Author: Luísa Ferreira

Do you know the work of Fondo Socioambiental Plurales (Plurales Socio-Environmental Fund), our member organization from Argentina? We interviewed Marta Esber and Verónica Luna, from the program team, and they shared with us the history of Plurales, their main areas of work and strategies to tackle challenges. For more information, visit Plurales’ website.

Can you tell us a brief history of Plurales?

Our organization laid its foundations in 2001. The social, political and economic crisis in Argentina urged us to develop projects, take action, and build networks and alliances in order to ensure access to economic, political, social and environmental rights in the country and the region. In 2006 we became Fundación Plurales.

We are based in Córdoba, Argentina, and provide technical-political support, from a feminist perspective to women’s or mixed organizations led by women, farmworkers, indigenous people, and peri-urban sectors in different ecoregions such as Chaco, Puna, and wetlands, in Argentina and Latin America We work in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay.

In 2024, we became the Fondo Socioambiental Plurales (Plurales Socio-Environmental Fund). This decision was also related to an alarming context of crisis that prompted us to design new strategies. We aim to support and strengthen rural and indigenous grassroots organizations through concrete tools and solutions to promote collective power from the territories themselves. These are organizations and/or groups that do not “fit” into the financing profiles, which tend to be so restricted.

For this reason, we are now a socio-environmental fund, and we are part of the Socio-Environmental Funds of the Global South (Alianza Socioambiental Fondos del Sur). The Alliance brings together long-standing organizations such as Fundo Casa Socioambiental in Brazil, Fondo Acción Solidaria in Mexico, Fundación Tierra Viva in Central America, Samdhana Institute in Southeast Asia, Fundación Semilla in Bolivia, Fondo Socioambiental Peru, Emerger Fondo Socioambiental in Colombia, Red de Comunidades Rurales in Argentina, Fondo Ñeque in Ecuador and Fundo Tindzila in Mozambique.

What are the organization’s main areas of work?

Plurales is a non-profit organization whose vision is to contribute to the consolidation of “democratic communities” by incorporating environmental and gender justice as pillars, reinforcing respect for diversity, equity and solidarity. Hence, we envision communities where each human being is a free and responsible protagonist, a co-actor of collective creations within the framework of sustainable human development.

In this sense, our organization aims to create and strengthen spaces and work teams to:

✔ Generate conditions, reflections and actions that contribute to promoting access to socio-environmental rights for people, their organizations and communities.
✔ Promote gender justice in all its dimensions favoring equity in society by implementing projects and strategies for intervention or communication.
✔ Use different dimensions of culture and education to support alternatives for transformation.
✔ Strengthen collective action, favoring a critical, supportive and global understanding of problems.
✔ Promote exchange and cooperation among people, communities, regions, provinces, both nation and worldwide, especially in the global south.

To achieve these objectives, our current areas of work are:

• The promotion of environmental and gender justice. Considering that environmental justice cannot be achieved without gender justice, we work to ensure respect for women’s rights, including their access to and control over natural resources, applying a crosscutting feminist approach. We work together with the Feminist School for Climate Action (EFAC) and the Feminist Land Platform (FLP) to achieve this. We also work towards supporting communities and organizations with access to communication tools for advocacy, helping them amplify their voices in defense of territories. This is carried out through projects like the documentary Litio, the micro documentary Guardianas del Territorio, and the podcasts Después del Fuego and Hablemos del Campo, among others.
• The socio-environmental support fund for the direct and flexible allocation of funds that strengthen the capacities of organizations and communities for making decisions autonomously and carrying out actions based on their practices according to their specific contexts. This is achieved in three lines of funding: support for environmental activists and defenders in advocacy; promotion of fair climate solutions with a gender perspective; and urgent funds for activists.
• The promotion of the collective power of communities and organizations led by activists and environmental defenders by developing better capacities for advocacy at national, regional and global scales. In this area we work together with ENI Argentina, Tierra y ODS and the Environmental Defenders Platform.

What are the main challenges Plurales faces and how do you resist and organize?

We face multiple challenges in a global scenario of dispute between the interests of the extractive economic model and the struggle of peoples to sustain life by preserving the nature. Throughout the world, natural resources are concentrated in the power of large economic groups. In Argentina, as in other places, we also find ourselves facing an adverse political environment characterized by a far-right government and public policies.

Local marginalized communities, face high vulnerability and criminalization. In addition to that, in a patriarchal culture women often play subordinate roles, which makes it difficult for them to fully participate in public life. In this context, we work to strengthen communities’ resilience in their struggle for justice and sustainability.

The main challenge we currently face is to expand work strategies, focusing all our actions on directly accompanying local communities and organizations in their efforts to defend and protect people and the ecosystem where they live.

Thus, we resist by promoting the collective power of communities and organizations led by activists and environmental defenders by developing better capacities for advocacy at the national, regional and global levels.

We have more than 20 years of territorial work and we know that in many cases, interventions through the system of projects and programs are not enough to respond to the demands and needs for advocating and strengthening local, rural and indigenous communities and organizations.

Development aid and international cooperation projects impose very rigid institutional frameworks that are alien to the realities of territorial organizations and communities. This is aggravated by the complex contexts of local communities, who are the first to suffer from natural disasters, the impact of the climate crisis and the violation of rights.

That is why we are working on the direct and flexible allocation of funds that strengthen the capacities of local communities so that they can make decisions autonomously and carry out actions based on their practices and knowledge, adapted to their specific contexts.

Through the areas of work mentioned above, we seek to face these challenges and promote environmental and gender justice under a feminist approach.

How does the Feminist Land Platform contribute to Plurales’ work?

It is very important for Plurales to belong to a global network, mainly of women organizations, promoting a local and regional perspective and seeking to have a bottom-up impact. This enables us to work with and make visible not only the problems, but also all the potentialities that are interwoven with other organizations.

Networking, collective strategy and exchange with other members for political advocacy at different levels are among the valuable contributions of the Platform to our work.

Being a constituent part of this political space also allows us to visualize our actions with the perspective of the global south, sharing our learnings and learning from our colleagues.

Together with the other organizations that make up the FLP, we exchange strategies, actions, agendas, alliances and collective experiences with a feminist perspective to expand women’s rights to land and territories and guarantee environmental sustainability and decent living conditions.

