Thursday, October 27

8:30 - 10:30 Plenary Session  

The opening plenary will provide both a thoughtful reflection of our achievements as well as a call to action in the advancement of women's rights globally. Speakers will reflect not only on the successes we've had but they will also probe our key failures and some of the unintended consequences of our work. We'll learn about our advances and pitfalls in gender and economic justice work, what change has meant within women's human rights, and how young feminists perceive the legacy that's been left for them to take up and transform. This session will also set the stage for a thrilling four days of learning, networking and strategising.

Speakers

• Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is the co-founder and Executive Director of the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF), the first Africawide fundraising and grant-making organisation for African women. Bisi is also the President of the Association for Women's Rights in Development.

• Sunila Abeysekera is a feminist and human rights activist, who works in Sri Lanka and internationally on issues relating to processes of conflict transformation and the impact of conflict on women, as well as on issues of identity and of sexual and reproductive rights.

• Tara Chetty teaches broadcast journalism at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Concurrently she is a presenter for Fiji Television News. She has additional experience in TV and radio advertising, and as a writer and journalist.

• Junya Lek Yimprasert founded the Thai Labour Campaign at the beginning of the new millennium. Her interest in labour issues began in 1990 when she started her first job with the Asian Migrant Center in Hong Kong.

11:00-12:30 Remembering and Reclaiming Change: Feminist Timelines for Better Futures

Friday, October 28

8:30 - 10:30 Plenary Session

This plenary, set in a talk show format, will commence with a 25 minute video produced by AWID entitled Three Moves Deep: Planning for the Future of Women's Human Rights. Based on perspectives of researchers and activists from around the world, the video scans issues from climate change to geo-political shifts, from fundamentalisms to disease as the key issues that will affect our futures. The video will set the stage for a lively discussion among our knowledgeable "panelists" on the changing and complex context in which we are seeking human rights and social justice, the new issues emerging in the coming decades and what we all must consider in order to address them.

Speakers

• Anita Nayar (moderator) is pursuing doctoral research in anthropology on the impact of the commercialisation of indigenous medicine in India on the social structure and political economy of herb gathering communities.

• Dr Marsha T Darling is Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies, and Director of the African American & Ethnic Studies Program at Adelphi University. At Adelphi, 

• Yassine Fall is an economist from Senegal, a social justice activist and one of the leading figures of the women's movement in Africa.

• Nursyahbani Katjasungkana is a human rights lawyer in Indonesia. For almost thirty years she has been working with several NGO's working on human and women's rights and environmental issues.

• Yanar Mohammed is the founder of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), an organisation fighting to stop atrocities against women and advocate for women's social, political and economic rights.

• Ramesh Singh is the Chief Executive of ActionAid International. His work for ActionAid began in 1984, when he joined the agency as head of its agriculture and water programmes in The Gambia.

• Virginia Vargas is a feminist activist from Peru who for over 20 years has been an organizer in Latin America and at the global level.

19:30-21:30 Plenary Session: Where is the Money for Women's Rights: A Funders Forum

Saturday, October 29

8:30 - 10:30 Plenary Session 

How can we strive to build stronger movements and organisations that are sustainable, effective and transformative? Leaders from around the world will provide provocative insights into how to build new models of leadership, create effective mechanisms of inclusion and diversity, support intergenerational visions, expand our collective institutional capacity, work more holistically across issues, and better resource our critical work. Whether you work in a small grassroots collective or large international development agency, this plenary will both challenge and inspire you.

Speakers

• Lina Abou-Habib, (moderator) is currently the director of the Collective for Research and Training — Action (www.crtd.org) based in Beirut and working in the Arab region.

• Lydia Alpizar is a Costa Rican feminist activist who lives in Mexico City. She is AWID's Manager of the Feminist Movements and Organizations Program.

• Medea Benjamin, a powerful and charismatic force in human rights activism, has struggled for social justice in Asia, Africa and the Americas for over twenty years.

• Enisa Eminova is a Roma woman. Her path to activism started when she was 17, as a volunteer in the Roma Education programme run by the Open Society Institute.

• Pramada Menon is Co-Founder and Director of Programs at CREA (Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action), a not-for-profit organisation that works at the national level in India and internationally.

• Dr Sylvia Tamale is a feminist activist and the first woman Dean of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University in Uganda.

• Marcela Ríos Tobar is a feminist academic and activist. She is a political scientist researcher at the Latin American Faculty on Social Sciences, based in Chile.

Sunday, October 30

11:30 - 13:15 Final Plenary:  How does change happen? A Wrap-up

How do you make sense of four days of intense discussion, debate and deliberation? What can we conclude about what change processes have worked and can work in terms of advancing the rights of women in all our regions? What new big ideas have emerged at this Forum that will be remembered for years or could have a big impact on the way we act, think, or do our work when we leave the Forum? Be part of this participatory closing plenary and hear from these wise women of all ages who will creatively show us all just how change happens.

Speakers

• Geetanjali Misra, (moderator) is Executive Director, CREA (Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action), New Delhi.

• Maria Alejandra Scampini Franco is the Coordinator of the programme on political influence and Advisor on Education, Gender and Citizeship for Red De Educacion Popular Entre Mujeres (REPEM) and ICAE .

• Bella Matambanadzo is a Zimbabwean feminist. She is currently the Zimbabwe Programme Manager for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, OSISA.

• Yvonne Underhill-Sem has been involved with DAWN for six years mostly as Pacific Regional Co-ordinator and currently collaborates with the Fiji Women's Rights Movement based in Suva, Fiji.

• Lisa VeneKlasen is the co-founder and director of Just Associates, a global advocacy support network dedicated to strengthening the strategies, impact, leadership, organizations and movements of groups committed to women's equality and social and economic justice.