We would like to say that the Angela Borba Fund has a genealogy, it is not an orphan, it has been inspired by Mama Cash, Global Fund and Semillas, but as well as having mothers, we have sisters, in Africa the African Women's Development Fund and Pitseng and Wheat, and in Asia Nirnaya and Tewa. We have some godmothers like Neusa Pereira, Sonia Alvarez, Raquel Silva, Izabel Ferreira, Maria Lúcia da Silva, Malu Heilborn, Eunice Gutman, Zezé Lima, Schuma Schumaher, Silvia Camurça, Solange Dacach, Jurema Werneck, Vitoria Grabois and Claudia Ferreira, who have lovingly given us wise advice and part of their time to better develop the Fund.

This is how Amalia Fischer and Madalena Guilhon began their opening speech at the event that marked the launch of the ELAS Fund exactly 17 years ago.

On August 28, 2000, the Women, Social Responsibility and Financial Resources Seminar brought together dozens of activists in Rio de Janeiro to launch Brazil's first and only women's fund, which was initially called the Angela Borba Fund.

The Angela Borba Fund was set up with the 'aim of democratizing funding for individual or collective women's projects aimed at women's development and human rights in the fields of non-traditional education, culture, communication, art, sexuality, anti-racial struggles, gender research and related areas'.

On our 17th anniversary, we would like to thank all the partners, donors and funders who have accompanied and supported us in our mission to promote and strengthen women's Leadership by mobilizing and investing resources in their initiatives. We reaffirm our feminist genealogy and reinforce, with even more conviction, our vision that investing in women is our way of changing the world: Giving for change.

Check out the Women, Social Responsibility and Financial Resources Seminar here.