To María, Daysi, Laura, Brenda, Paty and Carme, alchemist sisters
COVID-19 has disrupted all our lives to levels that we would never have imagined. We traded shared coffee and conversation in our organizations’ safe spaces for fleeting Zoom screen images of our workmates and swapped warm personal hugs for kisses thrown with our hands through the mirrors of our computers. Death camped out beside us, and a dull blurry fear seized our hearts, clouding (momentarily) the way forward to continue our feminist struggle. Few of us had prior experience using networks and virtual technologies, and it was an uphill struggle to continue with our organizational projects.
Amid this whirlwind of change and rupture, the second class of the Honduran Alquimia Feminist Popular Education School was in progress. This school arose from “a fabric of solidarity, political, and working relationships between women activists, educators and academicians from different regions of the world with broad experience in popular education, feminist training, political advocacy, and social movements and struggles for the elimination of inequalities.” As an emancipatory policy proposal articulated from Feminist Popular Education (FPE) principles, the school integrates content and teaching tools that allow the women participants to become aware of the power dynamics and the inequalities in their own contexts, and of the specific violence that affects women defenders due to their gender. Hence, it allows them to articulate proposals for change that combat extractivism and violence against women and that address their harmful consequences. The women who participate in the school strengthen their leadership in their communities, territories and countries. While fighting for the conservation of the rainforests, woods, and rivers, they struggle — with their fists raised — for the rights of women to live without violence, to both enjoy and make decisions regarding their bodies, and to exercise power in decision-making spaces, among other demands.
The diverse methodologies used for this purpose include workshops; training days; group discussions, where the topics addressed in the classes are deepened; intersessional or intermodular work to carry out in their communities; and personal reflection processes, which allow the women to contextualize their life experiences and use the knowledge acquired in their lives and in their organizations. In the face-to-face sessions, the achievement of these objectives is simple, just prepare the sessions and get together to create alchemy. In these loving spaces of self- and collective care, we transform individual experiences into shared learning, revitalize the ancestral knowledge of our grandmothers, and remember the women who preceded us in this feminist struggle and who make us who we are today.
The COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to continue with these face-to-face meetings of the Alquimia School in the way we had been gathering.
The need to stay together and accompany the fellow alchemists, who were in an even more difficult situation due to COVID, made the JASS Honduras team start thinking about how to continue, but this time virtually. We first assessed the real possibilities the alchemists of this second class possessed for using the internet and other virtual tools to continue the training process. Until then, we had only carried out — in November 2019 and in person — the first module of the five that form the diploma program of the Feminist Aquimia School. The assessment, which was conducted at the beginning of the pandemic, showed us that only 27% of the participants had a computer in their homes, only 5% knew about ZOOM, only 9% knew how to make a video call on WhatsApp or Facebook, and 3 out of 10 participants did not even use a cell phone or messaging to communicate. This situation presented us with the enormous challenge of working with women who had virtually no means of or experience in using new technologies. But this situation is not unique to these women: the data on the digital divide between women and men worldwide shows a 17% gap against women.1
Latin America is one of the regions of the world where the digital divide by sex has been narrowing in recent years, although the balance is always negative for women. On this continent, 57% of women versus 63% of men have access to the internet, and 83% of men use cell phones, compared to 80% of women.2 The digital divide also varies between countries and regions, with Honduras being one of the countries with the lowest percentage of people with network access on the continent (only 36% of the population has internet access,3 16.6% have internet at home, and only 12.8% access this service from a computer).4 It is striking that in our country the digital divide is not so deep, since, according to the 2017 Household Survey, more women than men over the age of 15 have access to the internet (39% and 33%, respectively). The difference between the sexes for the use of the internet to study or do tasks is not large, as the percentage of women who use the internet for this purpose is only slightly lower than that of men (34% and 36%, respectively).5
| Internet Access Divide & Inequality in Honduras (Source: INE data 2017) |
||
|---|---|---|
| Age | 15-to-29 years old 55% |
45-to-59 years old 10% |
| Residential location | Urban 82% |
Rural 19% |
| Educational level | No schooling 2% |
Secondary education 46% |
| Income level | <90 US$ monthly 35% |
>90 US$ monthly 60% |
These inequalities in access to technology were evident among the women of the Second Class of the Honduran Alquimia School — 62 percent live in rural areas, and 80 percent are over the age of 18. Thus, they fit the profile of people in Honduras who have less access to the internet and information communications technologies (ICTs). Identifying this situation allowed us to make the right decisions regarding the path we should follow to continue with the school. The first thing we did was to provide the women with cell phones suitable for use in virtual classes and ensure that they had permanent internet for the duration of the diploma program. Before starting the virtual classes, we tried to explain with sufficient time and clarity how to use the phones, ZOOM and WhatsApp for classes.
