Regional Workshop on Feminist Local Humanitarian Leadership: Brave Feminist Conversations
In November 2022, women-led and feminist humanitarian organizations working in Asia gathered in Bangkok for the ‘Feminist Local Humanitarian Leadership: Brave Feminist Conversations’ workshop.
The workshop was co-facilitated by the FHN, Oxfam, and the Women's Legal & Human Rights Bureau (Philippines). It provided an opportunity for the FHN to share our learnings and vision and forge new connections with feminist organizations and networks in Asia. The workshop focused on what being a feminist humanitarian meant to the participants, the different feminist approaches being taken, and looked at the main challenges facing organizations working at grassroots and national levels, in order to find collective solutions.
FHN members who attended met up following the workshop to discuss their reflections.
A conversation between FHN members
Photo left to right:
Kara Medina - Humanitarian Partnership Coordinator at CARE Global
Holly Miller - Lead at the Feminist Humanitarian Network
Lipi Rahman - Lead at Badabon Sangho in Bangladesh
Anuja Shrestha - Grant Making Manager at TEWA in Nepal
Yesterday we finished our workshop on Feminist Local Humanitarian Leadership, so today we thought FHN members who had joined could have a discussion about our reflections on the workshop and our highlights. Anuja, what were the highlights for you?
Anuja: For me, this is the first time meeting FHN members so that is really exciting. The highlights from the workshop for me were the research findings [research undertaken by WLB and Oxfam in Asia on feminist local humanitarian leadership]. That is the most exciting for me because whatever is presented in the research findings, I was reflecting on my organization's work. We all have feminist organizations doing the same thing, so it made me really happy.
Also when I learned about the contexts, about the other countries, like the other countries represented here. I feel like we are in a similar space and we are doing a similar kind of work.
Another highlight is, I personally didn’t know about the Grand Bargain and other things, so that is new for me, so that was also exciting to know about that.
One thing [reflected in the workshop], is a confusion between ‘feminist’ and ‘humanitarian’. We are doing the humanitarian work but also at the same time we are feminists and what I realised is that we are all doing the work from a feminist perspective. This was a great way to hear about a common understanding. So that was a highlight for me.
Lipi: The first highlight for me was to attend the workshop as a feminist and for me to present my organization and to learn about the perspectives of local feminist organizations and learn about the principles and to agree on different definitions of feminism. I know that we are all feminist organizations and we are working with other feminist organizations, but to make a clear understanding and to actually transfer this knowledge to others during this workshop helped me a lot. I will be able to talk more with confidence that this is how we think and on the principles of feminism that we talked about it.
Another highlight was definitely to speak as a key speaker. That I took part in the discussion. It was a great opportunity for me to share my thoughts and as a local feminist organization, to share what we are actually doing. I found out about other organizations working in different countries and their learnings and challenges, that helped me to understand the issues we are all working on. And also to meet all the great activists here.
I also had a confusion about feminist humanitarian organizations and humanitarian organizations, and the differences, but it is now clear to me that you can be both.
Kara: My sense throughout the workshop was that it's high time that something like this had to happen. This kind of gathering with this kind of agenda. It was really exciting when participants were unpacking what feminist, humanitarian and local means – putting those three things together was really exciting. We are always talking about feminist principles in our local humanitarian work but to see how it unfolds or how it is understood by those who are actually living it out and bringing it to different countries and communities, it's so important for us to be reminded of the form and the shape that it takes, right?
I really enjoyed the panel where local feminists were sharing their work – that is always the most inspiring part for me in every gathering like this.
The second part was the visioning exercise, an open ended activity where we got to imagine what it means when we say ‘we want to transform the humanitarian system’. What does it mean when we bring together feminist organizations and humanitarian organizations? I think that not just to CARE, but to me as well, these things aren't in silo - they don't have to exist separately and it's exciting to see how they all come together. And to see for the region, at least for Asia Pacific, how it's brought forward having this kind of commitment. There was an exercise at the end where everyone wrote on little paper elephants what their commitment was, their most inspiring or their most energizing idea from the workshop. Bringing all that together, we know from CARE or from the FHN, that this is a place where there is energy and there is momentum and this is a place we can come back to when we want to bring forward what we talk about in different spaces.
Holly: I agree with you, we do a lot of thinking about how we organize as the FHN globally and what is our feminist organizing model and how can we work in the most feminist way possible. What was exciting was to hear about the different possible approaches to feminist organizing by different organizations in the room, and of course both TEWA and Badabon Sangho have different approaches to organizing and to working with women who working collectively at the community level. There were many other organizations in the room that had similar but slightly different approaches and priorities, so I think that a lot of the lessons we can take forward are based around what different organizations here are doing in terms of movement building. Also in terms of understanding humanitarian language and what the FHN can do in terms of language, because sometimes we use the language of the current humanitarian system which is not the language that women’s organizations or feminist organizations are using. So what is our role as a network in using “humanitarian” language when most of our INGO members use this language and feminist organizations and networks members don’t really use this language? How do we create a bridge between these areas of work and these actors?
