JUST ASSOCIATES INC

JASS is a feminist movement support organization dedicated to building the voice, visibility, and collective power of women for a just and sustainable world for all. JASS equips and strengthens the leadership and organizing capacity of women leaders and their organizations in Mesoamerica, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa. JASS strengthens women’s movement strategies to transform the systems, structures and beliefs that perpetuate inequality and violence in four areas of their lives: bodies, voice, resources and safety.

Our 5 core overarching strategies seek to strengthen and amplify the voice, visibility, and collective power of women:

1. Bolster women’s leadership and organizing capacity through improved and expanded activist training, accompaniment and political development grounded in feminist popular education methodologies

2. Build and fortify cross-issue and cross-border movement alliances and links – both among our core constituencies of women/LBTQI: indigenous and rural, HIV+, young feminists, human rights defenders, workers, etc. and with other allied social movements within and across regions to create the conditions for greater political leverage, strategic collaboration, and safety.

3. Increase the understanding and support for collective and community-based approaches to safety and human rights protection in repressive contexts so that activists and movements have the resources they need to
continue their work with greater safety.

4. Strengthen and amplify the leadership of community-based women in bringing innovative solutions and bold demands to regional and global advocacy spaces on critical issues and agendas including women human rights defenders’ security, and environmental and economic justice.

5. Center community-based women’s knowledge and feminist contributions through more interactive and creative use of communications including social media, JASS’ Women Crossing the Line platform and the production of knowledge (e.g. articles, research, blogs, curated discussions) to influence the understanding and support for women perspectives and solutions.

Founded in 2002, JASS was built from the ground up by a community of practice with longstanding relationships of trust and a shared belief in feminist popular education as a key component of its movement-building work. Today, the work of JASS work is supported by a 43-person staff located in 6 international offices covering 9 countries and multiple projects, programs and initiatives. The organization has built a base of partnerships, networks, alliances and coalitions while maintaining a dynamic community of practice and close relationships with a wide range of social change efforts in the three regions in which it works.