ATHENA Network June 2020 Update

Dear sisters, allies, friends, and partners,
 
We recognize that 2020 has taken a rough turn in the past months. For this, we want to recognize the power of community. We hope that you are staying safe, taking care of yourselves, spreading love, finding safe spaces, solidarity in community and healing in these tough and uncertain times. Our interconnectedness and solidarity to each other is important now more than ever as the pandemic exerts more strain on our families, movements, communities, countries, and world.
 
COVID19 is more than a public health emergency- it is a public health emergency that will be a long-term crisis for global health, gender equality, human rights, and the overall health and well-being of generations to come.The unprecedented  global scope and scale of this  pandemic is a vivid reminder of the interconnected, interdependent realities of our world. Now more than ever the importance of uniting across sectors, issues and generations to build a healthier, more gender equal future is clear 
As we all continue to adjust to the toll that COVID19 pandemic is having on our daily lives, our ability to work, and our capacity to advance health, realize human rights, and achieve gender equality, we want to recognize, reflect, share and celebrate the milestones already scored and the success we are proud of from the start of what will be a monumental year in the history of human existence.
 
Together we(ATHENA Network core team members, collaborators, members, allies, and partners) have worked and soldiered on despite the pandemic; we have continued to;

As COVID19 exposes the depth of gross inequalities across gender, age, race and between countries globally, we are convinced that bold feminist leadership and intentional humanity is needed now more than ever. In 2020, as ATHENA we have grounded our advocacy in a strategy and roadmap designed to guide our approach and manifest these principles throughout the year. Given the impact of COVID19 and travel restrictions across the globe, we have adapted our focus to ensure that our efforts and interventions are responsive and are strategic. We want to deliberate and use grounded foresight to tap onto opportunities presented to advance the self-representation, collective advocacy, and leadership of adolescent girls and young women.
 
In the first quarter of 2020, despite the challenges, we have uplifted the power and leadership of adolescent girls and young women in monumental ways :

• A young woman partner and collaborator from within the ATHENA network – Ms Maximina Jokonya was recently appointed as HERVoice Fund Coordinator. We are excited at this opportunity to accelerate the leadership of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in decision processes that affect their lives.
• Our core team member- Ms. Irene Ogeta, has been selected to join the Organizing Committee and Youth Reference Group for the 2020 the HIV & Adolescence workshop.
• Our Collaborator, Ms. Lucy Njenga and colleague Catherine Nyambura have been invited to join the UNAIDS reference group for the 2020 Global AIDS Update report.

2020 was set to be and still is a phenomenal year for women’s rights. 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and the 20th anniversary of the UN Security Council resolution on women’s peace and security. For that reason, ATHENA aimed to align her advocacy priorities and resources to track and influence  the Beijing+25 review and generation equality processes. Within the HIV/AIDS arena ATHENA had set to  invest a multi-pronged approach to both AIDS2020 and HIV 2020 to ensure accountability to the strategic goal of influencing policy, research, and funding spaces and accountability to ensuring that those most affected by the epidemic are leading advocacy in decision-making spaces. Below are our successes to this regard.

• ATHENA has been tracking and contributing to the Generation Equality processes through the bi-monthly Beijing+25 advisory group calls
• ATHENA submitted a letter of intent to lead the Action Coalition on Technology & innovation for Gender
• Through Global Fund for women, ATHENA has submitted a travel grant application to support 2 core team members to attend the Generation Equality forums postponed to 2021
• ATHENA has been invited to convene the Women’s Networking Zone during the AIDS2020 Virtual. This will be the first conference of its stature and size to be held virtually. ATHENA is excited to bring our lessons and insights on digital organizing to contribute to this landmark moment.

As 2020 shapes up with deep profoundness, we cherish and appreciate the lessons and growth it has brought and the advocacy progress we have. Below are some of our highlights:

• Bridging the global and the local, while making the global accountable to the local starting from and responding to what women and girls identify as their solutions, wants, needs, realities. ATHENA and UNICEF hosted a roundtable with adolescent girls and young women in Nairobi. The roundtable aimed to engage adolescent girls and young women on the future of prevention and to use the perspectives, insights and deliberations from the roundtable to enrich the start free, stay free Toolkit currently under development by the UNICEF HIV/AIDS team.
• Advance accountability between global commitments, leadership, and tangible change in communities for adolescent girls and young women in their diversity. Our core team, collaborators, and allies influenced agendas at the following multi-lateral policy and research spaces; the African Union Summit, Africa Regional Forum for Sustainable Development, Global HIV Prevention Coalition and the Generation Equality process. This also included peer to peer mobilization, community dialogues and meetings with local stakeholders, decision-makers and fellow adolescent girls and young women in Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• Influence the HIV/AIDS policy, decision-making and research spaces such as the upcoming AIDS2020 virtual where ATHENA will be convening the Women’s Networking Zone. Moving forward, ATHENA will be represented on the organizing and planning for the Adolescence and HIV Workshop, has been invited to submit a digital poster and will be joining the HIV Research for Prevention Conference to organize a meet the expert session, and as a plenary speaker in the opening ceremony. All of these is a manifestation of the powerful advocacy, collective organizing and strong movement building and strategic communications in which ATHENA has invested in to push a human rights and gender agenda within the HIV response.  
• Launch the We Are Powerful. We Are Equal campaign through the #WhatWomenWant and #WhatGirlsWant platforms. The campaign launched during  International Women’s Day aimed to;
  • Build momentum and amplify women and girls’ demands on SRHR, HIV and broadly on gender equality
  • influence  the agenda for the Generation Equality process, especially the action coalitions
  • celebrate our achievements,
  • continue momentum to move from rhetoric to rights.
• Grow and sustain our digital community, movement and collective that is centered around the experiences, lived realities and guided by the expertise of adolescent girls and young women and along our partners and allies. With our #WhatGirlsWant and #WhatWomenWant hashtags we have;

***Gained over 750 followers across all our social media channels(Instagram, Facebook and Twitter)
*** Directly impacted over 500,000 through our social media channels
*** Left a digital footprint of 5 million impressions

As we embrace the New Normal that COVID19 has shown we desperately need, we reflect proudly on the momentum we have created so far for 2020. We shall continue to sustain this across our movement, through concerted advocacy, our strategic communications and visibility of the voices that matter- those of women in all of their diversity, especially adolescent girls and young women. Despite the unprecedented challenges and the strain on our movement and agenda, we shall rise up on and join others across the world to demand a New Normal that addresses the rooted inequalities that are currently being exacerbated right before our eyes!!
 
2020 is still ours!!