I feel like we weren’t only lectured, I feel like we co-created and co-thought and co-learnt together as we thought about how it was important for us to build a vision as opposed to just coming here to listen to people. I love that it was a space where we would stop in the middle of a lecture to affirm people’s ideas, to fold these into situations where you can really bring our experiences together to create something vast and create something kinder and create something more gentle. participant at one of CREA’s Institutes

One of CREA’s greatest competencies is to build the capacity of individuals and organizations that advocate for human rights. Every year CREA organizes a range of Institutes and trainings that gather leaders across the fields of sexuality, gender, rights, feminist leadership, movement building and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

These Institutes are conducted across India, South and South East Asia, East Africa and the Middle East. The first Institute was held in 2002, and there are now over 7,000 Institute alumni in over 70 countries across the world.

The principles that guide the Institutes are:

• Learning from the roots up Our Institutes build participants’ theoretical understanding and analytical capacity to gain a deeper awareness of the roots of social injustice and exclusion, and from there, develop more effective and informed strategies for change.
• Aiming for the second line of leadership CREA Institutes emphasize the ‘second line of leadership’ by engaging practitioners and activists who plan and implement programs. This not only ensures feminist analysis can inform every level within organizations but also addresses the issue of power within organizations.
• Plural and diverse faculty voices CREA connects participants to high-quality international and national faculty, including leading thinkers and activists in each field.
• Global to local focus Our primary constituency will always be Global South activists in local struggles, so the Institutes broaden horizons by connecting activists to global feminist discourses and struggles.
• Movement Building The Institutes expose participants to cutting-edge examples of social change practice. We resist the “NGO-ization” and “projectization” of social change practice by focusing on building the collective power of oppressed people to construct and pursue their own agendas of change.
• Building a Reading Habit We trust that participants have the capacity to read and absorb academic and theoretical writing.
• Linking Theory and Practice We emphasize the importance of informed action, to build conceptual clarity before strategizing in specific contexts or work areas.
• Learn with the head, the heart and the gut We believe in multiple modes of learning – including through the powerful medium of film.