As foundations increasingly work to integrate racial justice, decolonial practices, and equity into their work, how can they consider the ways in which justice, equity, and power play out differently across the globe? This webinar will bring together funders and grantees working in Latin America, South Asia, and Africa to reflect on their experiences embedding a justice and equity framework into their work in the Global South.
What should funders consider when supporting organizations in contexts outside of their own localities? What are the challenges both funders and grantees face in this work? This funder-grantee dialogue touched on these questions and more.
MODERATOR
Hilda Vega is the Director of Philanthropic Practice at Hispanics in Philanthropy, where she drives the development, implementation, and refinement of programs that amplify Latinx leadership and voice through responsive grantmaking, donor advisory, knowledge management, and strategies that redefine philanthropy and social finance. Prior to HIP, Hilda served as director of the CLIMA Fund (a global grassroots climate justice collaborative fund), and worked as an advisor to philanthropists and philanthropic organizations addressing issues ranging from racial justice, gender equity and human rights to climate change and early childhood education. Her experience includes positions with pfc Social Impact Advisors, Strategic Philanthropy, Ltd., the Libra Foundation, the Avina Foundation, and UnidosUS. Hilda has a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Brown University and a master’s degree in international administration from the University of Miami. She is a volunteer with Brown University, serves on the board of Avina Americas, and previously served on the board of directors of the ACLU of Illinois and Thousand Currents.
PANELISTS
Laura Garcia (Global Greengrants) is a Mexican feminist who has advocated for human rights, social justice, and civil society throughout her career. Before joining Global Greengrants, Laura served for seven years as the Executive Director of Fondo Semillas, a Mexican nonprofit organization that finances grassroots organizations to achieve gender equality. Laura has vast experience in grassroots philanthropy, human rights, and movements for social justice, and she has co-created networks to promote community philanthropy in the Global South. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Peace and Security, from King’s College, London. She currently serves on the boards of Oxfam Mexico, Justicia Transicional MX, El Día Después, and the Global Fund for Community Foundations.
Martha Agbani (Lokiaka Community Development Center), Executive Director of Lokiaka Community Development Center, a self-led organisation working for and with Indigenous women farmers and human rights activists from the Niger Delta in Nigeria. The group provides advocacy training and engages in campaigning, alliance building and knowledge exchange to secure Indigenous women’s land rights and ensure that women are seen as important stakeholders in decision-making related to the land and environment.
Prachi Patankar (Foundation for a Just Society) Born and raised in rural India, Prachi was raised by a freedom-fighter grandmother and parents deeply involved in anti-caste, feminist, and peasant movements. Over two decades in New York City, she has been an activist, educator, grantmaker, and writer involved in social movements which link the local and the global, police brutality and war, migration and militarization, race and caste, women of color feminism and global gender justice. Through work with the Afghan Women’s Mission, she has been involved in creative projects to link social justice movements between the United States and Asia. Prachi believes in the vital power of intersectional and international visions and strategies, which resonate across Dalit rights and Black lives, migrant justice and gender justice, to build bottom-up change from the local to the global.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit-American artist, technologist, and the Executive Director of Equality Labs, an art and technology startup supporting South Asian religious, cultural, and genderqueer communities in the United States and South Asia. Through her work she organizes communities to fight impunity, state violence, anti-blackness, caste apartheid, and religious intolerance. Her work has been recognized by The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Producers Guild of America Diversity Program, The Museum of Contemporary Art and Magnum Foundation.
Yásnaya Aguilar is a writer, linguist, translator, researcher, and activist from Ayutla Mixe, in Oaxaca. She studied undergraduate courses in Spanish Language & Literature and received a Master’s Degree in Linguistics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her work focuses on the promotion and study of the linguistic diversity and the endangered indigenous languages in Mexico. She has had a remarkable participation in projects to develop grammar contents for educational materials in indigenous languages and has collaborated in journals such as Letras Libres, Nexos and El País. She is part of the COLMIX Collective, devoted to the research and promotion of the indigenous Mixe Culture. She also collaborates with the Research Library Juan Córdoba, in Oaxaca, and writes a blog, #Ayuujk.
- Prachi Patankar from Fondation For a Just Society
- Egle Flores from Biodiversity Funders Group
- Hilda Vega from Hispanics in Philanthropy
- Rachel LaForgia from The Peace and Security Funders Group
- Peter Baily from The Kairos Project
- Regina Tames from Wellspring Philanthropic Fund
- Thenmouzhi’s conversation with Cornel West, Tanzeela Qambrani, and Chandrashekar Azad is a great place to look at how we can move beyond US frames.
- More resources on unlearning caste supremacy on our website here
- More information about Martha’s and Lokiaka Community development Centre’s work
- From Intention to Impact: Funding Racial Equity to Win
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