Renewed Women's Voice and Leadership - in Crisis and Conflict-affected Contexts

This project is part of Canada’s Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Program. It supports women’s rights organizations (WROs) lesbian bisexual transgender queer and intersex plus (LBTQI+) groups and feminist networks working to promote the rights of women and girls and advance gender equality globally. The program responds to the globally recognized and significant gap in funding and support for WROs and feminist movements worldwide. It includes enhanced support for WROs LBTQI+ organizations and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) working in crisis- and conflict-affected settings and a more intentional approach to reaching structurally excluded groups. This includes but is not limited to LBTQI+ communities women and girls with disabilities Indigenous women and girls and young feminists. This project aims to increase enjoyment of human rights by women and girls in all their diversity and advance gender equality around the world. Project activities include: (1) delivering rapid response grants for HRDs and their organizations to meet their security and protection needs in times of crisis and opportunity; (2) delivering collective care grants to ensure the well-being of activists; and (3) designing spaces with women trans and non-binary HRDs WROs and LBTQI+ groups. It does so to provide HRDs access to share experiences exchange learnings on collective care contribute to knowledge leadership and learning networking and convening activities to support sustainability in the face of constant interwoven crises. This project directly benefits over 1 000 WROs and LBTQI+ groups around the world through grants programming and learning events.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) improved programming and response to crisis and conflict for women trans and non-binary HRDs WROs LBTQI+ groups and feminist movements; and (2) increased effectiveness of women trans and non-binary HRDs WROs LBTQI+ groups and feminist movements. These groups work collectively to advance transformative change to counter the push-back against gender equality and women's rights.