Our reason for existing coincides with that of the Platform, making it an important strategic space to build alliances and address oppressive practices and social norms towards a more just and egalitarian society.

The social, political and economic context of our territories is alarming and violent. However, we know one thing for sure: the answer always lies in committing to collective work, with the firm conviction that other worlds are possible.

Do you know the work of MUDECI (Women, Democracy and Citizenship A.C.), our member organization from Mexico? We’ve interviewed their general coordinator, Elsa María Arroyo Hernández, who shared with us their story, main areas of work, and strategies they take to tackle challenges. For more information about MUDECI, go to their website and read our article on their best resilience practices.

Can you tell us a brief history of MUDECI?

Our organization was legally established in 2013 by a group of university classmates and activists from the National Independent Committee for the Defense of Prisoners, Persecuted, Missing and Exiled People from Mexico. From a very young age we have joined civil activism in Mexico and have supported some of the hardest issues impacting society. Now we do so under the legal figure of OUR civil society organization, MUDECI (Women, Democracy and Citizenship A.C.). However, it is important to say that our work as activists has been going on for more than 37 years.

We are a civil society organization made up of women that contributes to the social improvement of the country, promoting respect for the human rights of women and girls, as well as promoting the development of citizenship to strengthen democracy.

What are MUDECI’s main areas of work?

The organization has three main areas of work: community climate resilience, economic empowerment, and prevention of violence against women and girls.

Under community climate resilience, we promote agroecological practices and urban gardens for food security through the project “Sowers of Hope: Urban Gardens for Food Security and Climate Community Resilience”. It focuses on increasing knowledge of local practices, promoting urban agriculture, implementing small-scale food production and generating community and climate resilience. In addition, the initiative empowers small producers and their communities as key agents for change. We also preserve the pre-Hispanic food wealth through the gastronomic and cultural event Festival del Quelite. Furthermore, we denounce the political use of water and its impact on women’s lives. For this reason, we usually say that “water has the face of a woman”.

Under the second area of work we develop several actions towards preventing violence against women and girls. We do urban outings to detect unsafe areas for women and girls and we also created a training, monitoring and territorial intervention program to provide legal and psychological aid to victims of violence in the Municipality of Ecatepec, which is called Brigadas Violetas. Through this program we carried out a community diagnosis in four neighborhoods using the methodology of the United Nations on safe cities, and for that we won the Voces Vitales Contra la Violencia prize. These neighborhoods suffer high degree of social marginalization, community violence, and lack basic services. The project aims to support networks within the communities that provide assistance and advice to women who are victims of violence.

Regarding economic empowerment, we work with women survivors of violence and improve their capacity on income generation in a project called Lonchito. It provides food service to companies and civil society organizations. The products are made by women who participate in our professional trainings, which allow them to have an income that reinforces their economic autonomy. This contributes to the eradication of violence against women and girls, favoring their autonomy to break free from the cycle of intergenerational poverty among women.

What are the main challenges MUDECI faces and how do you resist and organize?

A great challenge that we face as an organization is that in recent years there has been no financial support in Mexico for civil society organizations. In addition to this, grassroots organizations are not considered eligible to receive financing and implement technical cooperation projects. There is often the perception that grassroots community organizations are projects, instead of agents of change.

In this scenario, we have always relied more on the sustainability of the organization instead of depending on financing from external entities, and that is why we have our Lonchito project. In addition to empowering women, the profits from this project are also used in our programs, contributing to the sustainability of our organization.

Having the Lonchito as part of our economical sustainability for more than 11 years has allowed us to be independent regarding the projects that we implement and our political positions, since we do not require government financing for our activities.

Another challenge is the commodification of food systems, which along with other factors leads to food insecurity in many communities. That is why the Sowers of Hope project, which consists of the development and maintenance of urban gardens, is also a form of resistance.

With this project we promote community strengthening, landscape improvement, urban habitability, leisure, environmental education, the use of rainwater and the appropriation of public spaces, in addition to strengthening the understanding that the right to land is key to preserving diverse local food systems.

How does the Feminist Land Platform contribute to MUDECI’s work?

Being a member of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP) is very important for MUDECI because it gives us international visibility and also has an impact on the local and national work that our organization carries out in Mexico. Since our incorporation, we have been invited to events, colleagues and organizations ask us for opinions on issues that affect them, and if we apply for technical councils from government agencies, we have a better chance of being accepted.

Few grassroots organizations like ours have the opportunity to belong to an international network such as the Platform, which has allowed us to make our work more visible and also gives us recognition.

Likewise, being part of the FLP has given us the opportunity to get to know the trajectory of its other members. We have had many exchanges of experiences, but also technical advice by learning about the work of other colleagues. This process provides us with a broader vision and because of that we now have a greater global point of view of the work that we do.

Thanks to the FLP we also had the opportunity to participate in international events. We consider this to be a way to improve our skills and to learn about work experiences from other countries. For us this is important because it allows us to evaluate the projects that we implement at the local level in our communities so as to strengthen and expand them and correct what needs improving.

The financial support that the FLP provides us has also served to consolidate our practices and to systematize them by writing, making video clips, etc. Additionally, it has been very important because it has allowed us to advance and give visibility to the projects we have in Mexico, such as Sowers of Hope. Thanks to this support, the project has expanded its scope of action.,

So far, more than 100 girls and boys, 120 women and 12 men have been trained in agroecological practices, rabbit and free-range chickens farming and we have doubled the goal of serving 1,500 low-cost meals in our community kitchen. The project was selected as a case study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Do you know the work of “Movimiento de Mujeres de Sectores Populares Luna Creciente,” our founding organization from Ecuador? We interviewed Clara Merino, the organization´s Executive Director who shared the history, main areas of intervention, and the strategies that Luna Creciente takes to overcome challenges. For more unformation, see also our article our article about the best resilience practices by Luna Creciente.

Can you briefly tell us about the history of the organization?

A group of organizations that work with impoverished sectors gather in Quito in the year 2000. They organize meetings, local and national encounters, exchanges and field visits. In 2004,  the Movimiento de Mujeres de Sectores Populares comes to being with the support of  Fundación de Mujeres Luna Creciente. They merge and become the same movement comprised of groups with a variety of different visions, actions, advocacy and constituencies.

