Ecumenical Women’s Initiative is committed to advocating within the funding community for investing in women and girls as agents for social change.
We are particularly engaged in collective advocacy work with Prospera Women’s Funds Europe at the European Commission in Bruxelles through the co-coordination of the ‘Knocking on EU’s Door initiative’. This collaborative initiative seeks to secure high level support for strategic input and policy endorsement for women’s human rights in Europe; advise and lead on advocacy efforts targeting the EU Institutions for allocating specific funding for women’s human rights in Europe; develop partnerships through engaging thought leaders and decision-makers; develop a consortium of organisations to cooperate on the long-term deployment and joint advocacy of women’s funds’ priorities in Europe.
Influencing interreligious dialogue
Ecumenical Women’s Initiative advocates for recognition of women-led interreligious dialogue at the grassroots which has been boldly instrumental in tackling cultural and religious intolerance, and which strives to establish and maintain lasting solutions. We also seek women’s full and equal participation in and leadership of developing innovative strategies for advanced interreligious dialogue at a formal level.
Through its Fellowship Research Programme, the Ecumenical Women’s Initiative supports the research and publication academic papers on topics related to issues affecting women in the region.
Why feminism and religion
In a region where almost 90 percent of people declare themselves to be believers and where secular laws based on international human rights norms and freedoms are in force, it is important, through the confrontation of feminist and religious perspectives, to open a space for dialogue, meeting, learning and questioning on how to arrive at new ways of understanding rights and freedoms, especially for minorities.
Despite the growing number of women who actively participate in public and political life, women are often faced with contradictions regarding gender equality arising from the secular legislation which is based on international standards of human rights and freedoms, but also on religious teachings. To be able to meet the challenges put before them, it is important for women to be acquainted with religious-based gender stereotypes and the possibilities of their deconstruction in the spirit of their own religious traditions and to question the asymmetry of power and the violence against women which is present both in secular and religious spheres of life.
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