Purposeful

As another series of Feminist Night School finishes tonight in Freetown, we'll celebrate with African feminist scholar the growing inclusive feminist community radically questioning oppressive power structures, working across gender justice in SL and expanding possibilities & futures of freedom.

📢 NEW BLOG ALERT!!

What does it mean to place female survivor-leaders and activists at the centre of decision-making to tackle sexual violence in Sierra Leone?

📚🔥 Read on to find out more about our with

Beyond Funding: Participatory Grantmaking in Practice What does it mean to place female survivor-leaders and activists at the centre of decision-making to tackle sexual violence in Sierra…

✊🏾🇸🇱 OUR PIECE IN TODAY'S PRESS.

"At its heart, the violence of FGM is born out of the same profound patriarchy that justifies the marriage of children. A unified legal stance should be an imperative."

Sierra Leone has banned child marriage – to truly set women free it must end FGM | Josephine Kamara Marrying young girls may now be illegal, but lawmakers seem reluctant to put a stop to ge***al cutting, and the two go hand in hand

🫶🏾✨Meet some of the survivor-leaders & activists at the centre of decision-making for our with to tackle sexual violence in Sierra Leone.
This 11-strong panel are driving a participatory grantmaking model that goes well beyond the allocation of money.

Together, we're connecting the personal to the political. We're dreaming & defining the possibilities of a liberating funding practice to strengthen our movement, & we're showing what shared power & expertise looks like.

Can't wait to share more on this journey! 🌿

✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏻 Purposeful & CRIF gathered as a team from across the globe. A rare time to hold each other & the work, to draw collective breath, to deepen political clarity & to grow strength to walk back into the world with revolutionary love.
For another world is possible.🌿

🎧 “What we need to see is real action, a real revolution. A change in the system from the inside out.”
Essential podcast listening on open secrets & uncomfortable conversations from featuring & the report on the active but underfunded role young girls & women play in humanitarian crises.

What’s Unsaid | Why we need to fund feminists A new report shows the extent to which young girls and women are active but underfunded in humanitarian crises.

🌱 🇸🇱 With the Minister of Gender this week on the team furthering the regulations 1 year on from from the Gender Equality & Women's Equality Act.

It was a win last year & a vital shift towards fair access to finance, employment, pay & political representation. Still a long way to go & we'll remain at these tables to agitate for change & ensure girls & women get what's fair & just so they can be fully free.

Young feminists in animated discussion. Like sisters, they share
confidences, worries, & questions, they debate, laugh & finish each other's
sentences. They make music, they draw in opinions, they are part of a storytelling world that lifts up the power & possibility of girlhood.

Celebrating today the bonds of solidarity in spaces girls can call their own & the power of our talk show & drama broadcasting weekly on 38 radio stations across Sierra Leone. Deeply political, feminist & girl-centred, born out of crisis & delivered with joy & creativity.

"We need to look into our own culture for the challenges we face – the answers are within."
We'll continue to push back against ALL violence against girls & women, dismantling the systems of oppression, towards freedom, for us all.

READ THIS!
📚 https://bit.ly/3J2vbHG

"Activism devoid of passion is like a body without a soul. Let us transform our spaces into sanctuaries of love and solidarity."
Thank you Leila Lariba and for this powerful piece and reminder to us all. 🔥 🧡

The Heart of Activism: A Young Q***r Activist on Building a Stronger LGBTQI+ Community - African Feminism (AF) To transform our activism into a force for real change, we must commit to a fundamental shift towards genuine solidarity and inclusivity. We must embrace the principles of intersectionality in theory and practice, ensuring that all voices are heard and valued, regardless of their background or ident...

🎥 Clip 1 of this powerful conversation with Sudanese & Palestinian young feminists sharing their wisdom, pain & calls to action.
“What does freedom mean for us?” Freedom in our minds, souls, dreams, across our communities. Freedom to be & live. Freedom in every single sense & for all. Freedom to gain our collective form of liberation - the one we aspire & advocate for.

“The concept of freedom should not at all be limited to the actual applied freedoms.”
Janna Jihad

“Freedom means giving power back to the people.”
Aya Elzein


https://buff.ly/4bZqvxP

& read this report from suwra.org on the reality of millions of girls & women in Sudan.
Investigating starvation as a weapon of war, the essential solutions through local crisis response & the critical areas for intervention.

👀 https://buff.ly/4aDsQO8

“We need resources to respond to this crisis - crucially we need them to keep moving forward & for our dreams not to be broken - this is only the beginning & ahead of us is a long fight.”

Our struggle is one struggle, until the day that we are all free.

