Older Women’s Wisdom, Collective Action: Fund the Future
Older Women’s Wisdom, Collective Action: Fund the Future
There are many groups of Older women, Elderwomen, Grandmothers and Grand’Others’ who are working to improve the human condition the world over. And yet they are underfunded, under-resourced and under-recognized- achieving so much with so little.
We aim to address this lack of resources. We will embrace older women advocates: the activists, the storytellers, the health innovators, policy change-agents, the creators of art and community. We will support them through small, targeted grants, and support them to amplify their voices, share knowledge and build movements.
This Fund – the Wisdom at Work Fund – will support older women’s efforts to strategize, mobilize, invest in each other, amplify their expertise and voices in venues where policy and funding decisions are being made, and share knowledge and wisdom from communities to universities and beyond.
Fearless thinkers and seasoned collaborators, our Grandmothers and Elderwomen have the know-how, compassion and determination to help bring us out of turbulent times and into the fullness of our potential as a human family.
Global and local networks of older women, who are determined to make a difference, unapologetic about their advocacy and community-based wisdom, informed by a lifetime of experience and expertise – is just what the world needs!
We will focus on a myriad of ways to enable and facilitate the engagement of Elderwomen, Older Women and Grandmothers to amplify their voices and insights, through support to their initiatives and engagement through networking, mobilizing, creating, sustaining communities, documenting herstories, knowledge-sharing, peer-to-peer support and more.
Small, targeted grants to grassroots community-led initiatives supporting Elderwomen, Older Women and Grandmother’s initiatives.
We are living in a moment where there are seismic shifts – literally and figuratively – in the human landscape. There is an unprecedented urgency to address the escalating calamities and growing disparities that characterize this moment in history, and to support the essential contributions of older women – both in terms of solutions, and the transformative power of love and lived experience they bring.
The Elderwomen’s Collaboratory
A place for Elderwomen and Grandmothers to generate and share learning; strategize, engage and create around issues, passions, and inclusion in sectors and forums where they want to make a contribution.
Support participation of Elderwomen in regional and international meetings [including the deliberations to create a new United Nations Convention on
the Rights of Older Persons].
To ensure that Elderwomen and Grandmothers are supported to bring their wisdom, perspectives, priorities, lived realities and rights to the fore, to be heard and heeded in the corridors of power.
Senior Women’s Sisterships (fellowships)
Supporting the creation of Sisterships with partners around the world, supporting older women to organize, network, create, and amplify wisdom – effecting a paradigm shift in the narratives around the power of older women’s leadership and engagement.
We are inspired by so many groups and initiatives. To name just a few of the many: ElderWomen Water Protectors; the Nyaka Grandmothers; the Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, the Badass Grannies, the Society of Fearless Grandmothers, the Lola Aktibistas; Grandmothers against Poverty and AIDS; the Grandmothers to Grandmothers solidarity Campaign of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights (GRR); Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
~Ilana Landsberg-Lewis
~Twesigye Jackson Kaguri