The JASS team embarked upon the task of rethinking the curriculum of the entire diploma program to find the best way to adapt its content and methodology to a virtual platform. In coordination with UNAH (National Autonomous University of Honduras) and CDM (Center for Women’s Rights), we decided to first hold five virtual conversations on topics that were important to women at the time, such as COVID, self-care, emotional attention to women survivors of violence in times of COVID, and a beautiful artistic event organized by JASS and Nubian Queenx. And when we had readied the diploma program’s curriculum itself, we started the virtual classes. We conducted three virtual modules in which topics such as extractive industries and their impact on women’s lives, environmental laws, and land and territory defense strategies were addressed; and we developed themes such as patriarchy, power, and conflict transformation.
It was amazing and exciting to see how, with the help of their grandchildren, women who had never touched a computer began to use them as a learning resource. Support was also provided from the other end of the phone by JASS Honduras team members Maria and Laura, who patiently explained how to use ZOOM. The virtual space, the phones, the WhatsApp and all the other resources that we used served not only as a formal channel to continue with the diploma program — they were also the tools that helped us to stay connected and together in this time of pandemic and hurricanes.
Computer and phone screens became a shared space for everyone, where — before starting classes — we always took time to say hello, to see one another, to hug each other from a distance, to listen to our pulse and see how we were doing. And this was the way we met for two Wednesdays a month during almost a year. Some women walked long distances until they reached the nearest hill to receive an internet signal and attend classes; other participants joined the sessions while the water of hurricanes Eta and Iota was still standing in their houses. It was common to hear birds’ songs on the phones of the participants in outlying rural areas, and to hear the clatter of pots and pans as “background noise” during our virtual classes. Many times, we cried with the participant who had lost her home to the hurricanes, or with those who told us said they had fallen ill with COVID.
Despite all this, we managed to hold all the virtual classes, and all the students presented their graduation projects, which reflected with beauty and enthusiasm the learnings they had acquired in the school. Finishing this diploma program amidst death, pain and poverty, but also amid hope, was undoubtedly an achievement of all the alchemists and of the JASS team, who never hesitated in offering their experience, strength and hearts to the school so that it could move forward.
This process has left us with great certainties and many questions. Above all, it made it clear to us that we must believe in the women, in their immense potential for learning and change. And we must answer honestly how to deepen the adaptation of feminist popular education (FPE) methodology to the virtual platform. As is clearly pointed out in various JASS knowledge documents, FPE is a process in which women teach and learn together through the collective analysis of everyday contexts and experiences while questioning the structural and ideological roots of the discrimination that persists against women. All the reflections involve corporeality, feelings, thoughts and emotionality.6
But it is quite difficult to apply these methodologies remotely. The body is estranged, at least physically. Women’s homes and everyday spaces prevent them from having private quiet places to perform self-care exercises. The burden of domestic work and care does not allow them to always concentrate on the topics and deepen the reflective processes necessary for their learning. And you do not have those scrumptious opportunities that are typical of feminist gatherings to share “outside the classroom,” where — in the heat of the night, laughter, music, dancing and one or another drink — women reveal our souls, dreams and frustrations. The virtual setting also makes it difficult to delve, as deeply as we would like, into those issues that require collective reflection to challenge and understand them, such as power, patriarchy, sexuality, religion and other vital issues of our feminist struggle.
