About us
Women’s Solidarity Fund is an Oxford-based non-for-profit organisation. It focuses on the women’s rights advancement in the context of international human rights law.
Women’s Solidarity Fund conducts academic-adjacent, educational programmes for women community leaders from Global South. Our main geographic emphasis is on Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia.
Women’s Solidarity Fund strives to create safe space of transformational knowledge where academics meet practitioners and engage into effective dialogue of advocating women’s better participation and protection in the international human right legal plane.
Women’s Solidarity Fund offers academic knowledge enhancement educational programmes on CEDAW and other women’s rights related international treaties and documents in the context of international human rights law since 2017. Our educational programmes engage lawyers, government officers, international relation specialists, journalists, researchers and NGO leaders to build upon the feminist power and advocate for women’s rights utilising mechanisms and tools of international law.
Within our CEDAW Programmes we collaborate with Women’s Human Rights Institute which commenced CEDAW for Change Programme since 2004 in Canada and Costa Rica. Our Programmes are hosted at the College of the University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall, Kellogg College).
This programme provides participants with a comprehensive understanding of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against women (CEDAW) as a living document as well as women’s human rights (WHR) frameworks and mechanisms to promote women’s human rights agenda. This both e-learning and in-person course will include recorded and live lecture sessions, videos, guest speaker panel discussions, group and forum discussions.
Our Programme Objectives are:
● Supporting participants to develop holistic, feminist activist understanding of human rights frameworks and mechanisms.
● Enhancing capacity to engage domestically and internationally to seek government accountability and promote the fulfilment of women’s human rights obligations under international law.
● Developing an action plan to implement learning
Women’s Solidarity Fund was founded in Oxford, UK by Anna Arutshyan and Sophia Moradian.
As women human rights defenders, we believe that by empowering women to be agents of change ın the political, social and economic spheres, we will be closer to achieving regional and global peace and security.
By breaking the wall of patriarchy in an environment where conflict persists and transcends borders, we believe that women should be an integral part of negotiations and reconciliation.
Our goals are:
To encourage effective dialogue between academic researchers and grassroot practitioners
To provide academic space for the transfer of the knowledge and tools under the international human rights law
To amplify the knowledge in the local communities and respective countries