In November 2013, AIR’s Steering Committee met in Johannesburg, South Africa to shape its priority activities over the next three years. AIR ‘s work is organised around three programme strategies (Generate and Build; Respond; Amplify ) which speak to how we do our work. From 2014-2016, AIR’s work will focus on the following three themes, with activities across the three programme strategies:
1. (Re)conceptualising trauma– contributing to new frameworks for working on trauma, drawing on the technical expertise of African practitioner-activists who work in contexts of upheaval and distress, and in response to VAWG and HIV/AIDS.
2. Transformative livelihoods– pushing discusisons around women’s economic agency beyond a limited frame of ‘income generation’ towards thinking about how livelihoods programmes can contribute to emotional well-being/mental health, to social transformation and justice for women.
3. Defending frontliners- supporting African practitioner-activists to better integrate well-being and security measures into their own organisational and individual practice.
AIR’s focus is always practical. We are practitioner-driven and we want our contributions to be of direct use to African practitioner-activists, and to contribute to transformative feminist approaches, which take into account challenging unjust power relations.