Virtuality leaves us with the challenge of continuing to think about how to educate ourselves and how to strengthen our feminist organizations and movements in a context in which it seems that the restrictions on mobility will continue to be in force for a long time, especially in Latin America. But at the same time, this whole situation opens a new opportunity for our movements. It is teaching us that we must adopt virtual communication and that — in an increasingly global and digitized world — we must learn to use new technologies and new communication resources, understand how they work, and even challenge the virtual world to make it more democratic, while continuously seeking a way to meet safely in person.
We need to think about educational tools that allow us to combine the virtual and the face-to-face. We must continue to enter and participate in those virtual communities of feminist knowledge and alternative learnings that are emerging all over the world. We must lose our fear of technology and take advantage of the loopholes that the system opens to access infinite sources of knowledge. Virtuality forces us to be creative, to rethink the use of art and the power of images and feminist artistic creation as a strategy to mobilize thoughts, hearts and actions. We must also look for strategies that will enable those with less access, including rural women, older women, the poorest women and those with a lower educational level, to use these resources safely.
Undoubtedly, JASS and all the people and organizations committed to the beautiful feminist project of the Aquimia Schools will know how to adapt to the new times. The virtual platform reaffirms the need to engage in dialogue with women from other countries and contexts, something that JASS has always been doing but that the virtual platform enhances with the ease of meeting through virtual networks. The challenges we face are many, especially in countries like Honduras where COVID has only intensified the poverty and violence that shapes our history. Women land and territory defenders are facing an unprecedented situation in the plundering of natural resources. The pandemic lockdown has allowed the flourishing of the impunity with which governments and large companies act to secure and perpetuate extractive projects and to murder and criminalize the women and men who fight against these death projects. Reports such as that of CESPAD (Center for the Study of Democracy) indicate that, from January to December 2020, there were 15 murders, more than 120 violent attacks and approximately 30 criminal prosecution cases brought against land and territory defenders in Honduras. During this period, the construction of extractive projects has been approved without prior citizen consultation, environmental licenses have been approved for projects that do not meet the minimum requirements for sustainability and environmental protection, and numerous reterritorialization policies have been decreed that will deepen the existing inequalities and food security and sovereignty crises.7 The national territory is for up for sale, especially now that the nefarious project of the Model Cities or ZEDES is taking shape.
But we want to tell our sister defenders that we will not give in and that you are not alone, that from JASS we will continue to accompany you, sharing our learning and knowledge with you through processes such as those of the Alquimia School. Your teachings, your love, your courage will give us the strength and wisdom to continue in the right direction.
Spain, June 2, 2021
Adelay Carías Reyes
JASS Honduras
1 ONU advierte que brecha digital entre mujeres y hombres aumenta en el mundo
2 Brechas digitales de género en tiempos de COVID-19
2 Data from SISNAN/INE Honduras, 2019.
4 Estudiantes hondureños presas de la brecha digital y la desigualdad social
5 INE. Household Survey Honduras 2018.
6 JASS Mesoamérica. Colección de Alquimia Feminista. Cuaderno 1. El poder vital transformador desde la educación popular feminista.
7 CESPAD. Spill-over effects of extractivism in times of pandemic: a framework that exacerbates the territorial crisis in Honduras.
Adelaide Mazwarira
Adelaide Mazwarira is a Zimbabwean feminist writer and creative storyteller – something she brings to many of JASS’ communications, publications, outreach and fundraising efforts. Adelaide currently works as the Communications Manager at JASS and is based in South Africa.
