Take a deeper look at our stories from around the world.
Each month, AJWS shares the latest developments from our grantee-partners and our staff working to create a better, more just world. You might call this blend of grantee profiles, opinion pieces, and organizational updates a window into the state of human rights around the world. We just call it Stories of Hope.
We support women, girls and LGBTQI+ people, as they organize to end discrimination, stop violence and live with dignity, safety and health.
We aid communities and movements organizing to protect the land, water and natural resources that people depend on for their survival.
Each year, 15 million girls worldwide are married before the age of 18—sometimes against their will. AJWS supports efforts to end child marriage by bringing girls and young women together to define their own futures.
We aid communities and movements that speak out against injustice, hold governments accountable to respect the rights of all people, and work to recover from civil wars and other conflicts.
When disasters and emergencies strike in the countries where we work, AJWS provides immediate humanitarian relief to activists on the front lines.
A visual storytelling collaboration from AJWS and Magnum Foundation
Witness social change up close through these videos from around the globe. You'll watch a day in the life of an activist AJWS supports and learn how they change lives and build social movements for justice.
Analysis, proposals, and personal stories brought to you directly from Haitian civil society leaders.
An archive of stories related to Robert Bank, who served AJWS from 2009-2026.
An archive of stories related to Ruth Messinger, who served AJWS from 1998-2016.
In 2012, Bernardo was shot and killed. Locals allege that he was assassinated by supporters of the mining project in an attempt to silence the opposition. While his murderers remain at large, the people he left behind have refused to give in to fear and intimidation. With support from Colectivo Oaxaqueño and other AJWS grantees …
Indigenous communities work together to defend their land and way of life. In Guatemala, indigenous people whose families have lived and farmed in one place for generations are now facing rapid encroachment on their land and way of life. Many Mayan communities lack official land titles, despite obvious historic and cultural ties to their land. …
Although the majority of Burma’s people live off the land, few Burmese laws give them any control over it. In most cases, the government owns the land, and it’s not difficult for government officials and agencies to take it back—or let a major corporation step in to develop it for their own profit. It’s particularly …
Raising a voice for women amid the horrors of war
Giving girls control over their bodies and futures
Twenty-three-year-old Jeanette and her two children live in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—a country rife with ethnic conflict and known by U.N. officials as “the rape capital of the world.” Since 1993, the DRC has suffered waves of political and sexual violence, and women and children have paid the …
Grace is the mother of seven children. She lives in Democratic Republic of Congo, a country rife with ethnic conflict that has been called “the rape capital of the world” by U.N. officials. In addition to the vulnerability of being a woman in a war-torn region, Grace and her family are Pygmy, an ethnic minority …
Homophobic hatred sizzled in Haiti’s streets last summer. Religious leaders marched throughout the country to protest same-sex relationships and stir up anti-LGBT sentiment. As these extremists launched a vicious campaign, Haiti’s small, but growing number of advocates for LGBT rights—like the aptly named AJWS grantee Kouraj (Courage)—spoke out.
In Guatemala, very few young people have access to quality reproductive health care and sexual health education. Only 44 percent of women of reproductive age use any kind of contraceptives. The maternal mortality rate—the proportion of pregnancies that end in the mother’s death—is the second worst in Latin America and is especially high among indigenous …
