Rumah Kita: The Story of Our Becoming
In the tradition of sharing knowledge from generation to generation, our latest report, ‘Rumah Kita: The Story of Our Becoming,’ tells the story of the creation of Urgent Action Fund Asia & Pacific (UAF A&P). The youngest of the four Urgent Action Sister Funds, UAF A&P is emblematic of the ways that each Sister Fund builds upon a shared foundation and benefits from the wisdom of its predecessors, while elaborating its own distinctive offerings and ways of working.
From the founding of the first Urgent Action Fund in 1997 by a group of women activists, there was always the intention to decentralize the work to promote deeper analysis and greater responsiveness to feminist movements and rights defenders grounded in regional specificities and knowledge, and to shift decision-making power over the use of philanthropic resources. This approach to decolonizing philanthropy is embodied in the equitable partnerships of the Sisterhood.
‘Rumah Kita: The Story of Our Becoming’ seeks to document ‘what happened’ and honor the work that went into establishing this new fund, through both the accomplishments and challenges. It looks primarily at the period from 2014 — when the board of Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism (then known as Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights or UAF-WHR) decided to explore possibilities for a ‘presence’ in Asia — to the launch of UAF A&P in 2017.
The hope is that this story helps preserve the history of creating a fund and support political and practical reflection for anyone looking to create a mechanism that brings resources closer to the movements they work in solidarity with. The goal is not to provide an exact blueprint or sequence of steps, but to support joyful, creative, and collective iteration.
A Thousand Shapes, A Thousand Forms: Morphing Cultures of Resistance and Audacious Care
Urgent Action Fund, Asia & Pacific’s Annual Learning Report 2023 – A Thousand Shapes, A Thousand Forms. Morphing Cultures of Resistance and Audacious Care – is a reflection of another year where conflicts and struggles took new forms that demanded new ways of organising and resourcing feminist movements and activism. Like the remarkable ability of slime moulds to navigate complex environments and find the most efficient paths to resources, UAF A&P’s work with defenders followed similar unconventional paths.
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Organisational Review 2018-23
The Asia and Pacific regions are witnessing democratic backsliding coupled with rising militarism. State actors have weaponized laws and tightened surveillance against women, trans, and non-binary human rights defenders and activists in countries like Myanmar, China, Afghanistan, and India, while non-state actors have weaponized regressive culture and religion, prioritizing profits over people, and extracting resources on indigenous peoples’ lands.
The global recession has further exacerbated economic inequality and put many defenders’ livelihoods at risk, while well-funded anti-gender movements have eroded feminists’ hard-won rights. People in the regions, especially the Pacific, have borne the brunt of the ongoing climate crisis and the consequent humanitarian crises. At the same time, tight financial restrictions have made it difficult to move money across borders into the hands of defenders and activists.
It is in this context that Urgent Action Fund, Asia & Pacific (UAF A&P) was created in 2017 to support the safety and well-being of women, trans, and non-binary human rights defenders, and respond to crises with care.
It is in this context that Urgent Action Fund, Asia & Pacific (UAF A&P) was created in 2017 to support the safety and well-being of women, trans, and non-binary human rights defenders, and respond to crises with care.
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UAF A&P Strategic Plan 2024-29
Feminist Futures. Forged in Fire.
UAF A&P has been in existence since 2018 and in that time until now, we have grown stronger and bigger, and deepened our roots in the regions that we live, exist and work. Through our growth, we stumbled, rose up, surveyed our landscape with curiosity and kindness. Our insightful voyage gave us many milestones to learn from and adapt as we moved forward.
Our journey to our current strategy came to life through the advice and insights of Pacific and Asian women, trans, and non-binary human rights defenders who crossed our paths virtually or in person, our team, advisors, past and present board members. Their wisdom and participation has and continues to improve our line of sight and help us to be better prepared for what may emerge over the next five years. Our aim through our new five-year strategic plan is for feminist and social justice movements led by women, trans, and non-binary people to move closer to their vision of a thriving existence that is interconnected and interdependent with the earth and other living beings.
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Rapid Response Grants for Sex Workers’ Rights Activists and Defenders
We recognise that sex work is work. We also recognise and deeply value the important work that sex workers’ rights activists and defenders do to protect and further sex workers’ rights, despite the many challenges, stigma, and discrimination they face in every realm of life.
As a feminist rapid-response grantmaker, we understand that crises and threats to activists’ security and well-being can look different for different communities. For sex workers, their mere identity and work means navigating threats to their safety and well-being every day. By extension, sex workers’ rights activists and defenders face countless risks as they respond to immediate threats from the police and other state actors, societal stigma and discrimination, and the criminalisation of sex work. They have limited access to resources and are seldom prioritised by traditional grantmaking organisations.
Urgent Action Fund, Asia & Pacific (UAF A&P) supports the resistance and resilience of women, trans, and non-binary human rights activists and defenders. Sex workers’ rights activists and defenders in Asia and Pacific have utilised our grants for security and well-being, strategic planning, and capacity-building.
We invite activists and defenders in Asia and the Pacific facing risks or in need of urgent support for reorganising, strategising, and capacity-building to apply for our rapid-response grants to sustain sex workers’ rights movements.
More details in the attached flyer. To apply, head to our grants page.
