Reconstruction Women’s fund: The First RWFund Newsletter

RWF is a local foundation reflecting and meeting needs of the feminist movement in Serbia, relying on continuity and development of anti-militarist, anti-nationalist, grassroots, academic and artistic programs and activities of women’s groups. Since the beginning, for ten years now, we have profiled all our grant making, educational and promotional programs based on these values and toward their fulfillment.If we consider the fields which could be, or are supposed to be, identified and categorized as movements, then it must be said of the feminist movement in Serbia that it is the eldest, politically most comprehensive, socially most diverse, and dynamic in crossing all kinds of boundaries. We believe that the feminist groups/activities/interventions actually correct other movements and we don’t think that they contribute a “gender aspect” only. Even among human rights organizations, feminist groups often have a better understanding of universal and holistic concepts; they nurture non-hierarchical views on human rights and practice inclusivity beyond the patchwork of identities and political correctness. To be accurate, we have to say that feminist groups not only correct other movements but when they’re at their best they correct and influence each other. The deterioration of political and civic space has made it impossible to discuss progress as such, therefore what we value the most is political clarity and autonomy of feminist groups as the precondition of sustainability of the movement. > > >

Flexible general support enables groups to have more freedom and opens up possibility for creative and innovative approaches in planning their activities, as well as in the process of fundraising from other donors. As part of our strategic plan for 2014 – 2016 the Reconstruction Women’s Fund has decided to, beginning with this year, start an experimental phase of partnership in the form of general support, lasting one year, for groups we continuously work with and whose programs we consider worthy of sustainment and further development. This year we have supported four groups and/or programs: Roma Association Novi Becej (SOS Line in national minority languages), Jefimija Uzice (Consultation services for women who have breast cancer), Roma Center for Women and Children DAJE Belgrade (SOS in national minority languages and individual consultations), and SOS Vlasotince (Youth Program, Voice of Reason – Confrontations)… > > >

Since 2006, SOS Vlasotince has been continuously working with youth from upper and final grades of elementary schools in Vlasotince and neighboring villages, based on the principle of peer education and empowerment. Their experience is that most young people find themselves in a kind of inter-space, that they are uninformed but highly motivated for alternative means of education about topics that are contrary to prevalent dogma, and that offer a modern vision of civil society. Their workshops in the past seven years have been attended by more than a thousand youths who have thus traversed the road from education about fundamental human rights, civic rights all the way to the issue of confronting the past – which is for Vlasotince, a impoverished and militarized community, of great significance. Through their work young people are assisted in surpassing the repercussions and influence of patriarchy, making independent decisions about their life and education, and becoming aware that collective moral responsibility is a necessary form of responsibility for a collective crime.
Upon finishing elementary or high school education many young people go to live in larger cities so as to continue their education, so out of the 38 peer educators currently only fourteen are active in SOS Vlasotince, making education of new peer educators is essential. > > >

This is the second consecutive year the RWF has organized a call for applications within the program of supporting activism among young women 16 to 30 years of age – Mirror. This program is above all intended for young women who apply critical thinking, hold a clear stance when defending their rights, are not afraid of confrontation and fighting against various forms of injustice, who transform their anger generated by those same injustices into creative action, who go against “the flow” and who want to change the “rules that don’t fit”. Our Board – with Ana Stevanovic, Dusica Parezanovic, Jelena Veljic and Jovana Djordjevic – chose out of 32 applications which we received for this year’s call and supported sixteen projects submitted by non-profit, non-governmental organizations and informal/unregistered groups. > > >

During these two years the Mirror program provided support for a total of 30 young women’s groups. Among others:

Interkultivator which, wanting to test the methodology of a open educational model intended for young women interested in an introductory course of information-communication technologies, organized for ten students from various high-schools and universities in Belgrade, workshops where they were given an opportunity to learn about the structure of operational systems, history of free software, history of the Internet, existing examples of women’s organizations in the technology field, history of women in technology and programing, and basics of making web sites and installing various operational systems. The topics covered on these workshops are not topics covered by formal high-school education. Following completion, together the participants developed a blog platform intended for exchanging knowledge pertaining to gender and technology, and with the aim of including as many young women as possible who are interested in new technologies. > > >

According to an activist from the Kalisto group in Novi Sad, the phenomenon of women’s sexuality has not been researched in the right way, and there are no authentic women’s voices to be heard on this topic – which is in accordance with society’s prevailing reasoning that women are reproductive, rather than sexual beings. Using the “Vibration is Life” exhibit organized in March of this year, they promoted the idea of sex-positivism and tried to establish a sex-positive community where a vibrator would be propagated as a tool for taking back control over our own bodies and raising sexual awareness. They managed to find vibrators belonging to women of various generations. “When we tried to purchase vibrators intended as antique pieces in an exhibition we frequently came across total denial that the piece is in fact a vibrator at all. Denial of women’s sexuality combined with puritan marketing of vibrators as appliances for massaging face or feet have had their effect”. Photographs and installations, which are part of the exhibit, represent a parody of the historic mystification of vibrators. The exhibit incited a lot of media attention, while media coverage portrayed the issue as one of importance to the community.
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“The Mott Foundation is very proud to support the Reconstruction Women’s Fund. Always visionary and proactive, RWF has established itself as an excellent grantmaker and a key institution of civil society in Serbia and the region. RWF empowers its partners with financial assistance and development opportunities, and, with its partners, RWF has advanced a wide range of women’s issues in local communities and at the national level in Serbia. We wish RWF continued success over the decades to come.”