In the process of 20 years, with the departure of some participants and the entry of others, the National Movement has consolidated its work, with a collective leadership, in 6 provinces of Ecuador: Pichicha, Cotopaxi, Loja, Esmeraldas, Sucumbíos and Morona Santiago. We unite 6 organizations that integrate 322 local organizations.  Its members have a diversity of peoples/nationalities, geography (coast, highlands, Amazon); ways of life; number of members; age; sex/gender and advocacy.

This has been made possible by a permanent process of action-reflection-action sustained at the local, provincial and national levels and participation in broader regional and global spaces.

¿What are the main organizational working areas?

Considering the historical and current struggles of women’s organizations in their diversities, the main lines of action involve meetings, analysis and collective definitions in assemblies, exchanges, analysis and decisions of local diversities that co-create positions and actions from their local realities towards the national and global levels.

Though activities vary according to the local reality of organizations, the main areas of action include the following.

• Organizational strengthening and feminist political training within a permanent process, in national and local spaces to develop practices and actions that lead to   the development of critical thinking with conceptual, methodological and political elements, from their own experiences and wisdom.
• Advocating personal and collective rights, with emphasis on women’s rights, peoples/nationalities, holistic health and defense of bodies, lands and territories, with key elements of action-reflection-action applicable to all levels.
• Protection of human rights, fundamentally of women and girls, with emphasis on economic, social, cultural and political rights.

• Nonmainstream communication and participatory research, with the integration of its own historical and local knowledge, for developing and expressing of concepts, codes and communicational forms for dissemination and analysis.
• Joint actions with indigenous, afro-descendants, popular organizations and movements that embrace values of feminist women organized in territories.
• Joint work with feminist coalitions and platforms that work for gender justice and climate justice.

Which are the main challenges Luna Creciente faces and how do you resist and organize among yourselves?

The main areas of work address the challenges we face. We highlight among them the growing level of impoverishment of the population, which affects women, youth, and children the most and it follows the logics of “necroliberalism” at national and global levels – with the exception of a few countries that remain resistant to it.

As a result, there are growing inequalities in terms of decent living conditions, serious violations of human and women’s rights, and the destruction of nature with the brutal advance of extractive activities, especially mining, oil and agro-industrial activities, with the destruction of the habitat of communities and peoples.

This reality leads to extreme situations, such as: i) increasing migration in inhumane and dangerous conditions that also takes to small agricultural production to be left in the hands of aging women; ii) increasing violence and declaration of a “state of internal war” with persecution and aggression against social movements, human rights and nature defenders; iii) lack of economic and subsistence resources for impoverished women, their organizations and the movements; iv) difficulties with connectivity and sources of communications, aggravated by power cuts.

In the face of serious challenges, the movement resists and acts on multiple fronts, practicing resilience as a political act, which includes the following.

We work at grassroots level with members of the organizations and their environments, with contributions mainly from unpaid community work and on very few occasions with small funds, increasingly scarce and decreasing, and minimal contributions from international cooperation.

We work on the permanent continuation of feminist political training and joint actions with other women’s and social organizations.

We intervene in various spaces dealing with precarious conditions both face-to-face and virtually, when possible, among the women of each community/organization, among them at the provincial level and among the members of the movement.

We attend permanently provincial and national meetings and assemblies, face-to-face whenever possible (less and less due to lack of funding) and virtual meeting according to connection availability.

We are committed to continuing with the feminist political trainings, participation in national and regional feminist events and in defense of the environment, support and contributions to public policies for social, gender, and climate justice.

We focus on unifying diversity going beyond electoral interests and on advocating in alliance with other feminists and social movements.

How does the Feminist Land Platform contribute to the work of Luna Creciente?

Being part of FLP has allowed us to enrichen our capacity to participate in political discussions and learn about the realities of organized impoverished women in the Global South – from their courageous fights to their strategic attempts.

This has connected us with feeling as part of the dreams and courageous fights of other women organizations in their territories and the collective attempts built at several global and regional spaces. Among which we highlight FLP´s Regional Encounter in Latin America and our presence at the powerful Marcha das Margaridas (March of Daisies) last year in Brazil.

We also place special significance to learning about the struggles of women organizations from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, which has improved our knowledge and understanding of the different realities as well as widen our vision of the international dimension and a more comprehensive perception of the struggles of our feminisms.

The spaces that the FLP have accomplished an important role have been key to our activities in defense of our individual and collective rights. It has also served to widen the scope and apply our advocacy addressing local, national and global issues.

As FLP members, we also participate in important interactive events at different levels, which brings us the opportunity to exchange experiences, thoughts, knowledge and dreams for better living conditions to ourselves and our villages. This has allowed us to disseminate all we learn in our exchanges with organizations in Ecuador.

Moreover, FLP has offered us support with seed grants in 2022 and 2023 to continue our feminist political trainings at local and national levels, regarding key issues such as gender and climate justice, an essential component of our work.

Do you know the work of Azul, our member organization from Morocco? We’ve interviewed one of their founding members, Amina Amharech, who shared with us their story, main areas of work, and strategies they take to tackle challenges. For more information about Azul, read our article on their best resilience practices.

Can you tell us a brief history of Azul?

In 2012 some friends and I were members of a Facebook group dedicated to Amazigh poetry, which is an essential element of our ancient culture. Poetry is for us a means of expressing ourselves and describing our life, our socioeconomic conditions and our worldview. Unfortunately, whenever we tried to discuss a topic and analyze the texts to understand their contexts, the Facebook group administrator would say: “Don’t say that, because that’s political”.

There was a lot of censorship, so in 2013 we decided to leave that group and create another one in which every Amazigh person could come, share, debate, say what they think about the current situation and tell their stories, as well as stories from their communities and families and from the tribes.

From that moment on, we really started to analyze the situation, the conditions, the historical facts and the socioeconomic phenomena that affect us. We also began to talk about why we Amazigh people felt bad about ourselves, why there was so much discrimination, poverty and socioeconomic exclusion for the Amazigh living in the mountains and in the countryside.

