Doria Feminist Fund is thrilled to announce its third cohort of grantee partners.
In December 2023, Doria launched the call for proposals for its third grantmaking cycle. The only feminist fund that provides direct grants to activists, led by and tailored for feminist activists, from the MENA region.
We received over 400 eligible applications from feminist activists all over the region working on a diverse range of issues. Applicants submitted proposals for funding programs up to $10 000.
All Doria grantees were selected through a feminist review process by a grants committee made up of feminist activists from across the MENA region, who reviewed each application carefully, and selected each application based on Doria’s eligibility criteria, strength of the application, and alignment with Doria’s strategic objectives.
Join us in welcoming our grantees to the Doria Feminist Fund community! Doria grantees are offered grants for a period of one year, in which they will be closely accompanied by the Doria team for capacity building support, feminist mentorship, and opportunities for strengthening and growth of their projects. We are excited to begin this journey together!
We’re proud to announce Doria’s 2024 Grantee Cohort:
Group A, Lebanon
Group A, is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing support and empowering teenage girls who are incarcerated in prisons across Beirut. Their mission is to elevate the lives of these girls by providing them with access to education, sports facilities, food banks, and healthcare support, with the ultimate goal of reducing recidivism rates and improving their chances of reintegration into society.
Group B, Lebanon
“Transcending the future, our narrative, our story” is a knowledge product in the form of a manifesto that navigates envisioning the future of the trans community from a trans lens. This knowledge product challenges the assumption of stagnation and lack of imagined future within the trans community through highlighting the community’s creativity and mobilizing in reclaiming the agency and narrative to shape our futures both individually and collectively.
Project A, Palestine
Building on the rich plethora of documentation of the Palestinian experience, The Palestine Before documentary knowledge product captures the voices, experiences and histories of the last generation of Palestinians, specifically Palestinian women who witnessed the promise of liberation that was sweeping the world at the time. Through intergenerational conversations, the film aims to empower communities to have important and emotional conversations about displacement, belonging, and sense of home. These family stories are compiled to document the collective struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people - teasing out nuances, similarities and differences of experience.
Group C, Egypt
A cultural experience in the Minya Governorate, Mallawi Center, and the village of Al-Barsha, established in 2014as an independent cultural team aiming for social change against misconceptions, spreading artistic awareness, and maintaining a close relationship with the audience. It also seeks to preserve folk heritage and dialect by presenting traditional songs in street performances, influencing rural communities by spreading the arts, convincing them of artistic talents, providing opportunities for talents, and showcasing them in the artistic scene beyond the village.
Group D, Jordan
Group E is a non-profit organization that empowers females; girls and women, through football. They work to shift the mindset and the stereotypes and cultural norms that assume that football is a male-dominated game only. The approach is to transform the schools’ yards into a well-equipped sports venue at girls' public schools across Jordan while providing safe space and proper football training to the ongoing generation.
Group E, Syria
They will produce two episodes with a queer feminist illustrated content within the program "Mujandara" worked on by the Seen for Sexual and Gender Justice.
The first episode aims to shed light on the reality of trans individuals in Syria from an intersectional queer feminist perspective. The episode discusses various aspects of persecution and marginalization faced by trans individuals inside Syria, emphasizing the need to change the approach of civil society organizations and feminist organizations working within Syria to achieve a broader inclusivity in their programs for the trans community.
The second episode will focus on genderqueerness and the legal and social reality of queer individuals in Syria. The episode will discuss historical perspectives and the historical presence of gender queer individuals in the West Asia and North Africa region. From a contemporary scientific and legal perspective, the episodes aim to dismantle stigmatizing concepts resulting from performative discourse throughout history about genderqueer individuals.
Group F, Lebanon
As a sexual and reproductive health counselor, a sex educator, and a gender, sex, and relationship diversity therapist who works mostly with women, trans, and gender diverse individuals, their focus as a therapist will be to intersect all these through their work so that people have space to get intersectional psychotherapy that understands and validates their intersectional identities and experiences, with a holistic understanding of the pressures that one goes through in our societies and communities. Their service is based on my personal work and experience.
