Women's Rights in Mexico and Central America: Innovative Funding Approaches
Workshop Notes

Moderator:
Lydia Alpizar Duran, Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)

Panel:
Emilienne De Leon, Semillas (Mexico)
Margarita Quintanilla, Network Against Violence (Nicaragua)
Suzanne Petroni, Summit Foundation

Most members of the audience indicated they are donors to women's rights work in the Mesoamerican region. Included in summaries of the presenters below are their responses to questions and comments of participants. Isatou Toure of the Gambian Committee on Traditional and Cultural Practices emphasized that donors need to be gender biased, because of the "double tragedy" of both NGO and government bias away from women. Betsy Brill of Libra Foundation remarked on the critical nature of general support, and that NGO's have to educate funders, who in turn must educate their funding partners. Aracelly Espinoza of Rivas, Nicaragua reminded us that the women's movement and NGO's need to give value to women's contributions in society, whether voluntary or paid. One question was how the panelists would put to use a million dollar grant!

Lydia presented copies of AWID's Feb. '06 publication: Where is the Money for Women's Rights?, summarizing its research action initiative across 6 funding sectors. Results showed Latin American and Caribbean organizations are facing the largest challenge of decreased access to funding. Much of this is due to losses of overseas development aid post-Beijing and Cairo. She characterized it as a situation of "resistance and survival" for these NGO's. Development agencies fail to recognize women's resources and time. They support government programs which mainstream women's issues, but exclude women's voices and representation in the process, even while women are big contributors to taxes. We have to find funding committed to radical ideas. The women's movement needs an updated analysis of the impacts of free trade and globalization on women.

Margarita addressed structural violence against women (VAW) in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras.

Challenges: One in three of these women experiences domestic violence in her lifetime. Rates of adolescent pregnancy, maternal mortality, STD and HIV/AIDS-related deaths and unsolved femicides are all rising. Factors contributing to these realities are poverty related to globalization, women's migration for work in maquila zones, and fundamentalist influence moving government policies backward on issues of trafficking, VAW and sexual and reproductive health (SRH). "In vitro" networks of women's small NGO groups are closing, due to lack of access to funding for operating costs and facilities like internet access.

Interventions: Donors' demands for project results overlook the kind of support women really need to secure their rights. The focus of women's rights organizations has segmented women by age, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, rather than thinking as one. "Gender cross-cutting" focus involves working with men and perpetrators rather than concentrating on VAW as a crime. Becoming specialists, such as sole focus on HIV/AIDS prevention, keeps us from thinking of the full integrity of women.

Recommendations: Promote a holistic approach that sees women as complete human beings. Promote "social autopsies"; employ different strategies for men and women in projects to promote SRH. Recognize violence throughout women's lives and its implications in SRH. Recognize both practical and strategic needs of women's groups: administrative capacity and political power. Promote women's participation in decision-making. Invest in social movements and advocacy. Create alliances for advocacy within "natural" networks.

Suzanne: The Summit Foundation focuses on empowering young people and protecting the Mesoamerican Reef of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Qintana, Mexico, seeing synergy between environment and women's rights. Its programs address lack of access to and funding for accurate SRH information, gender violence, abortion, early sex and marriage, machismo attitudes and beliefs, cultural taboos, traditional views of gender roles, indigenous populations, influence of Catholic and evangelical churches, gang violence and drug use. Education on SRH segues to opening the minds of youth to their rights and responsibilities in general society.

Summit is supporting a fellowship program led by International Health Programs for three years with country action plans for youth of 18 - 30 years. The participants vary by age, geographical and cultural origin and profession. The fellowships involve 300 hours of training and networking covering issues of SRH and rights, and population and environmental linkages. After training, youth groups are given $5000 to design a sustainable social-environmental model. The individual transformation that occurs for fellows in this process inspires and motivates them to promote institutional strengthening and societal change. Summit believes we can leverage money from governments, whose role it is to supply aid.

Emilienne: Semillas, founded in 1990 has granted $2.3 million to 237 women's human rights projects in Mexico. Civil society actions against femicides in Ciudad Juarez are a priority. Partnering with UNIFEM, Semillas does not combine work for income generation with access to justice. For 10 years it has raised issues and demanded government action through demonstrations and campaigns like "Alto a la Impunidad: Ni una muerta más", "Stop Impunity: No More Murders of Women", to exert pressure on the state and federal authorities and to increase attention worldwide. These have given greater visibility to the problem, and led to presentation of cases of Juarez victims at the Interamerican HR Commission, access to Argentinean forensics experts, and creation of a national HR commission to prevent and investigate these crimes. Semillas has partnered with UNIFEM and other major funders to direct support to grassroots groups like Casa Amiga and Nuestras Hijas to pressure for concrete actions of government and law enforcement to solve the femicide cases.

The greatest needs of groups in the region are continued support for capacity building, and sustained funding beyond three years. It is important to promote youth organizations and leadership, not just from within mature organizations, but new, independent youth-led groups. VAW is treated as a man-woman problem; it's really about how people manage in a system of corporate greed and environmental degradation. We must produce more dialogue, and ensure that men participate.

Ana Criquillion of the Central American Women's Fund shared her ideal for the next era: a new popular culture and media to raise awareness and critical mass opposed to VAW. We need new models; we need to live the model we believe in, which many of us already do. Young people need a different vision, one that makes violence obsolete. Instead of buying the "fear culture", people will choose hope. Women will assert themselves in political leadership. We will get rid of our scarcity. Funders can do their work unimpeded by aid agency demands.

Conclusion: All participants in the workshop recognized that we only had time to scratch the surface of the funding issues for women's rights in the C.A. and Mexican region. It is vital for men to be engaged in the dialogue and debate. A decision was made to propose that funding for women's rights, SRH, freedom from violence and discrimination be a general session topic at the next Gw/oB conference.

back to top

Grantmakers Without Borders   PO Box 181282   Boston, MA 02118
Phone 617.794.2253           Fax 617.266.0497
Copyright © 1998-2008. All rights reserved.
For more information contact us at GwoB@gwob.net
Please report any problems with this site to the webmaven