When we are fortunate enough to embrace, listen to, watch, work with and learn from the diverse people who make up the movements, our hope is renewed, we realize our commitment to making the movements the heart of everything we do.
During November and December 2024, part of our team traveled to Bangkok, Thailand to participate in the 2024 AWID International Forum “Rising Together: Connect, Heal, Thrive.” Thousands of activists, feminists, journalists, healers, and artists gathered for debates, performances, conversations, and spaces for dialogue.
In this 15th AWID Forum, we connected with the global feminist movement, bringing the voices, positions and visions from the South and from Abya Yala, the reflections and lessons from activists and movements that have allowed us to accompany them. It is a space that each year provides the opportunity to weave networks, alliances, and celebrate in a safe space for our identities.
Our participation was through our role as a feminist fund that supports struggles and resistances with rapid and flexible financing, therefore in addition to participating in the discussions and spaces that took place, we organized some moments to meet and continue talking about the importance of placing care at the center. We’ll tell you a little of what happened in the spaces we were a part of.
Trueque (Exchange). Talking about technologies, feminism and digital care.
We participated in the event organized by Numun Fund – “Trueque”, a space for exchanging learning between women's and feminist funds, human rights defenders and feminist activists.
They were three days in which we met to dream together, to reflect, talk and imagine around technologies and their intersection with feminisms. It was a space that provided the opportunity to strengthen the capacity of women's and feminist funds as key actors in the ecosystem to better support the communities, movements and activists with whom we work. This, in the face of the threats and violence that occur and are replicated in technology and digitally-mediated spaces.
This space allowed us to advance our own strategies as a feminist fund, to continue our commitment to build feminist digital infrastructures and continue supporting activists who are imagining and creating alternatives to technologies and the digital world.
Global Gathering of Healers
Throughout the world, strategies are woven for healing and resistance in contexts of crisis. Ancestral knowledge that is transmitted, transformed and shared by witches, healers, companions, ancestors and many women and gender dissident people full of wisdom. Within the context of the AWID Forum, and together with the other Urgent Action Funds, we held the World Meeting of Healers, a space for exchange and conversation among those who carry out healing processes within their collective and daily practice.
Our intention was to continue fostering spaces where conversations about the importance of placing care at the center become a reality. Where this knowledge, which has always supported feminist movements, can be named and recognized. From our region, healers and medicine women shared their visions from an Indigenous, Black and Maroon perspective.
Rest and Resist Nest
We moved to Bangkok where our focus was on prioritizing care, during the days of the Forum we organized and maintained the “Nido de Descanso y Resistencia” (Rest & Resist Nest) that became a sanctuary for those who needed a space to breath in the middle of the gathering.
In this room, the dynamics occurred spontaneously, people shared strategies, learning and techniques for care. From massages, tattoos, breathing exercises, card reading, creative writing and shared drinks. These actions are also political and allowed us to continue reflecting on supporting and sustaining life.
A Simultaneous, Remote Gathering in México
In alliance with other Latin American feminist funds, we brought together more than 100 activists and human rights defenders from nine Latin American countries in Mexico City. This event was parallel to the event held in Thailand, and made it possible to hold conversations in our region on the same issues on which the global meeting was based. Through this space we confirmed that collective work and active listening are key to building a fairer, freer and happier world for all people.
We thank all those who made this Forum possible and also all those with whom we met, embraced, shared conversations and beautiful reflections. It was undoubtedly a moment of re-encounter for the movement, which filled us with energy to continue building and resisting together with all of you in 2025.