Group G, Sudan
Group G: is a voluntary, non-governmental women's youth initiative that works to raising awareness and building the capabilities of girls between the ages of 12-30 years. They are a new group of girls whose families came from conflict areas from South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur.
Their mothers’ work is unorganized and informal in sector such as tea, food sellers and street vendors. In light of the political and economic fluctuations in Sudan, the renewal of conflicts, and the lack of awareness of the basic rights of the segment of young girls and adults, they are girls and sisters engaging and serving these grassroots groups in order to ensure the continuity of the feminist struggle towards Rights.
Salamat Algeria, Algeria
The "Salamat" group in Algeria aims to increase public awareness, especially among women, about digital safety and capacity-building for women, youth, civil society, and activists in particular. Therefore, through close collaboration with local partners, the "Public Health" program adopts an approach to address risks and online violence, especially gender-based digital violence. The activities include media campaign, training and awareness sessions, digital clinics, technical support, as well as psychological and social support.
Sarah Kaddoura (Haki Nasawi), MENA region
"Haki Nasawi" is a video channel focus on knowledge production around feminist theory, movements and socio-economic issues of women and impoverished/marginalized communities. Videos focus on creating accessible and engaging material that deconstructs and critically discusses questions around the patriarchy, women's oppression and feminist movement building. It builds on the accumulated knowledge production and organizing of the region, and uses theoretical frameworks, history and past/present debates in accessible Arabic language.
Project B, Egypt:
This project will contribute to 3 knowledge products:
1- A situation analysis on the impacts and experiences of being part of the LGBTQ+ community and working in civic and political rights in the MENA region.
2- A research paper on the impact of climate change on the accessibility of women in the MENA region to sexual and reproductive health services, including safe.
3- Create a monthly podcast managed by RAWSA to shed light on the experiences and stories of women rights' defenders, including climate and LGBTQ+ activists in the region. The podcast will highlight their challenges, achievements, and/or goals.
Haven for Artists, Lebanon
Haven for Artists (H4A) is a cultural feminist non-profit organization based in Beirut, Lebanon. Working at the intersection of art and activism, Haven provides a physical and digital platform that supports, connects and equips marginalized artists and activists. Haven focuses on collaborations and community led programs, offering free workshops and cultural events that center knowledge production rooted in intersectional feminist thinking and decolonial practices. Haven combines creative and humanitarian methods to facilitate a safe space for the exchange of knowledge, tools, and skills in-order to create a more just world.
Oumayma Jabnouni, Tunisia
Through this grant, their activities are aiming to enhance the skills of activists, advocates, feminist, queer and environmentalists in Integral Security including digital security, physical security, psychological resilience, and mental health and legal-knowledge.
Trans Dynamics, Morocco
Trans Dynamics (TD) is an unregistered, grassroots, not-for-profit organization by and for transgender, gender diverse, and intersex individuals. Trans Dynamics was created in 2018 to mobilize transgender, gender diverse, and intersex individuals in Morocco in leading their own struggle against all forms of violence and structural oppression based on gender identity and gender expression and it is the first and only trans-specific organization based in Morocco.
Al Manar Society for Culture and Creativity, Palestine
Al Manar Society works for Improving the lives of refugee women and marginalized groups to have education, health awareness and empowerment and increasing awareness within camps and marginalized areas in Palestine specifically the city of Bethlehem.
Project C, Lebanon
The project is to equip a women's studio in Baalbek with equipment for filming and audio recording. Additionally, they will provide a safe space for women in Baalbek to discuss, meet and consult on feminist issues and providing them with communication technologies and fast internet to facilitate communication and cooperation.
Group H, Palestine
Group H is a new initiative aimed at empowering and uplifting an overlooked population in Palestinian communities - educated women, ages 22 –32. Group H is offering a 36-month leadership and economic empowerment project to meet the social, civic, and religious needs of university-educated women from Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps, and providing them with a platform for interfaith citizenship, professional development, peer support, and leadership training.
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