Florencia Roitstein, ELLAS - Mujeres y Filantropía (Argentina)
The Latin American and Caribbean women's rights movement is at the forefront of the most important social changes happening in the region and, at the same time, philanthropy seems to be turning its back on it.
Women from all corners of the region are organizing in groups, in collectives, in institutions, to create collective responses to the most relevant social problems that are threatening life, nature and democracies throughout the region. And while doing so, they discuss the power systems that generate them. That is why in 2019 we (ELLAS – Mujeres y Filtropía) created the Generosas Award with the purpose of making the voices of women – who fight for a society with other codes of cooperation, action, consumption and production – heard.
We seek to make visible the diversity of models of community actions led by women and focused on their protagonism in access to technologies, environmental protection, the struggle for the enforcement of human rights and the prevention of gender violence. Furthermore, we seek to ensure that these actions are supported by the mobilization of local resources and community philanthropy. The nominations for the 2019 Generosas Award were compelling, moving, courageous and generous. We felt compelled to showcase these stories and give them as much visibility as possible, and so we published a book: La Rebelión de lo cotidiano. Generous Women Changing Latin America.
With the same conviction as in 2019, in 2023 we once again launched the Generosas Award for women's rights and gender justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. This time, the call was addressed to organizations, collectives and women's groups working with a gender perspective in any of the following areas:
Community-based environmental protection (climate justice, land rights, food sovereignty, good living).
Sexual and reproductive rights.
Gender-based violence (femicide, human trafficking, racism, conflict situations, migration).
After an exhaustive analysis of the more than 100 applications from 15 Latin American countries received by the Evaluation Committee (formed by women leaders of the feminist movement in the region), winners were chosen from three categories. Who are the winners? You will find out on 6 December during a special awards ceremony during the #ShiftThePower Global Summit – where else? I hope to see you there to celebrate the power of women.