Her passion for feminisms and social justice grew from a young age which she has channeled in work with domestic violence survivors and research assistantships on violence against women and children. In her free time, Adelaide catches up on Law and Order Special Victims Unit, and her scrapbooking, and writings.
Tasha Pick (SOAS): Tasha is a queer feminist researcher based in London. Their work is situated across academic, creative and community spaces. They hold a Masters in Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London, and are about to begin a PhD exploring the connections between oceans, queer time and climate crisis. Over the past year, they have been working in public engagement at Queen Mary, University of London. Their most recent collaboration brought together East London migrant support organisations with local artists, writers and performers. Their work seeks to explore the radical imagination, the capacity to imagine and enact alternative futures, as a form of resistance to unliveable worlds.
Ronald Wesso lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. He works as a popular educator and freelance researcher at Bentec, a research and training consultancy supporting movements for social justice around natural resources, gender and labour. Ronald has experience working with labour, land, community and feminist movements. He has written widely on these matters, including the recent popular education manual ‘Behind the Scenes of Extractives: Money, Power and Community Resistance‘ published by the Count Me In! Consortium.
Rosa is a poet, artist, & activist of Mayan K’iche Kaqchiquel origin who has studied social sciences, cultural management and cinema and audiovisual performances. Rosa works enthusiastically and passionately with women and movements in Guatemala as the program coordinator with JASS. She has more than 15 years of experience working in community art processes and organizations for the Mayan movement. Rosa enjoys co-creating with other artists, feeling nature, drinking tea, enjoying music, and dancing a lot. Being aware of the history of her people and healing the history of her body, fills rosa with the energy necessary to work and fight with passion and in collective, for a bountiful life with other women, communities, and peoples.
Patricia adalah seorang perempuan Guatemala tulen dan feminis dengan gelar di bidang Antropologi Sosial. Patricia telah menulis artikel dan menerbitkan beberapa karya yang berkaitan dengan konteks regional, pembangunan perdamaian dan kontribusi perempuan dalam proses-proses ini, serta merancang dan memfasilitasi proses pelatihan, dengan penekanan dalam beberapa tahun terakhir pada Pendidikan Populer Feminis. Patricia menjabat sebagai Direktur Regional JASS Mesoamerika di mana ia berfokus pada produksi pengetahuan dan merupakan bagian dari Tim Kepemimpinan global JASS.
Alexa Bradley sudah bekerja sebagai organisator, fasilitator, ahli strategi organisasi, dan pendidik populer selama lebih dari 25 tahun. Dia mendirikan dan ikut memimpin Milwaukee Water Commons, membantu membentuk Great Lakes Commons, menjadi mitra senior di Grassroots Policy Project dan On the Commons, menjadi anggota dewan di Windcall, dan ikut memimpin Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action. Saat ini, Alexa adalah Direktur Program JASS.
Tamara adalah seorang aktivis lingkungan yang berfokus pada isu kesetaraan, akses, dan komunitas. Dia mengembangkan inisiatif pengembangan kapasitas dan menciptakan kampanye multimedia untuk menghapus privilese dan meningkatkan peluang bagi populasi rentan untuk mengakses udara yang sehat, energi bersih, dan ekonomi bebas racun di tingkat lokal, regional, dan nasional. Toles O’Laughlin adalah seorang pemimpin yang memiliki banyak keahlian, seorang kolaborator, individu yang kaya akan sumber daya, dan seorang ‘konektor’. Beliau adalah Presiden dan CEO Asosiasi Pemberi Hibah Lingkungan. Sebelumnya, Toles O’Laughlin menjabat sebagai Direktur Amerika Utara di 350.org dan 350 Action, dan memimpin Jaringan Kesehatan Lingkungan Maryland, yang berbasis di Baltimore.
