CAFRA – celebrating 17 years
The Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) celebrated 17 years of activism in the region, on April 1,2002. The organisation will use the entire month of April to showcase its work throughout the region. Member countries will hold public exhibitions of CAFRA’s work over the years.
CAFRA is a regional network of feminists, individual researchers, activists and women’s organisations who define feminist politics as a matter of both consciousness and action.
Its mission is to celebrate and channel the collective power of women for individual and societal transformation, thus creating a climate in which social justice is realised.
CAFRA’s membership spans the English, Dutch, French and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. The organisation has therefore played a critical role in Caribbean integration.
The idea of a Caribbean feminist organisation came out of a meeting in Puerto Rico when a group of women activists and scholars assembled for a study seminar on women and social production in the Caribbean.
CAFRA pays tribute to the founding mothers – Sonia Cuales, Cynthia Ellis, Honor Ford-Smith, Joan French, Rhoda Reddock, Peggy Antrobus and Rawwida Baksh-Soodeen. They carried forward the idea until the organisation was launched on April 1, 1985 in Barbados, with the support of the Women and Development Unit and ECLAC.
CAFRA has grounded its mission in an analysis that speaks to issues of race, ethnicity and class, along with a focus on the social relation of gender. It was UNIFEM who made the first substantial contribution to CAFRA to allow it to carry out landmark research on women in agriculture in 1987. Since then, major projects have been carried out on:
* An Anthology of Caribbean Women Poets;
* Women, Violence and Law;
* Critical Perspectives on Human Rights in the Caribbean;
* Strategies for the Implementation of the
Beijing for Action;
* Impact of Geopolitics on the Women’s Movement in
the Caribbean;
* Challenges and Perspectives for Women’s Leadership in
the 21st Century;
* Political Activism Among Young Women;
* Integrating Gender Issues in Participatory
and Collaborative Natural Resources Management;
* CAFRA Policy Document and Campaign Against HIV/AIDS;
* Domestic Violence Intervention/Prevention Training
for Police and Social Workers;
* Economic Literacy Training;
* Advocacy and Lobbying Skills Training;
* Publication of a Half-yearly Newsletter; and
* An Annual Report
In the implementation of these projects, CAFRA collaborates with regional NGOs, such as CPDC, inter-governmental organisations, and regional and international organisations with similar goals.
CAFRA’s current research projects focus on the impact of trade liberalisation on women, the development of gender indicators for projects and programmes to benefit women, and tourism and the sex trade.
The organisation is working towards bringing its diverse membership together in its Fifth General Assembly scheduled for May 23-30 in Suriname, under the Theme, “Women, Globalisation and Fair Trade”.
The permanent Secretariat for the organisation’s work in Trinidad and Tobago, and CAFRA has embarked on a fundraising drive to purchase the premises it currently occupies.
As CAFRA celebrates its 17th birthday, it also celebrates the commitment of its National Committees and donor agencies such as HIVOS, HBF, OXFAM, DFID, UNIFEM and the Global Fund for Women, which have unreservedly supported its work.