Last month, we sat with our Europe and Central Asia regional young feminist advisors in Tbilisi… This is authoritarian law playing out. It stamps on the human rights to freedom of expression, it restricts civil rights groups from…

📢 STARTING SOON!
"What Does Freedom Mean For Us?"

Join us at 2pm UTC over on Instagram Live:
👉🏾 https://buff.ly/3wLACr8

, Biphobia & Transphobia.
Holding close our LBGTQI+ grantee-partners & community in Georgia as the government moves towards Foreign Agent law pushing their health & lives into full crisis.

This is not random.
This violence so interconnected.

📢 Instagram Live!

"What Does Freedom Mean For Us?"
Sudanese & Palestinian young feminists in conversation - sharing wisdom, pain, dreams & what it means when girls are fully supported & resourced during crises & beyond.

📌 22nd May
⏰ 2pm UTC

"To be radically alive is to be hopeful — but to hope, one must acknowledge, interrogate and dream. Even though coloniality continues to shape Africa’s systems and structures, while the global north continues to thrive on the inferiorisation of how we learn and live, we are doubling down on revolutionary hope."
WE LOVE THIS from Liberation Alliance Africa


♥️ 📚 https://buff.ly/4dFPurE

“The systems of dominance and oppression are orchestrated in such a way that there is no war in this world that we’re not somehow implicated in, whether it’s through our tax, pension funds, university endowments, especially if you’re located in the global north.” - Dr. Nisrin Elamin, Sudan Solidarity Collective

Our shared humanity, feminism, and commitment to the world we dream of demands our collective efforts. We must keep our eyes, heart and action on Sudan, Palestine, and Congo.

👀 https://buff.ly/3WEP4Mf

funders4ceasefire.org demanding ceasefire and accountability.

When communities come together in collective grief & rage on public display to demand change, this collective direct action can galvanise response at the highest level.

Read more on the power of protest, collective action, & movement building for liberation.

👀 https://buff.ly/47Km7RE

❤️✊🏾❤️

🌍 ✨All across the globe, girls & young feminists are organising, pushing back & demanding a future of justice, dignity & freedom. We move money directly into their hands.
An act of solidarity & a political statement of how the world can & should be.

Meet grantee partner, Friends of Disabled East Africa, working with young women with disabilities, through organic farming.
Building financial independence, specialist knowledge & agricultural skills is seeing them forge new futures - like growing their own banana plantations.

🌱 Their collective is INSPIRING.

Our resources are just a drop in the ocean & we'll continue to politicise the movement of money across development aid, so that it's returned at scale to those whom it has always really belonged.

Every Monday catch a new episode on 38 stations across Sierra Leone, amplifying girls' voices to a nationwide audience.

Follow the drama & witness the power of friendship & everyday girls' resistance in shaping a new reality for themselves.

🫶🏾https://buff.ly/3Wkk43X

📢 For you folks in-person at DO NOT MISS our sessions - this one from with & Alliance for Feminist Movements.

For us all right here, read these findings in full - truths that will stop you in your tracks.

📚 https://bit.ly/3wUIRRC

🌱 In Tbilisi, Georgia with at .
Strategising with our regional advisory in the urgency of this moment, finding ways to shift power, connect struggles & resource our movements.
Calling into action with allies & leading sessions to share right here!🔥

🧡 LAUNCHING A NEW FUNDING CALL!!
Dedicated 2-year grants to build political power, counter authoritarianism & hold democratic institutions to account.

Share with all your people.
Right away!

This for Asia & the Pacific.
Submissions by 10 May
🔗 https://buff.ly/4cQE8kh

For Latin America & The Caribbean
Submissions by 15 April
🔗 https://buff.ly/3W2aOBc

For Southwest Asia & North Africa
Submissions by 21 April
🔗 https://buff.ly/4atKaG4

"As our own elected representatives are debating...I am reminded that the struggle is far from over. I have experienced first-hand the dangers of FGM and child marriage, and like me, millions of girls are at risk of going through this harmful practice."

READ THIS from & then sign the Nala Feminist Collective petition!

Our Fight to End FGM in The Gambia: Who is Listening? By Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian anti-female ge***al mutilation campaigner and the founder and executive director of Safe Hands for Girls.

📢 🇸🇱 BRAND NEW SERIES drops today!!

Our girl-centred drama lifts the lives & friendship of 5 girl protagonists - their collectivising, their growing understanding of their bodies & choices, their sexual health & rights, & their pushing back to create new futures for themselves.

Ask us if you want to find out more! 🔥

By building a base and shifting shared narratives, the feminist movement in Sierra Leone is leading the demand to end FGM & build futures of safety, dignity & bodily autonomy.

A powerful account for right here.
👀 https://buff.ly/3tbkxcA