flmbari
Feminist Leadership Movement Building and Rights Institute
CREA has been conducting the Feminist Leadership Movement Building and Rights Institute (FLMBaRI) since 2004 in South Asia, 2008 in East Africa and 2014 in India for Hindi speaking feminists working at the community level. The regional institutes are in English and seek to build solidarity across borders, and foster alliance-building at a regional level with activists from diverse movements. The Institute aims to strengthen understanding around concepts, such as patriarchy, power, gender, feminism, caste, feminist leadership, gender-based violence, sex worker’s movements, the intersection between the disability rights movements and the feminist movement, and more to enhance the ability of participants to effectively lead within their communities and movements.
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 Institute is a bridge between feminist theories and practice, aimed at building and strengthening the leadership of current and future activists and movement leaders. The Institute is organized for women activists and young leaders, including those working in the grassroots and leading communities that are structurally excluded. Activists and academics teach the course using classroom instruction, group work, case studies, simulation exercises, films, and other creative mediums within an updated curriculum to address current contexts and issues. In 2018, FLMBaRI was re-designed and updated 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. These activists and leaders are now better connected, share their experiences and learnings with each other, and support each other’s work and initiatives; building new global South movements and networks through a creative cross-learning environment.
CREA’s Feminist Leadership, Movement Building, and Rights Institute—Hindi
CREA’s Feminist Leadership, Movement Building, and Rights Institute—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 annual residential program in Hindi focuses on building a conceptual understanding of issues such as patriarchy, feminism and feminist leadership, challenging deep-rooted power structures, issues of caste, rights of structurally excluded people and transgender and disability rights. 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.
Feminist Leadership, Movement Building, and Rights Institute (FLMBaRI), South Asia
CREA’s Feminist Leadership, Movement Building, and Rights Institute–South Asia has created a platform over the years to bring together different movements together by building solidarity.
Being 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. It allows them to reflect, talk, and share lived experiences by complicating issues and developing new strategies to challenge anti-rights mobilizations by promoting cross–movement knowledge, solidarity, and collaboration amongst feminists representing different countries.
Core faculty and visiting faculty invited from the South Asian belt capacitate participants by fostering an intersectional approach to building a collective effort. Participants explore different concepts and expand their understanding of matters long neglected. It allows them to challenge themselves to have a meaningful discussion around contentious issue.
Sessions around gender, sexuality, patriarchy, power, and its intersection with other identities give participants a theoretical ground to understand what shapes individual subjectivity. The sessions cover a range of topics like 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 across borders only to move beyond borders. It has created and continues to create a platform to rethink, reimagine and reboot feminist politics.
Feminist Leadership, Movement Building, and Rights Institute (FLMBaRI), East Africa
CREA’s Feminist Leadership, Movement Building, and Rights Institute—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 alumni of the Institute 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, supported in part by a vibrant and growing community of alumni. The alumni support each other through regional initiatives and work beyond the Institute.
