WUNRN
New Perspectives, New Solutions: Funding Organising Led By Girls & Young Women
Direct Link to Full 16-Page Publication: http://www.mamacash.org/content/uploads/2015/10/CoP-Report_FINAL5pmOct9.pdf
From dusty villages in Kenya to urban centres in Mexico, teenagers and twentysomethings across the world are organising, setting up feminist groups in community centres, schools, universities and online, running campaigns against child marriage, while also petitioning for better sex education. The United Nations estimates that youth currently account for approximately one billion of the world’s population and that one person in five is between the ages of 15 and 24. This generation is determined to change the world: They are motivated to build inclusive movements that address race, class, ability, and gender.
Recent
years have seen greater attention to issues affecting girls
in
development sectors, but adolescent girls and
young women still
continue to struggle to access funding to support
their
activism. While the enthusiasm to enact change by forming their own action
groups is there, the funding landscape for girls is sparse: the World Bank
estimates that less than two cents of every dollar spent on international aid
is specifically directed towards adolescent girls. In
order to increase awareness of the importance of funding girls’ and young
women’s groups, and to create new models for supporting their activism, Mama
Cash and the Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres (Central American Women’s Fund)
set up a Community of Practice (CoP) in 2011. “We saw an opportunity to bring
together peer funds to collectively learn and channel more and better
resources to girls’ and young women’s groups. The Fondo Centroamericano de
Mujeres was an important partner as they are a pioneer in participatory
grantmaking and resourcing young women’s rights organising,” says Nicky
McIntyre of Mama Cash. Supported
by funding from the Nike Foundation’s Grassroots Girls Initiative, the CoP
was comprised of 11 women’s funds from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin
America.
Mama Cash and the Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres jointly coordinated the
CoP for three years, from July 2011 to March 2014, with a total budget of
€150,000 (€50,000 per year). Over
three years of working closely with young women, exploring young feminist
culture and re-assessing their own internal systems, the CoP members learned
that it is not only necessary for funders to take notice of young women’s and
girls’ groups, but vital. Following are seven recommendations to consider
when venturing into this exciting sphere along with examples of how CoP
members moved these ideas in action. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |