Usuario:Fimi

International Indigenous Women's Forum

FIMI

About us

The International Indigenous Women's Forum is a network of strong Indigenous women leaders from Asia, Africa, and the Americas, whose purpose is to strengthen Indigenous women's networks, increase their participation and visibility in the international arena, and build capacity.

History

The seeds of FIMI were planted in 1995, at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women (often called Beijing, after its host city). More than 30,000 women attended the conference, in what was one of the most broadly participatory United Nations conferences ever held.

Indigenous women's organizations were some of the most active and effective participants at the Beijing conference, and in subsequent follow-up processes. As a result of Indigenous advocacy, the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) specifically addressed the role of Indigenous women. Paragraph 32 of the PFA reads:

"The past decade has also witnessed a growing recognition of the distinct interests and concerns of indigenous women, whose identity, cultural traditions and forms of social organization enhance and strengthen the communities in which they live. Indigenous women often face barriers both as women and as members of indigenous communities."

The Beijing conference was one of the first times that Indigenous women were able to come together at the international level to articulate their needs as Indigenous women, distinct from those of Indigenous Peoples as a whole. At the end of the conference, Indigenous women issued their own declaration, firmly asserting their identity and their struggle as Indigenous women. In the declaration, Indigenous activists praised the PFA for recognizing poverty as a central barrier to realizing women's human rights, but challenged conference participants to take their conclusions one step further and "acknowledge that this poverty is caused by the same powerful nations and interests who have colonized us and are continuing to recolonize, homogenize, and impose their economic growth development model and monocultures on us." Five years later, many of the participants in the Beijing conference gathered in New York for follow-up meetings, known as Beijing +5.

This time, before returning to their homes around the world, Indigenous women decided to create an organization that could continue the international advocacy and organizing work that began there. The result was the International Indigenous Women's Forum, or FIMI.

Read "Indigenous Women Create New International Organization" By Lea Nicholas-Mackenzie.

Mission

The International Indigenous Women's Forum (best known as FIMI, by its Spanish initials) is a network of Indigenous women leaders from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. FIMI's mission is to bring together Indigenous women activists, leaders, and human rights promoters from different parts of the world to coordinate agendas, build unity, develop leadership and advocacy skills, increase Indigenous women's role in international decision-making processes, and advance women's human rights. FIMI's work aims to:

Amplify Indigenous women's voices in the international arena; Strengthen local Indigenous women's organizations; and Promote collaboration between the Indigenous women's movement and the non-Indigenous global women's movement.

Vision

FIMI's vision is a world in which Indigenous peoples can exercise all their human rights, access economic justice, and participate fully and effectively in all the decision-making processes that affect their lives at local, national and international levels, free from all forms of discrimination.

FIMI's vision is a world where all women, independent of their differences, fully enjoy their fundamental human rights, where a new paradigm is established that overcomes racism, social exclusion, and inequality so that Indigenous women can participate fully under equal conditions in the decisions and activities linked to the development of their communities. It is a world in which young women can realize their life's dreams, ideas, and projects.

FIMI's work focuses on the following program areas:

International Advocacy and Women's Political Participation

FIMI works to increase the role of Indigenous women in international-decision making processes and to ensure that Indigenous women's perspectives are consistently and seriously included in all discussion of human rights. FIMI promotes the effective placement of Indigenous women in positions of local and national government and other policy-making bodies . . . [1]

Human Rights Training and Capacity-Building

FIMI offers trainings to support our Indigenous women members, helping them strengthen their organizations and build leadership and advocacy skills. FIMI trainings help participants improve communication with their base. They also give participants the skills they need to influence social, cultural, political, and economic debates in the local, regional, and international arenas . . . [2]

Alliance Building

An important part of FIMI's strategy is to promote collaboration between the Indigenous women's movement and the non-Indigenous global women's movement. Specifically, FIMI is working to make the feminist movement more inclusive, and to develop a sustainable development agenda that can be adopted by the global women's human rights movement . . . [3]

Indigenous Women's Fund

In the last few decades, an Indigenous Women's Fund has been a dream of Indigenous women. In fact, in the Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women it was agreed that a fund for Indigenous Women would be established as FIMI's "economic and philanthropic arm" to provide resources for Indigenous women from all 7 geo-cultural regions defined by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues . . . [4]

Indigenous Women's Fund - Vision, Mission & Goals

Vision

The Indigenous Women's Fund envisions a global harmony in which there is full and effective participation of Indigenous women in all levels and spheres, and they are able to fully perform their role as leaders in the realization of the individual and collective human rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Mission

Through its pioneer philosophy of Intercultural Philanthropy1, the Indigenous Women's Fund's mission is to invest in Indigenous women by making grants to support building the capacity of the Indigenous women's movement, developing the leadership of Indigenous women, and strengthening institutions that advance Indigenous women's rights.

Goals

• To strengthen the institutional capacity of the Indigenous women's movement, invest in the leadership development of Indigenous women, and facilitate alliances, partnerships,

 and dialogue aimed at advancing Indigenous women's individual and collective human rights.

• To provide Indigenous women and Indigenous women's institutions with financial resources and technical assistance for capacity-building, strategic planning, collaboration,

 networking, and leadership development.

• To engage Indigenous women and their communities in the process of cultivating and distributing financial resources for their own development and for defending the human rights

 of Indigenous Peoples.

• To develop innovative approaches to grantmaking that promote social justice and are based in a commitment to interculturalism, equitable distribution of resources, and human

 rights.

Resources http://www.indigenouswomensforum.org/resources.html

The International Indigenous Women's Forum FIMI/IIWF http://www.indigenouswomensforum.org