Leadership Development
Through leadership development, Feminist Center advances our reproductive health, rights, and justice objectives by continuing to welcome more folks into the movement. Our efforts have been seeding providers and activists all over the country for our 40+ year history. We identify, train, and support leaders. Our leadership development opportunities include volunteering, internships and our part-time Reproductive Justice fellowship – Errin J. Vuley Fellows program. In 2019, our center saw a huge influx of volunteers in response to the ban. In 2020, we prioritized the safety of our community and scaled back our volunteer and intern engagement and transformed our in-person fellowship program into a virtual one.
Big Wins:
| 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|
| 250 volunteer applicants | 4*(volunteer recruitment and activities have been paused for safety) |
| 65 volunteer escorts | 70 volunteer escorts |
| 10 Vuley Fellows | 14 Vuley Fellows |
| Nearly 200 people reached through community events and volunteer activities. | Nearly 60 people reached through virtual events and socially distant activities. |
Major Events:
| 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|
| HB 481 rallies and lobbying events: Throughout 2019 Feminist Women’s Health Center in collaboration with the Georgia Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Coalition (GRHJC) organized protest rallies, lobbying days and weekly days of action (Woke Wednesdays) to educate our community and advocate against the six-week abortion ban HB 481. We recruited our volunteers and supporters to join us at the capitol and lobby their legislators to block the abortion ban. In the days following the passage of HB 481, we organized and participated in rallies outside the Capitol to elevate the issue and continue the fight. Over 500 Georgians showed up to remind lawmakers about the power of people and community. In 2020, after long a battle on the ground and in the courts, HB 481 was struck down as unconstitutional. | People’s Health Forum: In collaboration with GRHJC we organized a virtual health forum for our communities to discuss racism and COVID-19 as health crises that disproportionately impact Black, Brown and Indigenous folks. The forum was an opportunity for people to share their experiences of the pandemic, hear from elected officials, and to have the voice of the people heard. The main demands from this session were:
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| RJ Book Club: Our Reproductive Justice book club is a monthly reading group for our volunteers. We read fiction and non-fiction books and discuss them using a reproductive justice lens including titles like Pleasure Activism, An American Marriage, Shout Your Abortion and more! In 2020 our book club went virtual! | Self Managed Abortion Webinar: In our continued effort and goal to de-stigmatize abortion care we organized an informational session on Self Managed Abortion. We believe that information about abortion is part of basic sexual healthcare and anyone who can get pregnant should have access to information contraception, safe sex, healthy sexuality and abortion pills. This session was for informational purposes only and we did not offer any professional medical advice. |