The Foundation will contribute $60,000 to the general fund of six community-based organizations to support their impact on gender equity

San Juan, Puerto Rico, August 2, 2022 – The Puerto Rico Women’s Foundation (FMnPR) announced this week the most recent grantmaking with six grants to six non-profit organizations, totaling $60,000 in financial support, to resources of women and fluid gender people dedicated to the eradication of gender violence, empowerment and visibility through restorative justice, and education with a gender perspective in community settings.

These grants align with the FMnPR’s mission to promote and sustain gender-responsive projects that work to improve the circumstances of women, feminized people, and the LGBTTQ+ community in the archipelago.

The grants, which are possible thanks to the support of the Kresge Foundation, would have a direct impact on communities by providing flexible funds, both for administrative use and for project development, to groups that take affirmative and participatory actions to guarantee gender equity and social justice. With this investment, the Foundation reinforces its commitment to organizations that promote activism programs to ensure the civic and political participation of women and feminized people, as well as spaces for healing and collective restoration against gender violence.

“We believe that in order to work for social justice, we need to radically change how philanthropic funds are distributed. Feminist movements are powerhouses for social change, but they are under-resourced, undervalued, and underestimated. Our commitment is to ensure that community-based women’s rights organizations in Puerto Rico receive more and better resources, to continue their social justice work.”, said Verónica Colón Rosario, Executive Director of the philanthropic organization. “Ultimately, our aim is that with our grantmaking, accompaniment, and capacity-building resources we can continue building transformative work for gender equity in Puerto Rico.”

In this round of grants, investments are concentrated in a diverse portfolio that considers emerging community-based organizations led by women and people from the LGBTTQ+ community focused on advancing an inclusive, decolonial, feminist and anti-racist agenda. It also includes rural and urban groups with a population focus on children and youth to promote their well-being and full development.

Therefore, the FMnPR supports the deployment of community tools to empower historically marginalized groups and that their intergenerational effect contributes to the reduction of inequality and gender violence and the amplification of diverse voices that have the possibility to act politically and socially on issues that have a direct impact on their lives. As the Foundation advocates for social justice and supports economic, physical, health, reproductive autonomy, and overall empowerment of women, girls, and gender-fluent people in Puerto Rico, this latest round of grants consist of $10,000 to each of the following organizations:

Alianza Mujeres Viequenses

La Alianza Mujeres Viequenses is an organization in search of well-being, equity, and justice for women in Vieques by promoting their participation in the community with the ultimate goal of empowering them to confront the structures that limit their maximum development. They seek to promote spaces of participation and empowerment for women in Vieques, create alliances to offer development opportunities, and give visibility to their political and community work.

Casa Juana Colón Apoyo y Orientación a la Mujer

Casa Juana is an organization that offers women from Comerío the opportunity to discover and develop their potential, heal and integrate the experiences that have formed their history as a basis for action to initiate their personal, family, and social environment transformation. Their vision is to transform the people of Comerío, in the mountains of Puerto Rico, into a living example of proactive social interaction as an instrument for strengthening a better quality of life through the assertive participation of women from a gender perspective.

Impacto Juventud

Impacto Juventud is a non-profit organization that promotes the civic and political participation of youth. It offers young people aged 15 to 25 opportunities to insert themselves into settings of social change from a decolonial, feminist and anti-racist perspective. Their vision is to train informed, empowered young people with the tools of community collaboration and the promotion of public policies aimed at social justice.

SIEMPREVIVAS Mayagüez

SIEMPREVIVAS Mayagüez is a feminist organization that works for the equity and human rights of women victims of gender violence and their sons and daughters in the western region of Puerto Rico. They provide support to women victims of gender-based violence and their children, through integrated services that promote their safety and full development.

La Sombrilla Cuir

La Sombrilla Cuir is a project that works to create better conditions for LGBTTIQA+ people in the archipelago. They pay special attention to trans, Queer, and non-binary Black people, who live with functional diversities and/or neurodiversity and are impoverished by the system. They envision a future where people in these communities have free access to housing, hospital, medicine, and psychological therapy.

Todas PR

Todas PR seeks to create journalism that promotes advances toward equity and social justice, outlines the works and struggles of feminist movements and that narrates the news and cultural work of the country from a gender perspective.

Since the beginning, the Foundation promotes models of community intervention that are strong, integral, and committed to gender justice. Betting on women’s projects, which in turn are community-based, has a multiplier effect on society. With this latest round of donations, FMnPR reaffirmed its commitment and dedication to investing in the most effective and sustainable route to end gender inequality and injustice: in girls, young people, women, and feminized people who act affirmatively in their communities.