Madre

Madre is an international human rights organization and feminist fund that partners with community-based organizations on the frontlines of war, disaster, and climate breakdown. Together with our partners, we resource grassroots feminist movements and advance the rights and leadership of women, girls, and marginalized communities worldwide. Since our inception in 1983, Madre has disbursed more than $70 million in grants and in-kind support to grassroots feminist organizations worldwide. We prioritize support to organizations led by and serving intersecting communities who are disproportionately marginalized young women and girls, indigenous women, afro-descendant women, lgbtqia+ persons, and people with disabilities. Using three interconnected strategies -grantmaking, capacity bridging, and legal advocacy - we advance rights and social justice by meeting urgent needs in their communities while creating long-term social change.fy23 program accomplishmentsmadre's work spans three program areas: (1) ending gender violence to address and prevent gender-based abuse and pursue justice for those it impacts; (2) advancing climate justice to implement human rights-based solutions to climate breakdown; and (3) building a just peace to respond to the drivers and impacts of armed violence and cultivate peace based on equality, justice, and dignity for those most marginalized.at the close of fy23 (ending september 30, 2023), we are pleased to report that we have disbursed over $4.7m in funds through 254 grants to frontline groups and women's rights activists around the world, including $1m in rapid response funds to afghanistan and ukraine. Amid a wide range of crises - climate chaos, conflict, and other disasters - Madre provided rapid-response grantmaking and advocacy for communities experiencing emergencies; we met urgent needs for humanitarian aid and enabled women and girl leaders to address the underlying causes of crisis and seed resiliency for the future. Examples of recent accomplishments in fy23ending gender violence: Madre works with partners to comprehensively address gender-based violence. Together, we hold governments accountable to create and implement policies that dismantle the systemic discrimination that allows violence to flourish. Further, we support women, girls, and lgbtqia+ persons to heal from abuse and become powerful advocates for every person's right to a life free from violence.with Madre's support, cimarronas, our partner in bolivia, reached over 1,000 afro-descendent and indigenous children, adolescents, single mothers, and men on topics including self-protection, sexual and reproductive health, masculinity, and responsible fatherhood, with a particular focus on responding to and preventing instances of sexual abuse of children.in mexico, Madre and our local partner, fondo semillas, have worked to provide direct services and expand human rights protections for nearly 9,000 migrant girls, women, and lgbtqia+ people. Madre produced a new toolkit on human rights documentation tailored to the afghanistan context and as a resource to women's rights organizations, providing instruction on safely documenting human rights violations, building bodies of evidence for future legal challenges, and avoiding re-traumatizing survivors of violence in the local languages of dari and pashto.together with our partner sofepadi, Madre organized a skills-building workshop gathering 20 representatives from partner organizations who document domestic violence for the democratic republic of congo's observatory on domestic violence, co-founded by Madre. As of november 2023, 300 domestic violence cases have been documented and integrated into the observatory, a key step in gathering data to build support for proposed legislation on domestic violence.advancing climate justice: Madre's approach to environmental justice resources the communities most impacted by climate disaster as the immediate and long-term solution to this global crisis. Our programming ensures that women, girls, and lgbtqia+ people are able to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of extractive industries and climate catastrophe on their land, livelihoods, and cultural identity. In honduras, Madre partner, el equipo de colaboracin y reflexin (eco re), an indigenous youth-led collective, hosted workshops on advocacy, digital activism, and peace-building to organize lenca women and girls in the reitoca community to address the environmental impacts of the area's hydroelectric plant that threatens to pollute and reduce the only water source for more than 12,000 people.with Madre's support, the tirap youth trust, our partner in kenya, expanded their girls' mentorship program. Thirty youth from the hunter-gatherer ogiek community learned traditional techniques for stewarding local ecosystems and built new skills in climate adaptations, sustainable land use, environmental conservation, and climate justice principles.in response to the humanitarian crisis created by the multiple earthquakes that hit western afghanistan in october 2023, Madre supported individual women human rights defenders and women's organizations both in-country and in exile to provide food, winterization items, medicine packages, and cash assistance for those most at risk, including women heads of household, the sick or injured, and families with elderly and/or young children.following a devastating earthquake that affected 6.6 million people in morocco, violence rose agaist lgbtqia+ people, who were scapegoated for the disaster, Madre resourced our local partners to act as critical first responders, providing emergency humanitarian aid to more than 100 impacted members of the lgbtqia+ community, as well as providing 40 lgbtqia+-friendly mental health sessions. Building a just peace: Madre advocates for women's and girls' representation, participation, and leadership in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, and reconstruction policymaking. We resource our partners at the frontlines of militarized conflict to deliver life-saving humanitarian aid, counseling, shelters, and health services, while also ensuring that these organizations and individuals have the tools and access to participate as leaders in peace processes.in gaza, Madre and local partners delivered food parcels and clean water to 180,000 people, provided health and hygiene kits to 120,000 people, provided midwifery kits to more than 50,000 pregnant women, and secured seven truckloads of nonperishable food parcels and drinking water that entered gaza from the rafah checkpoint in egypt. Madre partnered with the un women's peace and humanitarian fund to award more than $700,000 in lifesaving financial support and emergency relocation grants.in ukraine and its border countries, Madre and local partners provided overnight shelter accommodations for 2,557 internally displaced people, and delivered hygiene kits, kitchenware, and bed linens to families, restored old houses to serve as shelters, and provided humanitarian aid and psychological support groups for women.madre co-hosted a groundbreaking convening of distinguished international criminal law and human rights experts to strengthen prevention and prosecution of crime against humanity that target people on the basis of gender. The convening resulted in unanimous support for legal standards and guiding principles for the investigation of gender persecution and the prevention, protection, and redress of such crimes.