We also talked about colonization and what the Protectorate over Morocco brought in terms of administrative organization and changes in legislation, ignoring Amazigh laws, and about how we were gradually dispossessed of our lands through foreign laws.

We then raised the question of our responsibility, that is, how we, Amazigh people, should react and what we could do against this exclusion and discrimination. Through the group, we carried out solidarity campaigns for communities that were experiencing difficulties and campaigns for the resistance of ancestral knowledge, among other actions in which each person helped with as much as they could.

In 2016, I went to Geneva to participate in the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) and made statements about the situation of the Amazigh in Morocco as we collectively understand it in the group.

We came to the conclusion that national laws could not protect the Amazigh people, and therefore we had to look for another approach. We chose the path of the United Nations and international advocacy.

From the Facebook group, we then started to function as an Amazigh network where there were people with roles with whom we organized conferences, meetings and actions, but also grassroots activists wishing to defend their identity and rights as best as they can.

What are Azul’s main areas of work?

Azul’s main areas of work come from the reflections carried out by the group and the priorities that emerged from it.

There are main themes, such as the right to land and natural resources, which are essential elements for the Amazigh as indigenous peoples. But there are also others which are equally important, such as confronting linguistic discrimination, socioeconomic marginalization, the lack of access to health care and education, the refusal of birth registrations with Amazigh names, isolation… All consequences of national laws of colonialist and neocolonialist inspiration.

The problems we face are cumulative and interconnected. An Amazigh person whose land has been taken is an uprooted person and a vulnerable victim of forced assimilation.

Of course, whenever we talk about the rights of the Amazigh people we talk about women, who are at the center of our collective rights, and young people, who are our future. The fact is that women are the most affected by the consequences of past and current policies and by institutional, religious and socioeconomic discrimination.

Our network covers practically the entire region of Morocco, but among us there are also Amazigh people from Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and the diaspora, as well as foreign friends who support our cause.

Something that is very important to us is to keep listening to the communities and ensure that no one feels alone or isolated. Colonialism has always been built on the principle of “divide and rule” and we must remain united in solidarity with each other and around our cause.

When communities are isolated and information does not circulate, people can be expropriated in record time. Our role at Azul is to stay informed by the network’s members and process the information received before publishing it to mobilize public opinion or using it for advocacy.

In addition to using social networks, which allow us to communicate and stay informed, we sometimes travel and go to the field, hitting the road to visit communities. In the meantime, we remain vigilant and preserve our safety, which is an enormous responsibility.

What are the main challenges faced by Azul and how do you resist and organize?

As with all indigenous peoples in the world, the challenges faced by Azul and the Amazigh people are multiple. Simply because when we talk about land we talk about empowerment, socioeconomic rights, the preservation of knowledge, traditions, the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), climate change, ecosystems, biodiversity, forced displacement and immigration.

To understand the challenges, we need to see things from a global and multidimensional point of view. When we talk about the loss of rights over land and territories, this inevitably implies the loss of ways of life, culture, language and also the loss of identity.

Without the right to manage our natural resources, we cannot be economically autonomous, nor guarantee the sustainability of these resources, which are under threat of extinction.

We face climate change and the consequences of extractive activities and public agricultural policies that consume a lot of water and, above all, of the colonialist laws that dispossessed us for more than a century and cause damage to the functioning of Amazigh society, which is traditionally matriarchal.

Many things have been lost in our culture, such as traditional knowledge and the governance and management systems of the Amazigh people. And among the forms of resistance to face these challenges, we consider it essential to practice solidarity, which is one of our values.

Through Azul, we organize solidarity operations and campaigns to support communities in difficult situations and also to revive ancestral knowledge related to wool work and “Tiwiza” (community work) in the countryside, helping small farmers to preserve endemic seeds and to avoid GMOs.

Another major challenge is the safety of communities and the protection of human rights defenders. Since the pandemic, we have seen a setback in human rights that weighs heavily on our daily lives.

All these challenges do not discourage us. They allow us to have even more strength to continue fighting for our rights and not leave as a legacy to our children the same traumas we experienced. This hope for a better life for future generations keeps us alive and is our driving force.

Thanks to our advocacy, but also thanks to the values ​​transmitted by Azul and all its members (the Azuliens), today we have many friends from all over the world who show solidarity with us, value what we do, support us and respect our struggle.

This solidarity is also very important for us. We are a pacifist people who show solidarity with all people on Earth who experience the same as us. Our conditions bring us closer to other indigenous peoples around the world, who we join to advocate for rights on a global level. Despite the differences in languages, regions, religions, colors, countries, etc., we face similar problems as indigenous peoples.

The last challenge is linked to the post-Covid pandemic context, when we saw the regression of the rights of indigenous peoples, but also of all human and community rights. A crisis combined with the economic crisis faced by families. This inevitably leads many people to become increasingly discreet and try not to be noticed. People fear for their safety, and we understand that very well.

To face all these challenges, we work hard on networking. Today we have strong international alliances and good relationships with other organizations. We also make our knowledge and experience available to other organizations and university researchers who study topics that concern us.

For example, we work in partnership with the Traab platform, led by sociology PhD Soraya El Kahlaoui, who develops important work on land issues. In this project, which consists of an application for mapping cases of expropriation, we collect information on land conflicts to identify affected communities, map the problem comprehensively and amplify the voices of displaced communities. Thus, we address the problem of lack of data on the issueand allow women, in particular, to have their demands heard.

We also contribute with information to special rapporteurs and national and international reports, such as the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR), with contributions on Amazigh rights.

These reports are an excellent alternative to the lack of financial resources and allow us to stay connected, active and proactive, avoiding both expenses and putting human rights defenders at risk. Let us not forget that our sister Kamira Nait Sid is still imprisoned in Algeria for defending the Amazigh cause.

To prevent this type of abusive incrimination, we refer to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which to date is the only global legal text that defends our rights, in addition to the Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and CEDAW General Recommendation No. 39 for indigenous women and girls.

How does the Feminist Land Platform contribute to your work?

Of course, just as there are challenges, there are always opportunities, such as being part of international networks and platforms that give us visibility and allow us to meet other organizations that experience the same problems and with whom we exchange knowledge, experiences and good practices.

