Charting paths for transformation: Africa hosts the Berta Cáceres International Feminist Organising School
Hundreds of grassroots African, Afro-descendant, Black and Indigenous feminists, including those from the Americas, are gathering from 11 to 15 September in Nairobi, Kenya, for the Berta Cáceres International Feminist Organising School (IFOS).
This will be the first edition of the School, known as IFOS, to be held in Africa. “It will be an opportunity to learn from grassroots feminist movements across Africa and the world,” says Ama Nyeayea of the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) / Friends of the Earth Liberia, who will be taking part in the training event.
However, the event in Africa – dubbed ‘Afro IFOS’ – forms part of a process that began in 2018, initiated by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), the World March of Women (WMW), the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and Grassroots International.
“Drawing inspiration from Pan-African feminism and Ubuntu, this will be a space for movement-building that will use popular education to strengthen our collective knowledge, share our experiences and grow our international movement,” says GGJ on its website about the School in Nairobi.
The process
In 2020, the first edition of IFOS was held online, due to the pandemic, with women from various regions.
In August 2023, feminists were able to hold the first in-person IFOS in the Honduran municipality of Siguatepeque, in the department of Comayagua, a region that was at the heart of the resistance led by the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras (COPINH) and Berta Cáceres against the Agua Zarca dam. Berta, who was murdered in 2016 in an attempt to halt that struggle, lends her name to the IFOS and was paid tribute in August 2023.
According to information from Real World Radio, more than 100 women and people of diverse gender identities travelled from across the Americas: peasant women, workers, Black women, migrants, Indigenous people and queer people, representing 22 countries and 12 organisations from the Continental Journey for Democracy and against Neoliberalism.
A year later, in August 2024, an edition of the IFOS was held for facilitators, once again in Siguatepeque. Participants from across the Americas and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia shared knowledge, experiences and insights to deepen their political education and thus bring feminist education programmes to regional, national and local schools.
Present time
IFOS 2026 in Nairobi is a school for activists, but also a school for facilitators. What took place over two meetings in Latin America will take place over these five days in the Kenyan capital.
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) has supported and helped build this process of feminist political education alongside GGJ, the WMW, the IEN and Grassroots International. IFOS is committed to building the movement, strengthening strategic alliances and the collective struggle against systems of oppression – elements that form part of FoEI’s strategic objectives.
It is an opportunity to analyse how capitalism, racism and colonialism work, and how these systems of oppression affect states and democracies, nature, bodies and territories.
The IFOS in Kenya will enable us to “discuss important issues within communities, such as everything related to power – who decides what. We have a very entrenched patriarchal system in Liberia,” says Ama Nyeayea, from SDI – Friends of the Earth Liberia. “Neoliberalism and capitalism are systems directly linked to inequality, and we are working to combat inequality in our communities in Liberia.”
The plight of the communities affected by Chevron Texaco in the Ecuadorian Amazon will be highlighted at the School, through the participation of Consuelo Piaguaje, a leader from the Siekopai Indigenous group, and UDAPT / Friends of the Earth Ecuador. “Most of the pollution, most of the harm has been suffered by women. It has been in our territories, and above all it is women who bear the brunt of this environmental disaster,” she says. “The only thing left for us is unity. It is about women standing together so that we can resist.”
Weaving together other possible paths
IFOS represents a collective effort to internationalise these struggles, to bring together the experiences of diverse organisations from their respective territories, and to contribute to the development of shared responses across movements and regions.
Fostering unity in diversity is the School’s most important challenge. It involves understanding differences and working through them, whilst seeking common ways to fight. For it is through these differences that systems of oppression seek to divide us.
Natalia Carrau, the facilitator of FoEI’s Gender Justice and Dismantling Patriarchy Group, emphasises that building a movement is not a static process. “It is a process of building trust, of political reflection, and of political education.” “The school sits at the intersection of our objectives: to collaborate with other organisations, to build grassroots feminism in partnership with other movements, and to develop systemic solutions for system change.”
To listen to a radio report featuring the voices of the people mentioned in this article, click here.
Credit (main image): Survival Media.
