Transnational Feminist Action and Solidarity
Feminist Movement Builders’ School
Kenya, 2024
In August 2024, JASS in partnership with Feminist Centre for Racial Justice (FCRJ) organized our second feminist movement builders’ school with 20 activists and organizers from 9 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The movement builders’ school was a five-day intensive learning space that offered a mix of practical tools and theory intended to support strategizing by developing a deeper understanding of structural exclusions underpinned by African feminist analysis.
This two-part school saw participation from experienced activists who wanted space to reflect and deepen their knowledge to inform organizing strategy. This year’s participants attended the first school in August 2024 and shall return a year later for the second part in August 2025.
Why a feminist movement builders’ school?
The feminist movement builders’ school is anchored on the premise that feminist movements are central to how big transformational shifts have occurred across societies. Through the schools’ methodological approach, we will strengthen our collective analysis on belonging, identity, and citizenship in a global context where there are increasing attacks on basic rights, threats to bodily autonomy, and increasing transnational mobilization by state and non-state actors on the interlinked issues of gender, race and class.
In their own words
The school was very participatory, using both theory and practice to rely on information and learning. The school also fostered interconnectedness in both identity and belonging highlighting that although our contexts and strategies may be different our goal is the same.
I appreciated that the school gave us the opportunity to share our work on the very first day, allowing us to understand each other’s contributions. Our diverse experiences were genuinely valued, which made me feel a strong sense of belonging and affirmed that I matter.
I have been thinking about intersectionality because most of the time I have seen it from a personal perspective. I see now that it relates to issues of gender, ethnicity, class and all of it is related to power, patriarchy.
The FMBS intentionally bridges the artificial divide between the academy and movements in service of strengthening movements.
The turning of emotion into action is crucial to build solidarity. This FMBS is intentionally built as a free space across borders and identity, to enable us to have conversations about what it means to be in community and to belong.
Silence is used as a tool of oppression. When we stay silent, those who hold power consolidate their power. It is important to disrupt and to speak up to take power.
We must document ourselves so we can fight erasure of women’s roles. We should not be erased. We cannot be erased. Erasure is something we can actively fight. We have the power to document ourselves.
Feminist Movement Builders’ School Kenya
