Reconstruction Women’s Fund is the first local women’s foundation in Serbia.
Reconstruction Women’s Fund was established in April 2004 as the only local women’s foundation.
The founders of RWF were:
Fund for an Open Society Serbia
Women in Black, Belgrade
Women’s Studies and Research, Novi Sad
Due to the requests of the new Law on endowments and foundations, RWF re-registered in October 2011. The decision was to introduce committed individuals as founding partners, hence Slavica Stojanovic and Svenka Savic were appointed and Women in Black stayed as an organization.
Mission of RWF is to support and sustain feminist political platform against war, nationalism, racism, militarism, all kinds of discrimination and violence against women.
Our basic functions are accountable, transparent and continuous collecting and providing of financial and expert support and strategic connection of compatible initiatives.
Aims of RWF
- to support autonomy of women’s groups, whose programs affect the public and lead to strategic changes,
- to strengthen their networking, cooperation, solidarity and visibility,
- to stimulate communication and exchange of women’s activist, academic, artistic and pacifist experience and knowledge
RWF is set and works as a part of the feminist movement. With its grassroots policy, it stimulates development of local groups, with special emphasis on activism of Roma women , and is also a reliable partner to the largest and oldest women’s groups in Serbia, with whom we are also close in terms of politics. We invite new generation of scattered initiatives to join the on-going process of the movement with the new program dedicated to young women and girls.
Our leading idea is continuity grounded in feminist political potential and practices. We believe in feminist activism and the importance of building autonomous civil society. Feminist activists and academics have been permanent, critical and progressive actors in Serbia and we are committed to build on that ground.
RWF is committed to women’s organizing. We support all modes of expression, prevention and protection of women’s human rights: from street actions to academic analyses.
Capacity building is empowerment on demand and in cooperation of women’s groups, but we believe that the crucial empowerment comes from RWF’s steady position: support to autonomous civic space, timely intervention, respect and recognition, solidarity in widening and deepening space, transfer of knowledge and experience. Our strategies and programs have been derived from interaction with various local groups, partners, national and international networks, art collectives, etc. – that is how we grow and correct ourselves.
Autonomy is security. Knowledge is security and future. Energy combats pressure, fear, erasure, threats. Antimilitarist focusing stands up against militarization in spite of their unequal power. Creativity jumps in spite of derogation of cultural space.
Stay autonomous, without censorship, with bold alert. Think the future and the past as our continuity. Invite new generations, new audiences, new actors, from the engaged position.
All the current activities of the fund can be found in the sections RWFund News, RWFund Programs and Critical Themes. The logo of Reconstruction Women’s Fund in print size resolution can be downoaded in Serbian and in English.