Azul joined its first international network, the International Land Coalition (ILC), in 2018. When I became a member of the global board, I met Patrícia Chaves, from Espaço Feminista (Brazil). This allowed us to debate the issue of gender and women’s rights to land and territories.

We reflect a lot from our perspective as women who work with the communities and know the daily struggle, and about how to provide concrete solutions for those who experience the same situations as we do.

This is how the Feminist Land Platform was born, to become a space that respects this “bottom up” approach, which is rarely respected in the world. Generally, decisions are not made at a community level, but rather dictated by very large organizations or at a global level, which distorts the logic, and we have wanted that to change.

Today the FLP is a concretization of this new way of seeing women’s problems in the context of gender justice and land rights to improve women’s socioeconomic conditions: it is a political demand for, by and with women.

The Platform has also given us a space that values our experience. Azul is more focused on advocacy work at an international level, as national laws do not protect us. Since 2016, we have acquired and developed a set of mechanisms and knowledge in terms of legislation, international law, and means of protecting and defending the rights of indigenous peoples and women to land, territories and natural resources in a context of immigration and climate change.

We bring this expertise within the reach and at the service of our sisters from the Feminist Land Platform, but at the same time we learn a lot from them, because each organization has an area of ​​expertise. Our wealth comes from our diversities, which are full of similarities among the issues faced by original peoples.

Azul is proud to be a founding member of the FLP, to share its vision and to work towards its goals of justice and equity in rights in general and in land rights in particular. Land and women are very important in Amazigh culture; in fact, the same word, Tamazighte, means land, tongue and woman. This proves that we have the entire FLP spirit in our culture and this is simply extraordinary for us.

“Nayakrishi agroecological practices and seed wealth preservation” is an inspiring practice developed in Bangladesh by UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative), one of the members of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP).

UBINIG runs a farmers’ movement called Nayakrishi Andolon, a new agricultural movement that practices biodiversity-based farming and has more than 300,000 farming families as members all over Bangladesh.

The organization works at the grassroots level, solving challenges of livelihood and community existence in an increasingly globalized and intensely competitive economy, and at the policy level, by advocating for better solutions to challenges that affect the lives of the majority, especially marginalized people.

FLP recently mapped some of our members’ best resilience practices so that other communities and organizations can learn and adapt tools and strategies to their local realities. In this article, we’ll discuss one of the inspiring practices developed in Bangladesh by UBINIG. This is part of a series of articles detailing the best practices of each FLP organization. Check out our blog to read about all of them!

Nayakrishi agroecological practices and seed wealth preservation

This report is based on practices that take place in five districts of Bangladesh: Tangail (flood plain zone), Pabna, Natore & Kushtia (drought-prone zones), and Cox’sbazar (coastal area). It benefits over 80,000 farmers, among which 47,000 are women.

Nayakrishi Andolon is a biodiversity-based farmers’ movement created in 1992 and led by women. Their practice follows 10 principles, including no use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or groundwater extraction. They advocate for using local variety seeds and for collecting, regenerating, and exchanging seeds among farmers.

So far, the movement has collected more than 2,700 varieties of rice and 1,000 varieties of other crops, including vegetables, oil, spices, fruits, etc. It also keeps seeds for climate change-related crises such as floods, droughts, and cyclones.

Seeds are kept at the Community Seed Wealth Center (CSW), created in 1998 as an institutional system for the Nayakrishi Seed Network (NSN). “The main CSWs are located at the UBINIG centers in Tangail and Pabna. Seed Huts at the village level are also part of the CSW. Farmers deposit seeds and take seeds from the CSWs”, explains Farida Akhter, UBINIG’s executive director.

The communities involved mostly comprise small-scale farmers with less than a hectare of land each. Through this practice, they receive regular training on seed preservation and agroecological methods.

Those who do not own land raise goats and cows and work with the farmers. They share the cow dung and milk with the landowning families and get straw and other fodder in exchange.

Through this project, common land is preserved and kept free from harmful chemicals, so the poor and landless women can have access to edible plants and to the grazing of the livestock.

Community relationships are also based on seed exchange and sharing, which helps increase crop diversity. In times of natural disasters, the farmers share the seeds with those who have lost their crops and seeds.

For the development of this practice, UBINIG partners with the Department of Agricultural Extension, the gene banks of the government of Bangladesh, and women’s groups from all the 64 districts of the country, that make up the Women and Biodiversity Network. These groups work with farmers in their respective areas and take the seeds they need from the CSW.

Main results and challenges

The farmers started with less than a hectare, but many of them could enlarge their land over the years. It was also found that women felt the need to buy land in their names with their savings from raising cows and goats.

An important result from these agricultural practices was that many female-headed households (divorced and young widows) could buy land or take land on lease for cultivation and become food self-sufficient, since the agroecological methods do not require money for buying chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides.

“More farmers are joining this movement, and women farmers are holding meetings on seeds and exchanging their knowledge with different groups. In February 2024, they hosted a visit of Sri Lanka and Myanmar farmers”, Akhter adds.

She also points out that Nayakrishi women farmers have become more conscious of their land rights and have been discussing it more often. “They are also talking about rivers, which help grow special local varieties. However, with the pollution of the rivers, such possibilities are disappearing”, she warns.

This practice is linked to the broader movement of food and seed sovereignty, and Akhter stresses that they face many challenges due to the corporate aggression with laboratory seeds, including GMOs, and to the fact that there is no government support for small-scale farmers.

“The Seed Law of the country is made for the seed breeding companies; thus, farmers’ rights are violated. So, the movement is significant for the communities”, Akhter concludes.

“Sowers of Hope: Urban Gardens for Food Security and Community Resilience” is one of the best resilience practices developed by the organization Mujeres, Democracia y Ciudadanía A.C. (MUDECI), one of the members of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP).

MUDECI is a Mexican non-profit civil association created in 2013 by grassroots women with extensive experience in territorial work and activism. Its mission is to secure public recognition for the leadership of organized grassroots women’s groups as agents of change and to position local women-led organizations as driving forces in public agenda-setting and political accountability.

FLP recently mapped some of the best resilience practices of our members so that other communities and organizations can learn and adapt tools and strategies to their local realities. In this article we’ll talk about one of the inspiring practices developed in Mexico by MUDECI. This is part of a series of articles detailing the best practices of each FLP organization. Check out our blog to read about all of them!