For the last 9 years (since 2005), Mama Cash has been a partner of Reconstruction Women’s Fund. Like in any partnership, we both give and take. And we have taken/received a lot from Reconstruction in all these years. Because time/space are short, I will only mention a few gifts from Reconstruction that Mama Cash is treasuring:
– A permanent reminder that women’s funds are activists, that we are part of the movements that we support and that their struggle is our struggle.
– An example of team-work and of feminist workplace ethics and practices.
– A crash course on how imagination and humour can be used to fundraise for feminist causes.

In their 10th anniversary our wish to Reconstruction is that the fund continues to grow without ever letting the flame (and the humour) die down.

Since it was established in 1998, the Global Fund for Women has financed more than thirty women’s funds around the world, and Reconstruction Women’s Fund is one of the most importance ones. The Reconstruction Women’s Fund is distinct because it sprung from, and continues to be an integral part of, the feminist women’s movement: it listens, learns, decides, participates, influences and represents a connection hub within the movement, always keenly aware of and continuously perfecting its role as a local foundation which assists in the acquisition and flow of resources, experience and knowledge. The Reconstruction Women’s Fund is also distinct because of its focus on autonomy and agility, and encourages it among local initiatives and promotes it among other women’s foundations and donors world wide. In that sense, the Reconstruction Women’s Fund is unique in regards to its dedication to reconstructing politics of power and money.
I sincerely congratulate them on their ten year anniversary of work and wish them all the best in the next hundred years!

We used the UNCORK – CHIP IN A PROPER PLACE! campaign as a means of encouraging our friends to invest in women’s future, in women’s groups, as well as into the only women’s foundation in Serbia – Reconstruction Women’s Fund. The idea behind local philanthropy is to encourage people to invest into a better future, to jointly build relations which advocate equality, solidarity and humanism. There is an unequal distribution of wealth in the world. A small percentage of people hold the vast majority of wealth while a large percentage have few resources. This represents an inequality in access to wealth. The rich should, of course, give more. Those who don’t have as much should give a little. This is an issue of solidarity, not of amount. What matters isn’t the amount of money but rather the wish to support a group or activity, a collective, an idea and change in general. During this campaign the Reconstruction Women’s Fund has had the pleasure and privilege to host exceptional activists – Sara Mandujano from the Women’s Fund Alquimia (Chile) and Marjan Sax from the Mama Cash foundation.Some ideas on why people should invest in women’s funds:

I think that women and feminists work on creating spaces which are more just for the the community as a whole, they generate ideas on how work should be organized, they coordinate actions, all the while changing not only culture itself, but most certainly changing behavior models – in the sense of promoting non-violence, non-violent methodology and taking everyones benefit into consideration. I think this is important, because women are precisely the ones who know best what is happening in their communities – they not only hear about everything but they also feel on their own skin everything that must be changed… I’d rather not go into details because the thing most needing change are the models humanity uses – we must change the existing system and come up with a better one which would enable everyone to be happy, and that is our goal… > > >

Marjan Sax: What is feminist philanthropy?I think money is a tool for change, and it may be used in various and diverse ways. When you invest money into social change you change the world. Philanthropy means that you participate in change by means of finance, but you may also do it by being active. I can invest my energy, I can invest my intellect, but I can also invest my money. I believe that everyone must do this. If you have expendable money then you should, of course, invest into issues you believe in, which you’re passionate about – and for me that is the women’s movement. > > >

Checking account payment instructions:
Account: Rekonstrukcija Ženski fond
Address: Stevana Sremca 3/19, Belgrade
Account number: 205-0000000185125-38
Purpose: Donation

Standing order payment instructions:
Komercijalna Bank will open an order easily, you only have to state what amount you wish to donate. This amount stays the same throughout the year. You have to go to the bank where you opened your account and give the teller your account number.
Intesa bank also has a simple procedure for this. They only request additional information about the Fund (PIB number, registration number, etc.).
Erste Bank also uses a simple procedure and it’s free of charge.
All banks require that you clearly indicate the amount you wish to donate, and the date and month when you want the money to be withdrawn from your account.

Standing order account number: 205-0000000185125-38
Full name: Rekonstrukcija Ženski fond
Address: Stevana Sremca 3/19, Belgrade
PIB number: 103330891
Registration number: 103330891

If you are from the United States of America and want to donate to Reconstruction Women’s Fund, you can do it through fiscal sponsorship partnership that RWF has with Global Fund for Women. Your donation will be tax-deductible. You can do that by clicking the link below.
Donate to Reconstruction Women’s Fund > > >