Phumi Mtetwa adalah seorang aktivis yang bekerja di bidang kesetaraan dan keadilan ekonomi, gender, dan LGBTI. Ia memiliki banyak pengalaman bekerja dalam konteks internasional dan regional, khususnya di Afrika Selatan dan Amerika Latin. Sebagai Direktur Regional JASS untuk Afrika Selatan, ia memiliki komitmen dan fokus pada landasan politik Pendidikan Populer Feminis, mengaitkan perjuangan di seluruh wilayah serta memajukan strategi perubahan yang menjadi kunci di saat-saat genting.
Dr. Awino Okech adalah Associate Professor di bidang Sosiologi Politik di SOAS, University of London di mana ia mengajar di Departemen Politik dan Studi Internasional. Dia juga merupakan anggota dewan editorial Human Sciences Research Council, Dewan Pengawas SOAS University of London, dan menjabat sebagai Associate Director Equity and Accountability. Karya-karyanya didasarkan pada pemikiran feminis Afrika, queer, dan internasionalis kulit hitam sebagai kerangka kerja utama untuk menyoal kekuasaan dan keadilan. Awino terus bekerja dengan dan mendukung berbagai dukungan gerakan feminis internasional dan Afrika serta organisasi multilateral dalam proyek-proyek yang berada di persimpangan antara gender dan keamanan serta masalah pengembangan organisasi yang lebih luas.
Tarso Luís Ramos telah menjadi peneliti dan oposisi kubu sayap kanan AS selama lebih dari 25 tahun. Sebelum bergabung dengan PRA pada tahun 2006, Ramos menjabat sebagai direktur pendiri program keadilan rasial di Western States Center, dan mengekspos serta menantang kampanye anti-lingkungan perusahaan sebagai direktur Wise Use Public Exposure Project. Ramos baru-baru ini menjabat sebagai aktivis di Barnard Center for the Study of Women dan merupakan Rockwood Leadership Institute National Yearlong Fellow untuk tahun 2017–2018.
Sohela Nazneen adalah seorang Fellow yang berbasis di klaster Tata Kelola Pemerintahan, memimpin penelitian IDS tentang Gender dan Politik dan memimpin program MA unggulan IDS di bidang Gender dan Pembangunan. Kerja-kerja Sohela berfokus pada pemberdayaan perempuan, gerakan feminis, dan daya tanggap negara terhadap kebijakan kesetaraan gender di Asia Selatan, sub-Sahara Afrika, dan Timteng. Dia telah menerbitkan karya-karyanya secara luas tentang isu-isu ini, termasuk di World Development, Development Policy Review, Gender and Development dan jurnal-jurnal lainnya. Sohela telah bekerja sebagai konsultan untuk SDC, UNWomen, UNDP, Irish Aid, The MacArthur Foundation, dan lembaga-lembaga lainnya.
Zeph adalah seorang aktivis hak asasi manusia dan keadilan lingkungan/iklim di Filipina, feminis, ahli komunikasi, ahli strategi, dan pendidik politik populer yang bekerja dengan berbagai jaringan di Asia Tenggara, terutama jaringan perempuan pedesaan dan masyarakat adat serta komunitas LGBTQ untuk membela tanah, air, wilayah, dan hak-hak mereka. Zeph memimpin proses perumusan strategi tim JASS Asia Tenggara secara keseluruhan sebagai Direktur Regional.
EJ (nama panggilan populernya) telah aktif dalam gerakan feminis dan keadilan sosial di negaranya, benua Afrika, dan secara global. Dia memulai karir pengembangannya dengan Women’s Action Group. Sejak saat itu, EJ menjadi salah satu pendiri Majelis Konstitusi Nasional Zimbabwe, bekerja di Pan-African Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), menjadi bagian dari Feminist Leadership Institute yang pertama kali diselenggarakan di Center for Women’s Global Leadership di Rutgers University, menjabat sebagai Direktur Global untuk Hak-Hak Perempuan di ActionAid’s International, dan juga sebagai Associate Country Director Oxfam-Canada di Zimbabwe. Sejak tahun 2014, Everjoice menjabat sebagai Direktur Program dan Penjangkauan Global ActionAid International.