Urban agriculture training center

Ecatepec, located on the outskirts of Mexico City, is mostly an urban municipality shaped by the internal migration.. In the 60s and 70s, it was heavily occupied by rural communities who sought better living conditions. The original inhabitants were dedicated to the cultivation of rice, and the tradition of cultivating in backyard orchards remains.

MUDECI has been developing, an urban agriculture training center aiming to local people in Ecatepec to cultivate backyard gardens for self-consumption since May 2022.

The backyard urban gardens were seen as an opportunity to reduce food insecurity in which many people found themselves, especially those who lost their livelihoods during the COVID 19 pandemic. ,This provided  access to organic food and also sell or share the surplus of their production with their neighbors.

The development and maintenance of urban gardens responds to several contemporary needs, such as community strengthening, landscape improvement, urban habitability, leisure, environmental education, use of rainwater, and appropriation of public spaces.

It also comes from the understanding that the right to land is key to preserving the various local food systems, consumption is less commodified and traditional food knowledge and practices are valued.

This project is the result of the exchange of experiences among grassroots women from Mexico and Nicaragua and fellow grassroots women from Toluca, Tejupilco, State of Mexico and Jojutla.

The transformative power of urban gardens

“Our initiative has contributed to strengthening urban agriculture as a viable alternative for food production in small spaces”, says Elsa María Arroyo Hernández, MUDECI’s general coordinator.

MUDECI has been achieving a positive impact on the community through its different initiatives, such as the backyard garden project, a community kitchen, the Paulo Freire School Garden, and the selling of local products.

According to Hernández, these initiatives have contributed to improving food security, empowering women, strengthening local economy, and promoting urban agriculture and agroecology. Women have assumed leadership roles in the planning and implementation of climate resilience initiatives.

During this process, communities have diversified the crops they grow to reduce dependence on climate-sensitive crops. Agroecological practices such as rainwater capture, the use of organic fertilizers and the planting of cover crops have been implemented to improve the soil  and climate resistance. Finally, efficient irrigation systems have been developed to optimize water use and to reduce vulnerability to drought in their hydroponic garden and green roof.

Hernández points out that the participation of grassroots women in the planning, implementation and evaluation of projects has been very importantas  they contributed with ancestral knowledge passed on from generation to generation.

“This has always been an agricultural community and there is a lot of knowledge about the land, which was enriched by the contribution of an agronomist engineer who supported us.  It is important to highlight the joy with which the activities such as preparing the land, planting, and distributing the harvest are carried out. That in turn strengthened community work  and common good”, she adds.

Some of the results obtained so far:

• 100 boys and girls, 120 women and 12 men were trained in agroecological practices, rabbit farming and free-range chickens.
• The project was selected by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) as a case study.
• They doubled the goal of serving 1,500 low-cost meals in their community kitchen.

As partners for this practice, MUDECI counts on the Center for Economic, Social and Technological Research in Agribusiness and World Agriculture (CIESTAAM) of the Autonomous University of Chapingo, the Central Campesina Cardenista, and the Network of Women Farmers, Producers and Artisans of Mexico.

“Application to collect cases of spoliation” is a practice developed by Meriem Bentarjem and Dr. Soraya El Kahlaoui, co-founder of the Traab project platform, in partnership with the organization Azul (Morocco), one of the members of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP).

AZUL works towards giving back to the Amazigh (indigenous peoples of Morocco and North Africa) their status as full citizens, as opposed to their present lack of decision-making power or sovereignty over their tangible or intangible heritage.

Its mission is to sensitize and mobilize the population to better face the problems related to land, natural resources, socio-economic inequalities, and the destruction of ecosystem and their consequences on the individual and the community.

FLP recently mapped some of the best resilience practices of our members so that other communities and organizations can learn and adapt tools and strategies to their local realities. In this article we’ll talk about one of the inspiring practices developed in Morocco by AZUL.

This is part of a series of articles detailing the best practices of each FLP organization. Check out our blog to read about all of them!

Application to collect cases of spoliation

This practice started in April 2022 and is being developed in all the Moroccan territory and some regions of Tunisia where there are problems of spoliation and expropriations.

It will benefit Amazigh/Indigenous Peoples throughout Morocco and all victim communities of land expropriation. Women represent a considerable part of the rights holders of collective lands, referred to as Soulaliyates.

The region of Morocco and North Africa was mostly colonized by France, which has implemented laws that states continue to apply to dispossess indigenous peoples of their lands, territories, and natural resources.

For centuries, the Amazigh have developed several practices essentially related to land (agriculture), territories (livestock and transhumance), and natural resources, since the activities depend essentially on the specificities and availability of resources and in a concern for adaptation and protection of ecosystems and biodiversity.

The space emplacement of the Amazigh conditions their way of life, their culture and gives them their ancestral identity. Dispossessing the Amazigh of their land amounts to tearing them away from their territory and forcing them to migrate elsewhere, just as confiscating their rights to their resources keeps them in precariousness without the possibilities for improvements. This puts them in vulnerable conditions and makes them easily assimilated.

Indigenous communities in rural areas are particularly targeted by the privatization of land and its resources. Similarly, marginalized urban communities living in slums and peri-urban lands are also subject to eviction procedures.

“The proliferation of fraudulent acts and illegal activities is such that there is what is commonly referred to as a ‘Land Mafia’ rampant in all regions of Morocco aimed at monopolizing land to the detriment of the rightful owners. This plundering finds fertile ground in legislation, impunity, power games, the fragility of communities, the inefficiency of the courts, the connivance of magistrates, and agricultural policy, all of which mean that law and justice no longer have a place, especially in matters of land, either for communities or for women, the last link in a weakened chain”, explains Amina Amharech, a founding member of AZUL.

According to her, the main difficulty today lies in the absence of a database that could list all cases of actual dispossession to establish an exhaustive mapping of the extent of the problem – which is why this practice came into play. 

How the project works

This project has the goal of collecting information on land conflicts to identify the communities impacted, drawing a comprehensive mapping of the issue, and raising the voices of dispossessed communities.

Through the practice of “counter-mapping”, it aims to map land conflicts in North Africa, and mainly in Morocco and Tunisia, creating an open-source web platform combining interactive mapping and storytelling. The project is also based on the development of an application to offer an open-source data collection tool.

