Posts

September 30, 2025 by Tanyanika Samuels

From Despair to Dignity: Supporting Migrant and Refugee Sex Workers in Uganda

On the streets skirting refugee camps across Uganda, sex workers eke out a living on the margins of legality; their very profession and immigration status marking them for harassment, arrest, and detention. Within this community, lesbian, bisexual and queer women have become particularly vulnerable after Uganda’s recent passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a draconian law that criminalizes homosexuality, making some offences …

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August 28, 2025 by AJWS Staff

Marking forty years of feminist grantmaking

For 40 years, AJWS has been advocating for global justice and equality, and women’s rights have been an essential part of that fight. Feminist activists supported by AJWS have addressed many of the most pressing issues facing women and girls worldwide, from early, child and forced marriage to abuse like genital cutting and gender-based violence. …

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June 25, 2025 by Justin Jacobs

Women to the front: Gender equality in the fight for Indigenous land in Guatemala

For nearly two decades, AJWS grantee the Association of Communities for the Development, Defense of Land and Natural Resources (ACODET), has successfully fought off government plans to build a hydroelectric dam in Ixcán, Guatemala, that would force 19,000 Indigenous villagers to lose their homes. ACODET is a grassroots coalition of 36 Indigenous farming villages that …

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December 18, 2024 by Justin Jacobs

Life beyond survival: How activists are transforming homeless shelters for women and LGBTQI+ people in India

Losing shelter can be one of the most traumatic experiences of a person’s life. There’s no single cause behind this global crisis, but all people pushed into homelessness face the same question: Where do I go now? In India, a coalition of grassroots organizations from across the country, including four AJWS grantees, are answering this …

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August 26, 2024 by Justin Jacobs

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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Stories

August 23, 2024 by Justin Jacobs

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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August 23, 2024 by Justin Jacobs

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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August 23, 2024 by Justin Jacobs

Krishna’s Story: Transforming her family, one by one

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