Ipsita adalah seorang artivist (aktivis-seniman) feminis muda dan peneliti dari India. Kerja-kerja Ipsita fokus pada topik persimpangan antara gender, pendidikan, dan aktivisme orang muda. Ia sangat percaya dengan komunikasi berbasis harapan (hope-based) dan memiliki ketertarikan dengan ragam emosi manusia yang menggambarkan empati, kebaikan, serta perspektif kemanusiaan bersama.
Ipsita is a young feminist artivist and researcher from India. She works on the intersections of gender, education, and youth activism. She is a strong believer in hope-based communications and loves to capture various human emotions invoking empathy, kindness & shared humanitarian worldview.
Sonia Corrêa adalah seorang research associate di Asosiasi Interdisipliner Brasil untuk AIDS (ABIA), Rio de Janeiro. Sejak tahun 2002, ia telah menjadi salah satu ketua Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW), sebuah forum global yang terdiri dari para peneliti dan aktivis yang terlibat dalam analisis tren global dalam kebijakan dan politik yang berkaitan dengan seksualitas. Baru-baru ini, ia telah menyunting dua koleksi studi tentang “Politik Anti-gender di Amerika Latin”. Ia pernah mengajar di institusi akademik seperti Colegio de México dan Departemen Studi Gender di London School of Economics. Ia memiliki gelar sarjana arsitektur dan gelar pascasarjana di bidang antropologi.
Crystal Simeoni is a Pan-African feminist activist and Director of Nawi – the Afrifem Macroeconomics Collective (The Nawi Collective). She works at the intersection of the technical and the colloquial, of critique and imagination, of knowledge and practice, of language and of the creation of community. She curates the work of the Nawi collective who, in community with other African feminists and organizations, work on analysing, influencing and reimagining macro level economic policies and narratives. Before Nawi, Crystal was head of Advocacy with a focus on Economic Justice at FEMNET, and the Policy Lead for the Tax and the International Financial Architecture pillar at TJN-A before that. She is also currently an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics. In her understanding, in her critique and her imagining of a different way, her work is always at the service of life.
Raisa adalah Manajer – Program dan Inovasi di CREA. Raisa terlibat secara erat dalam kerja-kerja CREA sebagai bagian dari konsorsium Count Me In! (CMI!), menantang agenda kriminalisasi, dan inisiatif CREA tentang feminist faultiness. Selama lebih dari 10 tahun, Raisa telah bekerja bersama badan-badan intervensi berbasis hak; mulai dari hak-hak orang dengan HIV/AIDS, hak-hak anak, keadilan gender, dan partisipasi politik kaum muda. Kerja-kerjanya meliputi implementasi program, pengembangan kebijakan, pengembangan jaringan, dan penelitian. Ia memiliki gelar M.A. di bidang Pekerjaan Sosial dari Tata Institute of Social Sciences, dan M.A. di bidang Gender dan Pembangunan dari Institute of Development Studies.
Sonia Corrêa adalah seorang research associate di Asosiasi Interdisipliner Brasil untuk AIDS (ABIA), Rio de Janeiro. Sejak tahun 2002, ia telah menjadi salah satu ketua Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW), sebuah forum global yang terdiri dari para peneliti dan aktivis yang terlibat dalam analisis tren global dalam kebijakan dan politik yang berkaitan dengan seksualitas. Baru-baru ini, ia telah menyunting dua koleksi studi tentang “Politik Anti-gender di Amerika Latin”. Ia pernah mengajar di institusi akademik seperti Colegio de México dan Departemen Studi Gender di London School of Economics. Ia memiliki gelar sarjana arsitektur dan gelar pascasarjana di bidang antropologi.