It has two components:

• Mapping land conflicts: It is expected that about 50 communities will benefit from a visibility of their claims via the web platform.
• The app: Members of the Amazigh AZUL community network will be trained to use the app to collect data on land conflicts.

It should be noted that particular attention will be paid to the issue of women, who are the most impacted social group in any process of discrimination and marginalization, and particularly in terms of access to property and land.

Women rarely receive compensation in the event of land transfer, often find themselves without an offer of rehousing, and are excluded from the negotiations. The project will ensure that the issue of gender equity is represented in the mapping of land conflicts and will focus on the gender approach to build alternatives.

Thanks to the application, a reliable database and accurate mapping, women’s voices will be more audible and the impact of the denial of their rights will be more visible. This is an essential step to change the laws and effectively support the demands of women at different levels, thus also benefiting the entire FLP network.

It is also important to notice that the results of this project will strengthen other good practice of Azul such as advocacy at the international level for the recognition of the rights of Amazighs as indigenous people and a call for an overhaul of land laws.

The opportunity of developing a second phase of this project will allow AZUL to test and train communities in the data collection application. To this end, training workshops will be organized with different communities. Particular attention will be given to the training of women researchers.

Azul collaborates with Dr. Soraya El Kahlaoui (Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow), main investigator of the Traab project and its project partners, including Ghent University.

To further understand the issues faced by Amazigh people, read this article by Amina Amharech on IWGIA’s website.

“Land regularization as a guarantee of women’s land rights” is one of the best resilience practices developed by the organization Espaço Feminista do Nordeste para a Democracia e Direitos Humanos (Brazil), one of the members of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP).

Founded in 2008, Espaço Feminista works in areas such as:

• Production of knowledge about the situation of women, carrying out various studies, research and publications.
• Training processes aimed at valuing women as autonomous subjects (citizens) and encouraging their participation in public policy formulation and monitoring spaces.
• National and international articulation and advocacy.

FLP recently mapped some of the best resilience practices of our members so that other communities and organizations can learn and adapt tools and strategies to their local realities. In this article we’ll talk about one of the inspiring practices developed in Brazil by Espaço Feminista (EF).

This is part of a series of articles detailing the best practices of each FLP organization. Check out our blog to read the others!

Land regularization as a guarantee of women’s land rights

This practice is currently developed in the municipality of Bonito, in the state of Pernambuco (Brazil), in 15 informal settlements that were created by the municipal government but never regularized.

Through this work, Espaço Feminista aims to address the inequality of land and housing rights for women, low-income families and single mothers (or solo women families). Therefore, they look at land and housing rights from a women’s land rights perspective.

“We are addressing and analyzing all the perverse consequences that lack of land and housing rights cause in terms of insecurity and violence in women’s lives and livelihoods”, explains Patrícia Chaves, Espaço Feminista’s executive director.

EF works in partnership with the municipal government of Bonito, targeting to ensure security of land to an estimated 5,000 families in the 15 informal settlements. The work includes a socio-economic cadaster of all families living in the informal settlements, a topographic survey with identification of each property, a survey of the infrastructure of the settlements and individual interviews for data and document collection.

Espaço Feminista empowers the technical team of the “Minha Casa é Legal” program from Bonito’s City Hall on legal aspects, especially on how to ensure that priority is given to women. In addition, it writes the project that is later sent to the registry office. The action also has a local team that develops awareness workshops with residents, taking questions and guiding them to ensure preference at the time of titration.

So far, 4 of the 15 areas have been completed and the surveys are being made in 5 other areas.

This practice proves to be effective in ensuring autonomy, land security and housing for women and their families, especially those who suffer from greater vulnerability because they have a very limited knowledge about their rights or are in informal relationships with their partners. Many are the second wives and are vulnerable to the informal market of lot selling.

It also promotes the autonomy and empowerment of women at multiple levels, such as the autonomy in deciding on their residence, ensuring security for the next generations and the potential to generate financial autonomy with the security of the land in their name.

“This document is a blessing. I thought that my house would never have a document. And today I have it in my hand, thank God!”, said beneficiary Maria Madalena da Silva in the video below, made by Espaço Feminista:

“Our work is a way to overcome injustice that women face due to informality and its consequences, such as informal transactions without their knowledge or consent and also issues of patrimonial violence embedded in our patriarchal culture and very present in the lives of low-income women, living in complete informality”, adds Patrícia Chaves.

Some of the results obtained so far:

• On March 11, 2021, the first area with 479 properties (land and the house) was registered and certificates were handled to the residents, of which 69% on the name of women, being in individual or joint titles.
• On March 11, 2022, the second area was delivered, this time benefiting 150 families, of which 50% went to women as an individual registry and another 35% were joint titles – woman and man – but of these 69% had the name of the woman as the first holder.
• The third area, called Frei Damião, was concluded and handled in November 2022, directly benefiting 741 families. More than 70% of the land titles had the women as the beneficiaries. In this area the number of single mothers was very high, and EF is developing an analysis of the results and is also building the conditions to do an impact assessment.
• The fourth area, Ben-ti-vi, has been concluded. Land tiles will be handled to 280 families, most of whom are women.
• The practice is structured, very well documented and disseminated and offers a series of possibilities for future evaluation on the direct impact on the lives of women and their families, especially women caregivers who in many cases care for grandchildren to allow their daughters to work. 

For more information about this practice, watch the video on Cadasta’s YouTube channel:

As partners for this practice, Espaço Feminista counts on the Municipal Government of Bonito; Attorney General of the Municipality of Bonito; Real Estate Registry Office of Bonito; and the Court of Justice of the State of Pernambuco. The work is supported by the WellSpring Philanthropic Fund, Landesa and Cadasta Foundation.

You might also like to read: Transforming our cities by addressing gender deficit in land titles in Brazil, published by Patrícia Chaves on Urbanet.

The difference in languages and geographic origins is no barrier to creating bonds of affection and activism. Proof of this was the experience shared by the women of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP) during the regional meeting held in Brasília, capital of Brazil, between August 13th and 16th. In three special moments, these diverse women came together to strengthen each other, their organizations, and the Platform.

