Afro-International Feminist Organizing School Launches in Kenya

167 Participants. 37 Countries and Territories. One Week in Kenya.

This September, grassroots feminist movements across Africa and the diaspora came together for the Afro International Feminist Organizing School (AFRO-IFOS). We came from local organizations, national alliances, regional networks, and global movements, including La Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth, Confederación Sindical de Américas e Internacional (CSA/CSI), Movimientos de Afectados por Represas (MAR), and the World March of Women. We studied and debated in Swahili, French, Portuguese, Spanish and English. Everyone had as much to teach as to learn. Old comrades found each other again and new ones met for the first time. We celebrated birthdays, cheered on comrades about to set out on new journeys, and most evenings the karaoke was as loud as the debates.

GGJ co-convened the school with the World March of Women Kenya. We also worked alongside Just Associates (JASS) and the World March of Women in Brazil, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Tanzania and South Africa on design and facilitation. Each organization and chapter brought their own feminist popular education experience and methodologies. Black feminist organizers from fourteen Black-led U.S. organizations formed our delegation, and Resource Allies joined as participants, learning alongside the movements they accompany.

Grounded in the spirit of Ubuntu, I am because we are, the school brought together movements organizing among those who bear the highest costs of the global crisis: working-class communities, peasants, migrants, Black and Indigenous peoples, women and LGBTQ people. Through political education and dialogue, we deepened our understanding of the connections between debt, war, hunger, climate collapse, and attacks on bodily autonomy, while exploring feminist economy and Pan-Africanism as foundations for alternatives that put care for people and the planet at the center.

At the heart of AFRO-IFOS was strengthening the political consciousness, leadership, organizing skills, and collective power of those most affected by these conditions and working to transform them. Movements participated as protagonists of this work, bringing proposals rooted in their own struggles, from community campaigns to global agendas, and testing them against one another. The week sharpened our collective analysis and deepened the bonds between Africa and its diaspora.

A Grassroots Feminist Response to This Moment

At AFRO-IFOS, GGJ presented a framework for building an International Grassroots Feminist Strategy to Fight the Advancement and Consolidation of Fascism. The framework begins with the experiences of those most affected by fascist violence and the struggle for self-determination.

The framework identifies the intersections of militarization, extractive economies, the undermining of democracy and attacks on bodily autonomy as central to understanding how authoritarian forces consolidate power. These escalating attacks are connected and reinforce one another. They threaten people’s ability to exercise self determination over their lives, territories, and communities.

GGJ places grassroots feminism at the center of this framework because it connects the struggles of those most affected by capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism. By identifying  the corporations, governments, and financial institutions  behind their  struggles, movements can develop shared strategies and organize across borders, while responding to their own realities. This framework is a starting point  for building  a just transition to a Feminist, Anti-racist, Regenerative Economy that protects people and the planet.

What We are Building Next

GGJ was born as an internationalist alliance,rooted in grassroots movements that organized against neoliberalism, and the growing power of corporations and global capital. Decades of organizing alongside our members and international allies, built the relationships that made AFRO IFOS possible. Our movements have won important victories, but the concentration of political and economic power continues to threaten our dignity, and the planet. Our internationalist roots and organizing are more important than ever.

That history continues to shape how we connect the fights our members lead in the U.S.–a major center of global capitalism and imperialism–with struggles around the world. When movements challenge the same system from many places at once it becomes harder for those in power to contain them. With this understanding, the framework GGJ brought to Kenya seeks to unite our struggles, strengthen international coordination and build collective power across borders. The framework generated significant interest among AFRO-IFOS participants. We have begun talking with partners and allies about how an international grassroots feminist strategy aligns with their organizing. In the coming months, we will bring international allies together to decide its next steps.

At home, the Black feminist organizers from our delegation will join other GGJ members and staff to plan the next U.S. Feminist Organizing School (FOS) ahead of the 2028 elections. We aim to strengthen grassroots feminist leadership and collective power to confront fascism and advance systemic alternatives. It is also a step toward creating a larger, coordinated movement grounded in feminist and internationalist values, with ideas and lessons moving in both directions between our work here in the U.S. and movements abroad.

Help Shape What Comes Next

Hear from organizers who were in Kenya, dig into the framework and where it goes from here, and find out where you fit in the work ahead. Bring a comrade, and forward this to someone who should be part of the conversation.