Shereen adalah seorang feminis, aktivis, pendidik populer, akademisi, dan Direktur Eksekutif JASS sejak tahun 2020. Kerja-kerja Shereen didasarkan pada keterlibatannya dengan perempuan dalam serikat pekerja, gerakan sosial, dan organisasi berbasis masyarakat. Shereen telah menerbitkan banyak tulisan tentang feminisme, gerakan perempuan, dan pengorganisasian gerakan sosial di berbagai jurnal, mulai dari jurnal-jurnal Afrika Selatan hingga jurnal-jurnal internasional.
Sonia Corrêa is a research associate at the Brazilian Interdisciplinary Association for AIDS, in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2002, she has been a co-chair of Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW), a global forum comprised of researchers and activists engaged in the analyses of global trends in sexuality related policy and politics. Recently, she has edited two collections of studies on “Anti-gender Politics in Latin America”. She has taught at academic institutions such as the Colegio de México and the London School of Economics’ Department of Gender Studies. Since the late 1970s she has been involved in research and advocacy on gender equality, sexuality, health and human rights, closely following the United Nations negotiations on women’s rights and sexual and reproductive rights. She has a degree in architecture, with a postgraduate degree in anthropology.
Alexa Bradley has worked as an organizer, facilitator, organizational strategist and popular educator for over 25 years. She founded and co-directed Milwaukee Water Commons, helped form Great Lakes Commons, was a senior partner at the Grassroots Policy Project and On the Commons, sat on the board for Windcall and co-directed the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action. Currently, Alexa is JASS’ Programme Director.
Phumi Mtetwa is an activist working on issues of economic, gender and LGBTI equality and justice. She has a wealth of experience having worked in international and regional contexts particularly, Southern Africa and Latin America. As Regional Director for JASS Southern Africa, she continues her commitments to the political underpinnings of Feminist Popular Education, interlinking struggles across borders as well as advancing change strategies key for the conjuncture.
Zeph is a Filipina human-rights and environmental/climate justice activist, feminist, communicator, strategist, and political popular educator working with diverse networks in Southeast Asia, particularly rural and indigenous women and LGBTQ community in defense of land, water, territories, and rights. Zeph leads the JASS Southeast Asia team’s overall strategy direction as Regional Director.
Patricia is a proud Guatemalan woman, feminist, with a degree in Social Anthropology. Patricia has written articles and published several works related to regional contexts, the construction of peace and the contribution of women to these processes, as well as designed and facilitated training processes, with emphasis in recent years on Feminist Popular Education. Patricia serves as the Regional Director of JASS Mesoamerica where she focuses on knowledge production and is part of the JASS global Leadership Team.
Tamara is an environmentalist focused on equity, access, and community. She develops capacity building initiatives and creates multimedia campaigns to dismantle privilege and increase opportunities for vulnerable populations to access healthy air, clean energy, and a toxic free economy at the local, regional, and national level. Toles O’Laughlin is a multi-hyphenate leader, a co worker, resource and connector. She is the President and CEO of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. Previously, Toles O’Laughlin was North America Director at 350.org and 350 Action, and led the Maryland Environmental Health Network, based in Baltimore.
Dr. Sohela Nazneen is a Fellow based in the Governance cluster, leads IDS’ research on Gender and Politics and convenes IDS flagship MA in Gender and Development. Sohela’s work focuses on women’s empowerment, feminist movements and state responsiveness to gender equality policies in South Asia, sub Saharan Africa and MENA. She has published widely on these issues, including in World Development, Development Policy Review, Gender and Development and other journals. Sohela has worked as a consultant for SDC, UNWomen, UNDP, Irish Aid, The MacArthur Foundation and other agencies.
Tarso Luís Ramos has been researching and challenging the U.S. right wing for more than 25 years. Before joining Political Research Associates (PRA) in 2006, Ramos served as founding director of Western States Center’s racial justice program, and exposed and challenged corporate anti-environmental campaigns as director of the Wise Use Public Exposure Project. Ramos recently served as an activist in residence at the Barnard Center for the Study of Women and a Rockwood Leadership Institute National Yearlong Fellow for 2017–2018.