On the first two days, the regional meeting of FLP organizations from Latin America brought together 15 women from four countries: Espaço Feminista (Brazil), Luna Creciente (Ecuador), Fundación Plurales (Argentina) and Mudeci (Mexico). On the third day, they were joined by 25 women from the state of Pernambuco, in the Northeast of Brazil, who represent the different territories, communities and identities that make up Espaço Feminista.

All these processes culminated on the last day of the event, with the participation in the Marcha das Margaridas (March of the Daisies). One of the largest feminist mobilizations in Latin America, the march takes place every four years and brings together more than 100,000 women in Brasília.

Regional meeting of the Feminist Land Platform

At the regional meeting, promoted by the FLP thanks to the support of the Ford Foundation, the Platform’s member organizations from Latin America were represented not only by their leaders, but also by other women who make up the organizations and are leaders in their territories.

“This meeting was very important for us. We were able to discuss the actions carried out so far and plan what is most relevant for our organizations and the Platform in the coming years. This was done through a process of collective discussion, based on the experiences and needs of each organization”, stated Patrícia Chaves, from Espaço Feminista.

During the two-day meeting, they debated topics such as qualified political advocacy, feminist education, mobilization of resources, democratization of access to information and to knowledge production, communication through counter-hegemonic means and defense of nature, with a clear opposition to extractivisms and appreciation of the wisdom of traditional peoples.

“We reflected on the systematization of the work and experience of women community leaders and on the importance of sharing our practices with other women in our global network”, noted Elsa Maria Arroyo, from MUDECI.

In small groups and then together, they shared the main strategies adopted by their organizations and the gaps they encounter to go further in their missions. Based on this, they defined strategies to increase the Platform’s impact, thus reaching increasingly wider spaces based on their knowledge, voices, and perspectives.

Verónica Luna, from Fundación Plurales, considers that participation in spaces of exchange, learning and collective decision-making like this one has repercussions on the daily actions of organizations: “It helps each person and each organization grow in the exercise of citizenship. It’s also an exercise of democracy, which currently seems so fragile and must be taken care of.”

Meeting with women from Pernambuco

In a second moment, 25 women farmers, fishermen and quilombolas, coming from different parts of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, joined the women already present in Brasília. They experienced an exciting space of exchanges that helped give a broader dimension to their struggles, reinforcing the perspective that the problems they encounter in their territories are structural, and thus common to all in the Global South.

Patrícia Chaves highlighted that this was a very important moment not only for the Platform, but also for the women of Espaço Feminista, because it created a bond among them all. “A farmer from Pernambuco present at the meeting summarized this experience: she said that she was used to only seeing the reality of the municipality of Bonito, where she lives, and on that trip, she realized that she is not alone and that her struggle is the same of thousands of women, whether in Argentina, in Mexico, in Ecuador…”, said Patrícia.

Likewise, the participants from other countries were happy with the opportunity to learn about the work of women from Pernambuco, as reported by Elsa Maria Arroyo: “I was inspired by these women, like the ones who are part of quilombos, fight to obtain property titles and are a historical symbol of heroic resistance against slavery and oppression.”

Walking together in the Marcha das Margaridas

Finally, the two groups joined the more than 100 thousand women from the countryside, forests, waters, and urban areas who took to the streets of Brasília on August 16, demonstrating for the right to land and territories, for the end of violence against women, and for health and education.

One of the largest women’s actions in Latin America, the Marcha das Margaridas (March of the Daisies) pays homage to Margarida Alves, a union leader brutally murdered 40 years ago for defending the rights of rural workers. In its 7th edition, the demonstration had the motto “For the Reconstruction of Brazil and for Good Living”.

FLP women from other Latin countries marched alongside those from Pernambuco, making their bonds of solidarity even stronger. “Marching together with comrades from different spaces, organizations, and countries, but with the same ideal, was an honor and a privilege. Taking public space and making our voices heard is a practice that should be valued”, added Verónica Luna. “This experience brought a perspective of collective resistance and belonging. At that moment, we were all sisters”, defined Patrícia Chaves.

“Having participated in this mobilization as part of the international delegation, invited by the Feminist Land Platform, was a wonderful experience that shows that Margarita Alves did not die, she lives in the memory of the Brazilian people”, added Elsa Maria Arroyo.

Yenny Nazareno, from Luna Creciente, noted that women from five continents were present, “and we all shouted with one voice, regardless of language or race. We marched and said that we are not alone and that together we can transform the world.”

Zita Suárez, from the same organization, was grateful for the opportunity to participate in the event: “I was able to share positive energies with thousands of empowered and strengthened women, that nurtured us to continue our struggles”.

After these enriching days, the women of the Feminist Land Platform continue resisting, now even more strengthened, fighting for Good Living and experiencing day by day what they sang together in the streets of Brasília: “We will keep marching, alert and strong, we will go on, together”.

Burkina Faso has been facing violence from terrorist groups since 2015, which causes many internal displacements, among other serious problems. Children and women are the most affected populations and often have their rights violated and suffer sexual and gender-based violence.

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) emphasizes the importance of addressing the needs of women and girls who are victims of violence, ensuring women’s participation in decision-making processes, especially in areas at risk or affected by conflict, in addition to empowering women and girls and promoting gender equality to achieve lasting peace. However, this does not happen in practice in Burkina Faso.

For this reason, the Pananetugri Initiative for the Wellbeing of Women (IPBF), in collaboration with the Collective of Feminists of Burkina Faso, organized last March the 1st edition of the Feminist Festival, with the theme “Feminism, Peace and Security”. Leaders of associations and researchers were invited to speak about the situation in the region.

Among them was Saoudata Aboubacrine, from the Tin Hinan association, a member organization of the Feminist Land Platform (FLP). Saoudata shared her experiences with her peers and urged decision-makers, both nationally and internationally, to apply the texts they adopt, such as the UN resolution cited above.

She also addressed girls and women, urging them to continue promoting spaces for sharing experiences, intergenerational exchanges, and discussions like this one. “(…) As long as women do not have a voice, nothing can change, and to have a voice, we need active movements, that are more than just a name”, she said.

Saoudata’s participation in this important event was the subject of an article published on the website Féminin Actu. Read the full text (in French) here.