For Camila Morsch, the British Council's Regional Director for Society, "the result of the call for proposals exceeded our expectations in terms of the quantity and quality of the proposals and also because it reinforced the idea that international connections continue to play an important role for the women's movement. We received dozens of expressions of interest from organizations in the UK and Brazil, seeking partnerships and highlighting common objectives." 

 

Nadine Gasman, representative of UN Women Brazil, highlights the importance of the program in mobilizing resources and allocating them to projects that strengthen the political organization of women's movements in all their diversity. "The result highlights the growing demand from women's and feminist movements for resources in the face of the potential generated by civil society's ability to respond to the problems arising from gender oppression and the ongoing offensive against women's human rights," she says. Gasman also points out that "the program adds to UN Women's global objectives of strengthening women's movements at the grassroots. Earmarking funds to support women's movements accelerates efforts to build a 50-50 Planet and ensures real gender equality, leaving no woman or girl behind."

 

In addition to many proposals being "cross-countries", promoting dialogue between countries, the projects also met another priority of the call for proposals, which was "cross-movements", aimed at articulating different segments of the feminist and women's movements, as well as other struggles for rights, such as the struggle for housing, labor rights, the right to the city, land, etc.

 

The diversity of projects also stood out: projects were selected from black women, indigenous, quilombola, rural, lesbian, young entrepreneurs, domestic workers, etc.

 

This call for proposals is another step in a medium-term program to strengthen the women's movement. The initiative's first activity was the "Dialogue Building Movements: Rights and New Directions", a meeting of women from all over Brazil and other Latin American countries to discuss the context of the struggle for women's rights and draw up joint strategies for the women's movement agenda(Check out the Dialogue debates here).

 

With this first call for proposals, we are contributing to the advancement of democracy and rights and to the exchange of experiences between women's movements in Brazil and other countries in the Latin American region, as well as with the United Kingdom. "The immediate challenge now is to take advantage of this moment to think of new ways to strengthen and seek alliances to respond to these and many other demands in Brazil, Latin America and the UK," says Camila Morsch.

 

O edital Building Movements – Feminismos Contemporâneos é resultado de uma grande aliança em defesa dos direitos das mulheres entre British Council, ONU Mulheres, Open