Raisa is the Manager – Programs and Innovation at CREA. Her primary area of engagement is with CREA’s work as a part of the Count Me In! (CMI!) consortium, challenging the criminalization agenda, and CREA’s initiative on feminist faultiness. For over 10 years Raisa has been working with rights based interventions on HIV/AIDS, child rights, gender justice and political participation of young people. Her work has included program implementation, policy building, network development, and research. She holds a M.A in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and an M.A in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies.
Dr. Awino Okech is Associate Professor in Political Sociology at SOAS, University of London where she teaches in the Department of Politics and International Studies. She is also a member of the Human Sciences Research Council editorial board, the Board of Trustees of SOAS University of London, and serves as Associate Director Equity and Accountability. Her work is grounded in African feminist, queer, and Black internationalist thought as central frameworks for thinking about power and justice. Awino continues to work with and support a range of international and African feminist movement support and multilateral organizations on projects that sit at the intersection of gender and security as well as broader organizational development concerns.
EJ (as she is popularly known) has been active in feminist and social justice movements in her country, the African continent and globally. She started her development career with Women’s Action Group. Since then EJ has been one of the founders of the Zimbabwe National Constitutional Assembly, has worked in the Pan-African Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), was part of the first Feminist Leadership Institute held at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, served as ActionAid’s International’s Global head of Women’s Rights, as well as Oxfam-Canada’s Associate Country Director in Zimbabwe. Since 2014, Everjoice has been ActionAid International’s Director for Programs and Global Engagement.
Shereen is a Zimbabwean feminist, activist, popular educator, academic and JASS Executive Director since 2020. Shereen’s work is grounded in her engagement with women in trade unions, social movements, and community-based organizations. Shereen has published widely on feminism, women’s movements, and social movement organizing in journals in South Africa and internationally.
JASS equips women activists with the skills and strategies they need to organize others and challenge violence and injustice in politics, in their communities, at work or at home. To date, we have trained more than 3,000 women to lead in social movements and bring fresh ideas and strategies back to their communities, where they mobilize many more.
Onyeka Nwabunnia is a African feminist Researcher and writer with 4 years of experience working in the non-profit sector focused on social policy, gender, and international development. She holds a Masters in Gender Studies and Law from SOAS University of London and a BA in Political Science and African Studies from Colgate University. Onyeka currently works as a Research Officer for the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Liberia. Onyeka is the founder of the Blog Griotte, hosted on the feminist knowledge sharing platform The Only Space (TOS). As a feminist, Onyeka is driven by questions concerning how we create knowledge and understand the world.
Collective power is our greatest resource for upending inequality. Building inclusive networks across many divides not only leverages this power for social and political change, but also provides the basis for the collective safety women activists need when challenging the status quo. JASS has catalyzed 8 powerful cross-issue networks and fostered collaboration among 450+ organizations to work together from a feminist perspective.
JASS leverages international networks and allies to advocate and influence the thinking and decisions of governments, donors, institutions, NGOs, and the international human rights community. We have hosted over 100 convenings with academics, civil society organizations, and policy makers, centering the voices and specific concerns of women activists and human rights defenders, and advancing the support for gender equality and feminist movement strategies.
When women speak out and offer leadership, their voices are often dismissed or silenced. JASS turns up the volume on women’s voices by providing greater access to the tools and platforms women need to broadcast their truth and build support for their agendas. Through community radio, social media, hosted political dialogues, engagement with journalists and other communications strategies, we are making sure that women’s stories of change, innovations and feminist perspectives shape the narratives about what’s wrong, what’s needed, and what we are doing about it.
JASS is dedicated to bridging theory and practice and ensuring that the knowledge of grassroots women and activists helps to shape ideas, policies, and practice. We document insights from frontline change processes and multiply their reach and impact in the form of analyses, case studies, toolkits, and other practical resources. The knowledge we produce is widely used by activists and their allies and is influential in the field of international human rights and development.