WoMin News

WoMin fossil fuels campaign newsletter - April Issue 1

WoMin is recruiting two exciting new regional posts!

WoMin is recruiting two new full-time posts based in South Africa, our strong preference, or in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the DRC, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso or Uganda.

A Communications, Solidarity and Alliance Building Coordinator who will work to strengthen the alliance, its visibility and its contribution to movement-building through deepened intra and extra-alliance communications and exchange; powerful solidarity; greater capacity for documentation, writing and critical analysis; and deepened clarity about the alliance, its purpose and ways of working.

For this role, and over and above our general requirements for every post (see end), we are specifically looking for a woman activist:

• With a minimum of 5 years’ experience in one, or preferably a combination, of the following content areas: extractives, energy, climate, trade, globalisation, infrastructure, land/natural resources, human rights and gender justice
• Who is a critical thinker with a history of working with writing as a tool for organising and building solidarity with people’s/women’s struggles
• Who can build, implement and monitor a communications strategy and annual plans within the secretariat and across the alliance
• Who is a strong analytical writer with the ability to design and implement small-scale qualitative research projects in support of our communications and solidarity efforts
• With at least 3 to 5 years’ experience in communications, alliance building, solidarity and/or writing mentorship/support and
• Who is comfortable and proficient in a range of social media: FB, twitter, YouTube etc.

Click for full job profile.

A Projects Coordinator - Militarisation and Violence Against Women/Consent and Just Development Alternatives who will work with WoMin’s allies to build powerful exploratory eighteen month to two-year projects on the mentioned themes. This experience will inform longer-term scaled-up work in partnership with national, regional and international allies. This role is experimental and will require a high level of creativity and dynamism in the incumbent we recruit. The position will be implemented alongside research consultants and a full-time intern, and with the support of other WoMin staff with the necessary expertise. Most of the work will be implemented by national allies and so the role is very much one of coordination and support.

For this role, we are specifically searching for a woman activist with:

• A minimum of five years’ experience in one of the following content areas: extractives, violence against women, human rights, militarisation/repression/peace work
• At least three to five years’ experience in programmes/projects development, management and coordination
• A proven history of conceptualising, overseeing and managing research projects
• The proven ability to write reports, concept notes and proposals, and analytical pieces
• Experience in participatory meeting and training methodologies
• A minimum two to three-year track record of fundraising and donor management.

Click for job profile.

WoMin’s general requirements of all applicants for any post:

• An activist who has worked in and navigated the dynamics and politics of complex networks, movements and/or alliances
• A person with a history of concrete support to organising and movement-building
• A women’s rights activist with a proven history of tangible work to advance women’s rights
• A team player who meets deadlines, is able to problem-solve with others, is open to learning and is able to work with full accountability to peers, alliance members and the WoMin Director.

We are highly committed to recruiting black African women with origins in Southern, East or West Africa. The candidates must be fluent in written and spoken English, and the same fluency in either French or Portuguese would be highly desirable, but is not a requirement for either post.

Interested candidates may submit a CV, letter of motivation and contacts for three referees to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday 29 April 2016. Please clearly indicate which position you are applying for. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

WoMin-JASS Women's Movement Building School

Today is the exciting start of our 10-day women’s rights activist formation and movement building school in Johannesburg. WoMin in partnership with our sister organisation, Just Associates (JASS) leads the WoMin-JASS Women's Movement Building School.

The ‪#‎WMBS‬ brings together 34 participants from seven African countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and Ghana.

Throughout the course of the #WMBS we will be examining various themes including African women’s rights, women-led campaign on fossil fuels, energy and climate justice as well as addressing the question of consent and women’s rights, and extractivism, militarisation and violence against women.

For more information & regular updates please follow us on: Twitter @WoMin2015 and our Facebook group - WoMin-African women unite against destructive resource extraction.

AN AFRICAN ECOFEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON THE PARIS CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has failed African women and their communities before it starts! In Paris, voluntary pledges (the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs) by the big polluting countries’ leaders will, at the time of writing, raise world temperatures by a conservatively-estimated 3ºC. It is an untenable outcome for Africa, which will experience average increases of more than 6ºC in this scenario. Given the non-binding nature of the deal, violations are likely, so Africa and its peoples will cook, and tens of millions of Africans will die in the next third century, before 2050. Christian Aid estimates that 180-million African deaths will be attributable to climate change-related disease by 2100. Click here to read more: English / French

WOMIN at COP 21: an information note

Photo acknowledgement: Heidi Augestad