Announcing the Launch of the Pacific Feminist Fund
Artwork by: Shar Tuiasoa
Women and non-binary human rights defenders and activists in the Pacific face insurmountable and intersecting challenges. While financial aid for gender equality is on the rise globally, funding for women’s rights organisations is not. Of this, less than 1% of the direct grant funding goes to women’s organisations in the Pacific. The Pacific region’s demands and challenges are as unique and expansive as the oceanscape and funding is needed by a variety of groups across the islands. In 2019, Urgent Action Fund - Asia & Pacific and Fiji Women’s Fund commissioned a scoping study to map the gaps, opportunities and trends of the funding landscape in the Pacific. The key recommendation of the study was to set up an independent Pacific Feminist Fund.
Urgent Action Fund - Asia & Pacific along with Women’s Fund Fiji, Women’s Fund Asia that are part of the Amplify-Invest-Reach (AIR) partnership with Australia’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) are incubating the setting up of this new fund: the Pacific Feminist Fund. It aims to de-risk donations from diverse sources and deliver funds to Pacific women’s and gender non-conforming organisations and groups safely and quickly. The Fund hopes to draw international and regional attention to the needs and priorities of women, girls, and transgender persons in the Pacific, and is modelled on the values and lessons learnt from established global women’s and feminist funds.
It is a Fund that seeks to be built from the ground up. Here’s a report containing the initial findings and recommendations from Pacific feminists, women’s rights organizations and LGBTIQ+ and persons with disability advocates, to explore the design of a Pacific Feminist Fund led by feminists in the region. The report covers recommendations on the Mandate, Structure, Management and Governance of the Pacific Feminist Fund; Sources of Funding; Financial Requirements; and Risk Analysis.
Download and read the full report here.
Follow the newly set up Pacific Feminist Fund here:
UAF A&P’s Feminist Learning Approach
We are proud to share our feminist learning approach in our latest publication ‘UAF A&P’s Approach to MEAL: Unlearning to Forge New Learning Paths’
As a feminist fund that offers emergency support and resources for activists and non-binary defenders of Asia and the Pacific, we recognize the role that learning plays in sustained and intentional evolution, data-driven decision-making and accountability, power-sharing and collective care.
Over the past five years, Urgent Action Fund Asia and the Pacific has front and centered feminist values, vision, and language in our learning approach. We have used Emergent Learning to rapidly adapt to and manoeuver in a complex, constantly shifting terrain.
Our learning approach has offered us the flexibility to sense-make in smaller groups and validate in bigger cohorts more easily and naturally. We believe that by sharing our approach to Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning #MEAL, we can collectively make our thinking visible, talk about it, make connections, and forecast emerging patterns.
Shifting Narratives: Realms of Kintsugi
Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific's pilot foray into Shifting Narratives aims to disrupt the hegemony of traditional arts spaces to amplify new, fresh and diverse voices from the region. Art is used as the unifying language to disrupt existing narratives and to shift focus across Asia and the Pacific. We support artists to connect and build relationships with activists, defenders and other diverse audiences.
We would like this International Day of Women Human Rights Defenders 2022 to be filled with the embrace of grace, care and love. We acknowledge the age old narratives that have existed in silent resistance within communities of our region. We acknowledge the power that we have as a regional feminist fund and the spaces we can occupy because of it. We understand our responsibility and share power by intentionally creating spaces and redistributing resources, to a larger network of communities. We are in solidarity with our sisters in the frontlines who lead the fight for human rights, dignity and love.
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One Year of Feminist Crisis Response in Afghanistan - August 2022.
A year ago, in August 2021, we at Urgent Action Fund, Asia and Pacific, truly understood the reason for our existence. When the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, throwing its people and financial systems into disarray, we plunged right into the kind of crisis that we were set up for.
As international aid organisations and other non-profits with offices and staff across Afghanistan began security assessments, we were already mobilising money and moving resources needed to evacuate women and non-binary defenders facing most immediate threats. We were one of the first funds to successfully move money directly into the hands of activists and defenders in not just Kabul but other provinces of Afghanistan. And over the following months, we continued to build on our successes, with unwavering support from a trusting network of advisors, partner organisations and the advice and support of UAF A&P’s Board and the larger funding ecosystem.
And now a year into offering grants in Afghanistan, we realise it’s time to rethink our crisis response, and step back to restrategise where we can be more effective as a rapid response fund.
Read our statement and learning below.
Statement of Solidarity and Renewed Commitments | August 2022
A Year of Feminist Crisis Response in Afghanistan | August 2022
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Radical Geographies | UAF A&P Annual Report 2021
2021 presented the toughest terrains to navigate - conflicts, coups, political turbulence, amid a global pandemic that left no population unscathed. Even as struggles and hardship intensified for women and non-binary human rights defenders, they innovated on ways to survive, collectivise and draw strength to face adversities. Much like how lichens find way to grow on bare, inhospitable earth, feminist movements sprouted and sustained life even in scorched landscape.
Radical Geographies is Urgent Action Fund, Asia & Pacific’s annual narrative of learning on how as a feminist rapid response fund we traversed the shaky grounds of 2021. This report takes you through the journey of how feminist grant-making prepared the grounds for human rights defence to spawn and fruit even in inhospitable terrains. How roots of collective care and symbiosis through sisterhood nourished feminist landscapes of Asia and the Pacific. ‘Radical Geographies’ borrows language and inspiration from the magnificent, but invisible ecologies of fungi, molluscs and lichens to explore resilience, rebellion, care and interconnectedness of regional feminist communities and movements.