Women Navigate
Power: Stories of Rights Work
With Action Aid International, JASS facilitated a
structured participatory process for women's rights activists
to document stories that reflect innovative insights and lessions
for navigating, resisting and engaging power. A group of activists
was brought together for an intial "writeshop" in
July 2005, creating the space for reflection, sharing of stories
and individual writing time that is so rare in the daily routines
of most activists. Authors re-convened at the 10th International
Forum of AWID for further exchange and honing of their stories.
This exciting collection, which ranges from grassroots organizing
strategies with women-headed households in Indonesia, to the
challenges of linking collective empowerment to empowerment
within the home for Babassu nut-breakers in rural Brazil, is now available.
Related Resources:
JASS' Movement Building Initiative
“Imagining and Building Feminist Movements for the Future”
Just Associates launched its bold 4-year initiative aimed at strengthening women’s leadership and organizational power to make a better, more peaceful world possible.
Learn More
Where's the Money
for Women's Rights?
JASS has collaborated with the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) in this exciting action-research initiative since early 2005, conducting research and facilitating dialogues among hundreds of organizations working for gender equality and women's rights around the world as well as diverse funding organizations. Our core aim has been to develop a clear picture of trends in funding for women's rights work since the Beijing Conference, understand some of the factors influencing those trends and collectively strategize about how to mobilize more and better resources for women’s organizations.
Most recently, we supported AWID’s conference on Money & Movements in November 2006, facilitating a variety of the strategy sessions throughout the conference and making plenary presentations. (more)
In addition, JASS was invited to facilitate select sessions of the pre-meeting organized by AWID—the Young Women’s Institute on Money & Movements, which brought together an amazing group of 30 young women from around the world to share and deepen their analysis of feminist movement-building and its relation to resource mobilization strategies as well as strategize for building stronger, more inclusive feminist movements.
In July 2006, JASS and AWID co-facilitated a meeting hosted by the Central American Women’s Fund on “Diversifying and Mobilizing Resources for Women’s Rights: Ensuring the Sustainability of the Central American Women’s Movement”. This meeting brought women’s organizations and donors from the region together to hone their analysis of regional dynamics relating to funding for women’s rights and begin to map out strategies for leveraging greater resources.
The original report that JASS researched and co-wrote with AWID, Where's the Money for Women's Rights: Assessing resources and the role of donors in the promotion of women's rights and the support of women's rights organizations, was launched at the AWID Forum in October 2005. This effort built on a 2002 study JASS did, also commissioned by AWID, to focus on the experiences of transnational women's rights organizations with fundraising. That study both confirmed standard wisdom on fundraising strategies, and highlighted key challenges and potential future directions for women's rights organizations trying to raise funds from donor institutions and individuals.
Participation
in AWID 10th International Forum
The 10th International Forum of the Association
for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) in 2005 gathered 1700
diverse activists, researchers, artists, etc. (women and men)
from 120+ countries for dynamic sessions and debates, extraordinary
speeches, films and more -- all around the broad theme of "How
Does Change Happen?". JASS' Executive Director, Lisa
VeneKlasen, was a part of the Forum's International Planning
Committee and spoke in the final plenary as a wrap-up on the
Forum's theme "How does change happen?" Lisa highlighted
the "hows" of change, emphasizing the importance
of strategies that build transformative forms of power: power
within, power to, and power with. A copy of her presentation
will be available here soon. ( For more on JASS'
sessions at the AWID Forum)
Model Project to End Domestic Violence in the District of Columbia
JASS is working with the DC
Coalition Against Domestic Violence to help facilitate the “Model Project Against Domestic Violence in the District of Columbia”. The model project brings together 9 organizations providing critical services and support to survivors of domestic violence in DC to strengthen service delivery and the systems that support domestic violence survivors in the District. A three-year project moving into its final year, the Model Project is also deepening relationships among the participating organizations to strengthen coordination.
Past JASS programs Promoting Women's Rights:
- Women's rights capacity building with ActionAid International including "strategic thinking and planning" workshop and fecelopment of a resource guide on "Power, Inclusion, and Rights-based Approaches."
- Evaluation: worked to design and conduct a participatory evaluation
of advocacy work carried out over the last decade by the Nigerian
Coalition Against Unwanted Pregnancy (CAUP). The evaluation
report was developed into an article, "Advocacy
for Reform of the Abortion Law in Nigeria" that was
published in the Reproductive Health Matters journal.
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Kenya Inheritance Rights Initiative: collaborated with
the POLICY Project's Kenya Inheritance Rights Initiative, supporting
the design and coordination of this project aimed at strengthening
Kenyan women's ability to access and enjoy their rights to inheritance
and family property.
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Feminist Advocacy Capacity Building:
workshop with Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida (Las Dignas)
involving feminists from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua
(see Spanish excerpt
from workshop report); and a two-week
intensive course on Advocacy and Action for Reproductive
Health and Rights co-sponsored by Agende (Brasil), Flora Tristan (Peru), Equidad de Genero (Mexico) and the University
of Brasilia.
- Planning and Coalition Building: Expanding Women's Rights
(Mozambique and Zimbabwe): workshop for partners
of Oxfam America's Southern Africa Regional Office.
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