FON is about standing with feminist groups who are creating real change in their communities. In Asia, we are proud to support those whose voices have too often gone unheard, helping them lead efforts to end gender-based violence with strength, courage, and care. Yamini Perera | Project Coordinator, Feminist Opportunities Now, CREA

Feminist Opportunities Now (FON) is a global feminist funding initiative (2022-2026) that supports movements working to end gender‑based violence (GBV). It provides flexible grants and long‑term accompaniment to feminist organizations that are often small, grassroots, and structurally excluded from traditional funding.

Funded by the French Development Agency (AFD), the consortium is led by IPPF Africa Region, with CREA, Empow’Her, FIDH and Médecins du Monde.

FON Asia: Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

CREA leads the Asia component of FON, focusing on Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Through FON Asia, CREA currently works with 43 partner organizations across both countries.

The partners in this initiative consist of queer and trans collectives, sex worker networks, disability rights groups, organizations representing Dalit and Indigenous women, and women’s rights civil society organizations (CSOs) that address gender-based violence (GBV). These organizations operate at both national and grassroots levels within the country and also connect with regional and global advocacy efforts. 

What FON Asia Does

FON Asia combines flexible funding with feminist movement support to strengthen GBV prevention and response:

• Sharing sub‑grants
  Support three kinds of work:

• small “boost” grants for emerging and grassroots groups for structural development,

• organizational and program development grants,

• network and alliance grants for cross‑movement advocacy.

• Capacity‑sharing
  Regional training on feminist project design, monitoring and evaluation (MEL), disability justice, digital safety, and feminist allyship.

• Advocacy and movement‑building
  Support for partners’ GBV campaigns, law and policy advocacy (including technology‑facilitated GBV and discriminatory family laws), and cross‑movement organizing.

• Exposure to regional and global engagement
  Enable partners to bring their analysis and experiences into regional and global spaces such as the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Human Rights Council (HRC), the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD), and the International AWID Forum, while connecting with feminist networks across regions. Partners also participated in CREA's Leadership Institute, the Renew: Sex Workers Summit, and Reconference.

• Capitalization

Ensure that the good practices, challenges, and lessons learned by country-level partner organizations are systematically documented and consolidated into a regional report. This will strengthen global capitalization by bringing together the project's learnings through a robust knowledge-sharing process and enhancing the visibility of interventions developed across diverse contexts.

Why FON Asia Matters

Through FON Asia, partners have been able to:

• Build stronger feminist organizations – with clearer governance, policies, financial and MEL systems, and leadership pipelines

• Launch and deepen work on technology‑facilitated GBV and digital rights, including hotlines and documentation platforms for survivors

• Push forward feminist law and policy reform, including challenges to discriminatory family law in Sri Lanka and cyber‑GBV reforms in Bangladesh

• Form new feminist networks and alliances that connect structurally excluded communities to national and regional advocacy spaces

• Active participation in regional and global platforms 

partner organizations