IUCN Report Links Gender Violence and Environmental Crimes

"Gender-based violence undermines not only the safety, dignity, overall health status, and human rights of the millions of individuals who experience it, but also the public health, economic stability, and security of nations." - United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
In a new report from IUCN and USAID, the ties between gender-based violence and the environment become clear. (Image Credit: IUCN)

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently released a new report that draws eye-opening–and deeply concerning–connections between gender-based violence (GBV) and environmental issues. In partnership with the United Stated Agency for International Development (USAID), Gender-based violence and environment linkages: The violence of inequality examines why examining gender-based violence with a close focus on the role of the environment is critical to continuing the fight against GBV and its widespread effects.

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Global Resilience Fund Offers Flex Funding for Women and Girls

COVID-19 puts pressure on all of us, but many women and girls are at higher risk of danger and oppression during these unprecedented times. A crisis like COVID-19 makes the widespread effects of issues like abuse, domestic violence, and rising barriers to educational, financial, and social survival much more intense–and often, much more deadly. The new Global Resilience Fund for Girls and Young Women seeks to answer this understated emergency with rapid, flexible funding to activist groups led by girls and young women.

The Global Resilience Fund is a worldwide collective of funders committed to supporting young women and girl activists with emergency funding as they respond to the COVID-19 crisis. (Image Credit: Global Resilience Fund)

The Global Resilience Fund supports informal collectives, registered organizations, and unregistered community groups led by girls, young women, and trans and intersex young people around the world. To reach populations that may otherwise have a difficult time obtaining funding, the Global Resilience Fund only offers grants to organizations with a budget of less than $50,000 per year. Successful applicants can receive “fully flexible rapid response grants” worth up to $5,000.

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UAF Launches COVID Crisis Fund For Feminist Activists

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, feminist activists, institutions, and individuals around the world need immediate access to funding and other forms of support. Many aid packages have already been deployed to the people who need them most, but some other lesser-known populations are in danger of falling by the wayside.

Kate Kroeger, Executive Director of the Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights (UAF). (Image Credit: UAF)

One of these groups of vulnerable people includes feminist activists: people who have lost their jobs or livelihoods yet are still fighting for protection and social change. In the midst of a pandemic, these rights battles can’t simply be put aside.

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IWMF Announces 2020 Courage in Journalism Awards

For the past 30 years, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) has honored exceptional women in journalism, highlighting the courage of female journalists around the world as well as the groundbreaking journalists who have dedicated their careers to paving the way for female journalists of the future.

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The International Women’s Media Foundation supports female, trans, and nonbinary individuals who are on the front lines of journalism. (Image Credit: IWMF)

This week, IWMF announced the 2020 recipients of the 30th annual Courage in Journalism Awards, granted to female journalists who go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to reporting the truth. These women face down harassment, violence, government oppression, and more in their pursuit of journalistic integrity.

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Celebrate Dignity for All with #PledgeYourPeriod

At first, Megha Desai thought there was no way girls and women would take to social media to tell stories about their first periods. But as education, dignity, and confidence grew in a small town in India, the local women and girls surprised her.

Megha Desai, President of the Desai Foundation. (Image Credit: Desai Foundation)

Four years ago, the Desai Foundation held an awareness campaign about menstrual health and hygiene in the small town of Untdi, Gujarat–the village Desai’s father grew up in.

“We had all these signs laid out on tables, saying things like ‘Happy to Bleed,’ ‘Proud to be a Woman,’ and ‘Proud of my Womanhood,” remembers Desai, President of the Desai Foundation. “I looked at those signs and I thought, ‘Nobody is going to hold these signs up. We’re in a tiny little village where no woman would talk about her period. But by the end of the campaign, the women and girls were so confident and proud that they posed for pictures with these signs. It blew me away. I thought to myself, if these girls in this little village can hold these signs and pledge their periods, then we ought to be able to do that, too.”

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Gates Leaders on COVID: Liveblogging New IUPUI Series

On May 21st, attendees gathered for IUPUI’s first webinar in the Perspectives on Philanthropy Discussion Series. The series asks, “As we search for context in our transforming world, what role does philanthropy play? Broadly understood to encompass the human voluntary spirit, philanthropy is responding in a variety of ways to the current global crisis today. How is it doing and what role will it have in the world that is emerging?”

Gates leaders on COVID
Jennifer Alcorn and Victoria Vrana were the first guests on the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s new discussion series, Perspectives on Philanthropy. (Image Credit: IUPUI)

Today’s webinar started with an introduction from Amir Pasic of IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. The morning’s guests were Jennifer Alcorn (Deputy Director, Philanthropic Partnerships) and Victoria Vrana (Deputy Director, Giving By All) of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Ms. Foundation Hosts May 20 Feminist Block Party

On May 20th, get ready for a one-of-a-kind online event honoring female movers and shakers with some moving and shaking of your own. The first-ever Feminist Block Party is an online dance party and fundraiser for critical nonprofits and community organizations run by women of color, supporting those organizations in the nation’s communities most heavily impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

The Ms. Foundation for Women will host Roar for Women: A Feminist Block Party, the first online event of its kind, on May 20, 2020. (Image Credit: Ms. Foundation for Women)

Hosted by the Ms. Foundation for Women, Roar for Women: A Feminist Dance Party will include notes from guest speakers, leaders from the Ms. Foundation, influencers, and organization spokespeople from across the country, including the 2020 Women of Vision Honorees.

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Funding the World We Want to See: Sonal Sachdev Patel

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Sonal Sachdev Patel, writer, activist and CEO of GMSP Foundation.

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Sonal Sachdev Patel, CEO of God My Silent Partner Foundation (GMSP) Foundation. (Photo courtesy Sonal Sachdev Patel)

1. What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

So much. I wish I had known to go straight to the grassroots. The civil society leaders on the frontlines know what their communities need and know how to deliver it. But they’re constrained by a funding environment that is too often inflexible, impatient and imperialistic in terms of who drives the agenda. When we started in 2006, we were giving project-based funds. After listening to our local partners, we shifted to unrestricted funding.

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Give for Women in COVID on May 5, #GivingTuesdayNow

With the world in a state of crisis and flux, the people at Giving Tuesday, which happens the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, have created another day of global unity, #GivingTuesdayNow, which will take place this Tuesday, May 5, in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

women in covid
GivingTuesdayNow is a global day of unity to support people dealing with COVID-19. Here we share about how we are participating with a gender lens. (Image Credit: GivingTuesdayNow)

As editor and publisher of Philanthropy Women, I will be participating in GivingTuesdayNow by supporting organizations that are particularly dedicated to women. We know from reports that women are crying out for help during this time, due to increased rates of domestic violence, increased problems with employment and income, and many other needs. In consultation with my family, these are the organizations we have chosen to support.

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Pastoralist Child Fdn Works To Fight COVID in Kenya

The far-reaching effects of the COVID-19 crisis appear as more than just devastating illness. Crop failures, locust swarms, and market shutdowns all combine to put African villages in further peril, and when it comes to fighting these widespread effects, the Pastoralist Child Foundation finds itself on the front lines.

pastoralist child
PCF volunteers, wearing N95 masks, hand out desperately-needed food and supplies in villages in the Samburu region of Kenya. (Photo Credit: Pastoralist Child Foundation)

The Pastoralist Child Foundation (PCF) is a nonprofit dedicated to ending female genital mutilation and forced marriages while empowering African women and girls to pursue education and leadership roles in their communities.

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