize’ her church, demanding to talk about HIV and AIDS, thus ending the culture of silence and stigma.

Asnat went to see the District Commissioner and demanded that seed coupons be given to HIV+ women.

Lillian ‘crossed the line’ (her words) by fighting for mobile clinics to provide ARVs for adults and children on the same day to save women multiple journeys each week.

Petite Doreen used her new leadership skills to lobby the seed company to supply women living with HIV/AIDS.

Malawian women leaders, nine months after their first JASS workshops

What We Do

In Brief

JASS Southern Africa

JASS in Malawi

Framework

JASS looks at HIV/AIDS through the lens of power and inequality in order to define opportunities for movement-building and for energizing women's rights agendas. Watch and use JASS’s short, compelling video, and read a powerpoint interpretation.

Telling Our Stories

Women created digital stories in a JASS workshop with Women'sNet (Johannesburg, May 2008) and have used them as movement-building tools since then.

Watch the stories

Crossing the Lesbian–Feminist Divide
in Zimbabwe

Organizing in Zimbabwe has been difficult, even dangerous, for some years. Lesbian activism confronts particular obstacles, notes Patience Mandishona of GALZ (Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe): the president's open homophobia and the challenges of mobilizing Southern African women, even feminists, around issues such as hate crimes against lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI). Read an interview with Patience and Martha Tholanah on GALZ’ innovative action and its intersection with JASS movement-building.

Who’s Leading Women’s Organizations?

“My safe space called the women’s movement is going, or even gone. It’s been taken over by men. And I am scared and angry," writes the provocative Zimbabwean feminist Everjoice Win on the JASS blog. When conducting an assessment for a movement building institute in Zambia, the JASS Southern Africa team was struck by the large number of men who are leading women’s organizations. A subject of debate, we invited Everjoice share her thoughts on this topic. Read the blog and join the discussion.

Movement Building

African Feminist Forum, Kampala, Uganda, September 2008. JASS participants represented the voices and concerns of HIV+ feminists.

International AIDS Conference, Mexico City, August 2008

Training of Political Facilitators for Movement Building (Cape Town, February 2008)

Launch of JASS’ movement-building process (Johannesburg, November 2007)

Who We Are

Women Crossing The Line

Martha Tholanah, JASS Southern Africa Regional Coordinator. An advocate for universal access to holistic healthcare and for women's reproductive health and rights, Martha participates actively in national, regional, and international advocacy and activism around the rights of those living with HIV, particularly women and children. Having lived positively with HIV since January 2003, Martha has been public about her status since 2004. Read her commentary on World AIDS Day 2008.