Justin Jacobs
“Nothing more human than art”: Revealing untold history in the Dominican Republic
“You won’t see our history in schoolbooks,” says Michelle Ricardo, standing in the shade of an Higüero tree in a village in the heart of the Dominican Republic. “So we’re adding our story to the conversation.” Michelle is the co-founder of Anticanon RD, a feminist artist and writer collective creating dialogues about Dominican identity, culture, …
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Three Women, Endless Impact: Thoughtshop Foundation empowers young leaders to tear down India’s patriarchy
“We always start with a question — that’s where everything begins,” says Himalini Varma, the director of AJWS grantee Thoughtshop Foundation. Her organization, co-led with her partner Santayan Sangupta in 1993, has transformed the lives of thousands of young women across West Bengal, India, by approaching change through this lens: opening up space to …
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Munmun’s Story: Putting ‘design thinking’ into action
In a tiny, bright blue room tucked away from a chaotic market street in Kolkata, India, 24-year-old Munmun Das has created the neighborhood’s only safe space for girls to express themselves freely. Munmun is one of nearly 150 youth mentors trained by Thoughtshop Foundation to lead a Youth Resource Cell and guide conversations about taboo …
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Ruksana’s Story: Realizing an impossible dream
“As a child, I was awestruck by what nurses could do. And yet I knew that was an impossible dream for me,” says Ruksana Khatun. Ruksana saw her life spread out before her: She’d be forced to drop out of school to work in the fields and support her family, as her father had a …
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After a brutal civil war, a nation of organic farmers is growing in El Salvador
On the edge of a field of banana trees outside the village of Linares, deep in the jungles of El Salvador, over a dozen disabled war survivors are scribbling down a recipe for organic, homemade fertilizer. Wilfredo Pena, the agricultural coordinator of AJWS grantee Asociación de Lisiados de Guerra de El Salvador (ALGES), is walking …
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“Why change for someone else when I know I am shining?”: Changing LGBTQI+ norms in India
Like most Indians, Ritwik “Ritu” Chakravarty was raised with a strict notion of traditional gender roles. But for Ritu, who identifies as a trans woman, such rigidity never made sense. “My name, Ritu, means ‘weather’ or ‘season,’” she says today. “And my gender was fluid, changing like the weather.” This openness has allowed Ritu to …
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Meet Masafu, Who’s Defending Queer Kenyans’ Rights in Court
Masafu Okwara is a lawyer and activist in Kenya who has devoted her life to standing up for queer people who are suffering at the hands of the country’s discriminatory legal system. She works as a program officer for longtime partner National Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) in Nairobi, offering free legal aid …
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