Suzi Clementino, vice-chair of the ELAS Fund Board, welcomed everyone and announced that she will be chair of the Board in 2018.

 

Amalia Fischer, general coordinator and co-founder of the ELAS Fund, thanked everyone for attending and commented on the challenges of the year: "2017 was a difficult year, given the dark times we've been living through internationally and nationally, but the ELAS Fund has a strategy of being able to mobilize more resources every day for the cause of women, for women's rights. For us, resource mobilization and donations are absolutely political," said Amalia Fischer.

 

KK Verdade, executive coordinator of the ELAS Fund, also pointed out that, despite the setbacks in terms of gender equality and women's rights in Brazil, women's struggle against the loss of rights has further stimulated the ELAS Fund to mobilize partners and resources to support the resistance of Brazilian women.

 

"For the first time the ELAS Fund has launched 4 calls for proposals in the same year. We opened the year by launching the Building Movements - Contemporary Feminisms program, a great alliance in defense of women's rights in Brazil. The ELAS Fund also launched the 4th Call for Proposals for the Fale Sem Medo Fund, our partnership with the Avon Institute to end violence against women, and the 2nd Call for Proposals for ELAS in the Exact Sciences, the result of our partnership with Instituto Unibanco and Fundação Carlos Chagas, which in this edition also had the support of UN Women. We also won a new partnership with GHS - Global Health Strategies to support initiatives in the area of reproductive rights. We're going to close the year by launching another new program with the LBT Call for Proposals: Autonomy, Leadership and Rights, which will invest in LGBT rights in Brazil, supporting lesbian, bisexual and trans projects."