feminist leadership
FLMBaRI strengthened my understanding of the different levels of power and the underlying systemic norms of oppression that prevent girls and women from exercising choice… [Following the Institute] I organized a women’s roundtable … to address the issue of why women were not in positions of leadership on the Right Here Right Now (RHRN) platform. Mageda | FLMBaRI Alumni focusing on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), especially abortion rights
The Feminist Leadership Movement Building and Rights Institute (FLMBaRI) is a bridge between feminist theories and practice. Organized for women and young activists, including those working in grassroots and leading communities that are structurally excluded, it builds and strengthens current and future leadership.
Since 2004, Institutes have taken place in locations including South Asia, East Africa and in India for Hindi-speaking feminists working at community levels. The regional institutes seek to build solidarity across borders, and foster alliance-building among activists from diverse movements. This Institute aims to strengthen understanding around the interrelated concepts, such as patriarchy, power, gender, feminism, caste, feminist leadership, gender-based violence, sex worker’s movements, and the intersection between the disability rights movements and the feminist movement
The goal is to enhance the ability of participants to effectively lead within their communities and movements.
Activists and academics teach the course using classroom instruction, group work, case studies, simulation exercises, films and other creative mediums. In 2018, FLMBaRI was re-designed to respond to changing times, address current contexts and issues, and remain relevant for participants. Every year, the faculty is carefully selected to address contextual issues reflective of the lived realities of those attending.
FLMBaRI has created a pool of feminist leaders and activists working with communities and leading movements nationally, regionally and globally. They are now better connected, share their experiences and learnings with each other, and support each other’s work and initiatives. They are building new global South movements and networks through a creative cross-learning environment.
FLMBaRI India (Hindi)
FLMBaRI – Hindi is designed for women leaders and heads of organizations working at the grassroots level, community-based organizations, and/or leading grassroots, community movements in India. The Institute strengthens women's leadership, movements and engagement by providing an analytical feminist and political framework to empower participants to critically evaluate their own work and community movements. The Institute also deepens cross-movement collaboration and collectivizing through a growing alumni network of grassroots-level feminist activists, community mobilizers, and leaders.
FLMBaRI South Asia
FLMBaRI–South Asia has created a platform over the years to bring together different movements together by building solidarity. Also a residential Institute, it invites applications from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and India. Participants from different geographical regions locate themselves, their work and their movement within the South-Asian context. This focus allows them to reflect, talk, and share lived experiences by complicating issues and developing new strategies to challenge anti-rights mobilizations. It promotes cross–movement knowledge, solidarity, and collaboration amongst feminists representing different countries.
Sessions around gender, sexuality, patriarchy, power, and its intersection with other identities give participants a theoretical ground to understand what shapes individual subjectivity. Topics include the meaning of nation-state and its role vis-a-vis unequal social structures. The Institute explores different ideas of South Asian feminist leadership and engenders dialogue beyond borders.
FLMBaRI East Africa
FLMBaRI—East Africa is a seven-day residential institute that provides training on feminist leadership and movement building to representatives of structurally excluded groups, community-based organizations, feminist organizations and movements, women-led organizations and women activists in East Africa (Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland, Tanzania and Uganda).
The Institute focuses on African feminist theory and practice to build the leadership skills of participants and enhance their understanding of the concepts, political frameworks, strategies, social movements, and how these frameworks can be applied to their work. The Institute’s alumni go on to capacitate and complicate the politics around how African feminists organize collectively across movements while creating enabling spaces for cross-movement collaborations and conversations. The community of alumni support each other through regional initiatives and work beyond the Institute.
We do have power even when we are powerless. At times people use this powerlessness as their power. Alumna of FLMBaRI, Hindi
