25 years of impact
CREA’s work is not only about numbers
but about everything we do and how we do it.
impact takes place
when shifts occur
From individual to collective levels,
from structural to norms levels.
When it comes to social justice goals — complex and requiring long-term investment of time and resources — we focus on:
critical types of shifts
and their
how
and their
so what
Framing shifts occur when women, girls and other structurally excluded persons see themselves as rights-bearers who can make decisions around their bodies and sexuality, and are empowered to question norms and power structures that affect their lives.
- How: CREA facilitated the first intersectional understanding of disability justice and sexuality with its pioneering 2010 Disability, Sexuality and Rights Online Institute.
- So what: CREA’s 2018 global convening helped resolve tensions between disability rights activists and those working in sexual and reproductive health and rights. It built a working bridge, the Nairobi Principles, to facilitate cross-movement action.
Action shifts take place when silenced and marginalized individuals begin to resist and speak out against the violence and discrimination they face, and demand and access their rights and service at the community level.
- How: CREA helped ensure the new use of a feminist lens to move from identity-driven work to working on larger women’s rights/sexual rights issues.
- So what: As a leading part of the coalition Voices Against 377 in 2006-7, CREA helped end the Indian law that criminalized same-sex relations.
Policy shifts influence development and implementation of policies relating to women, girls and other structurally excluded persons within State institutions and at community levels.
- How: CREA has worked for 25 years to ensure that:
- women leaders participate in policy making at local, national, global levels
- organizations and movements include a Global South perspective
- laws and policies on human rights include a gender and sexual rights lens
- So what: Since 2013, over 2,000 elected women representatives and 3,000 members from women collectives gained community-level feminist leadership capacity through CREA’s Meri Panchayat, Meri Shakti (My Local Governance, My Strength) program.
Collective shifts occur when women, girls and other structurally excluded persons form and join networks at the local, regional, national and global levels, while organizations and movements can focus less on hierarchies of injustices and instead find common ground with other organizations, expanding to new networks that use rights-based approaches.
- How: CREA believes that feminist leadership is not just about women playing leadership roles—it is about capacitating women to lead differently, with feminist values and ideology, to advance social justice for all.
- So what: Every year, 30,000 women, girls, sex workers, trans persons and women with disabilities become aware of gender rights and gender justice though Ibtida, the network of women-led grassroots organizations set up by CREA in the Hindi-speaking Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.
- How: CREA builds individual and organizational capacity to advocate for human rights through yearly Institutes and trainings — conducted across India, South Asia, East Africa and the Middle East — gathering leaders across the fields of sexuality, gender, rights, feminist leadership, movement building, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
- So what: Over 7,000 alumni from CREA Institutes, being exposed to cutting-edge examples of social change practices, not only continue their activism but also serve as first- and second-line leaders who plan and implement programs ensuring that feminist analysis can be absorbed throughout organizations.
- How: Since 2020, CREA has been part of four consortiums in nine countries across four geographical regions: East and Northeast Africa, South Asia and Middle East — serving as the lead partner in two and as a consortium member in two others.
- So what: CREA’s global consortium work is collectively: amplifying the voices and increasing the visibility of structurally silenced women in civic spaces; enhancing political participation through cross-movement alliances; addressing gender-based violence; and strengthening Southern feminist civil society organizations.
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CREA envisions a just and peaceful world, where everyone lives with dignity, respect and equality. We build feminist leadership, expand sexual and reproductive freedoms, and advance human rights of all people.
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