Question two
What actions should we take together based on what we’ve learnt and what can we bring into the FHN in terms of moving forward?
Lipi: First of all I think we should actually share our learnings, our shared experiences with our members about the meetings. From this learning we can have conversations on how to use terminology that we have discussed and debated here, and we can continue that with our FHN members. As a feminist organization we can discuss this, and hear FHN members’ experiences. We never actually thought that way, so this workshop helped us with our thinking process and we can do the same with our FHN members and we can continue these conversations with FHN members. Also there are expert members who can help carry out these conversations - we can bring some of the learnings from the workshop to those conversations and ask what challenges members are having on advocacy and what FHN members can do together. We also found out some advocacy issues that we should work on, that FHN hasn't yet put on the agenda.
Anuja: I agree we should do what Lipi said, and in addition to that what I am thinking is that we should look for other organizations working on the same theme, if they came to us that would really add value. This workshop was very fruitful, we had a discussion on and a common understanding on feminism and humanitarian work. We need more conversations like this in the future with our network members as we are all busy with our own work. Being a member of FHN is part of our work and we have to manage time for that also. If these kinds of conversations are not held frequently then we will be busy with other things. We have to think about it as being very fruitful. I also agree with Lipi that it's very important that we share the information with the FHN - to the local level also. Some are working at a global level, some at national level, some at the local level, some at the grassroots level - so we have to spread information about our network and our work and the terminologies that we use so that they can understand our thoughts and our working style so they can be aligned with us.
Kara: I think the first point is low hanging fruit on delivering on our commitments. It's low hanging but still not necessarily easy to achieve. Not just for INGOs and for the FHN, but for similar organizations working in the same space. We always say we want to deliver our commitments to the Grand Bargain, the Charter for Change and the Pledge for Change, but now it feels that it's more compelling to really see what that means when we say that our feminist approach is to equitable partnerships, how are we really delivering on that and how are we responding to when we are being held accountable? Its enough to communicate what the global commitments are, but this lens of making it feminist, its the perfect and necessary time to do it. Also to accelerate our efforts in this space. Just the other day we were talking between the FHN and Oxfam, that there are two INGOs and 20+ local feminist organizations, there is energy to bring this further right? FHN is one space to try and do that to see what this kind of road map for feminist local humanitarian leadership is, at least in this context and what it could look like. Obviously further away we want to see this in other regions as well. It would be exciting to see what form that would take. It’s a reminder for organizations like CARE to continue to support, and provide support that local feminists say that they want, or need, instead of imposing ideas. We have to put that in context and really start where local women are, which is always where we hold ourselves to anyway. That would be exciting to see.
Holly: For the FHN, one of the reflections that we have from the sessions is that many feminist humanitarian leaders working at the local level don’t have an understanding of the Grand Bargain or the Charter for Change or any of these international platforms and mechanisms that INGOs or other international actors see as the key places to create change in the humanitarian system. So what is the role of the FHN in bridging that gap? How can we transform those spaces so that they are not only accessible to, and safe spaces for, local feminist organizations, but driven by and led by them. Really the decision making and the structure for decision making has to be led by local feminist organizations if we are going to say that the humanitarian system is feminist. So I think there is more thinking for us to do and more learning for us to facilitate on the spaces, and on transformation of the spaces as well.
Lipi: We are talking about power shifting and knowledge sharing. Knowledge is power I think, so we need to shift the knowledge too.
Holly: I have loved being with you all so much. Just to connect in person, to have a hug, to laugh together and talk about whole selves and collective aspirations – it's been so nourishing and energizing.
Kara: I hope to see more of the FHN members, that would be exciting. We can dive into all those fantastic ideas that we have raised here.
Anuja: Sometimes we go to international forums and we don't find a space – we lose ourselves. But we appreciate having a space as part of the FHN, a comfortable space and we can freely say whatever we are feeling.
Holly: We all make this space together - it's a collective effort.
Lipi: Here you can say everything freely. No judgment.
Kara: It really sets the tone about what the network could be doing, what the roles of people could be and how to bring that energy forward. It's very exciting.
Holly: Thank you everyone.
You can see our ‘Regional Workshop on Feminist Local Humanitarian Leadership: Brave Feminist Conversations ‘ photo essay here.