This was the first Women’s March since the pandemic, so we gathered at the Tindlemanor office to reflect on why we were going to the streets and what, as Latin American women in the UK, we want to protest for. We also made placards and joined the Million Women Rise March.  

Self-care as a political resistance: a journey through femininities and activism. From April to July 2022, we delivered a series of conversations on topics such as menstrual poverty, racial microaggression, patriarchy, queerness, Artivism and theatre for social change. These series of workshops offered different ways of joining a community of Latin American women on a journey of self-awareness, healing, and connection. This is self care in community, as solidarity and mutual aid.

Women were invited to use their own body and non traditional painting tools to paint large canvases while listening to their favorite latin songs. 

A series of four workshops led by Gandaia Arts in partnership with Migrants in Actions that culminated in an exhibition of work produced at the World in the Gardens Festival in Norwich.

Read more about it here.

A series of 2 workshops with LATINIDAD LDN to reflect on the importance of archiving Latin American herstories in diaspora. 

We watched some short films and got tips on how to document personal archiving to inspire each other to proactively archive our own physical, cerebral and media memories. In the second session, we created our own Zine to be archived in the Southwark Archive.

Read more about it here.

To celebrate Human Rights Day 2022, we wrote an article responding to the year’s theme: EQUALITY.

We asked: We understand that according to article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we all have the same rights, but are we able to exercise them with equality?

Read the article here.

As part of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, we delivered a series of weekly workshops on understanding the current political landscape in the UK, safe reporting, ecofeminism and self-care as political resistance.

For the campaign against modern slavery, the group producedan online informative campaign to share with our community. We created a leaflet and a video with initial advice for those starting jobs in the UK  Our campaign reached over 15,000 Portuguese and Spanish speakers. 

Watch the video here

The LAWRS Community Activist Project believes in the immense power Latin American Migrant Women have. Through the use of transformative leadership practices, the project aims to build up communities, by investing in its members. In this capacity, the programme has offered several training and workshops to build this power in our service users.

In November 2019 the WARMI collective received a series of bespoke training delivered by LAWRS’ Violence Against Women & Girls team. The collective learned about the different types of harmful practices, how to identify them and prevent them.

In different capacities, the WARMI collective has shined a light on the intersecting forms of oppression Latin American migrant women face in the UK, by participating in consultations, actions, letter drafting, and round tables. All work towards informing community members or their rights and power but also as a way to influence decision-makers.

In September 2019 the WARMI collective participated in two focus groups with the City of London Federation, to tackle the issue of sexual harassment at the workplace. The WARMI collective informed a campaign that took place later in 2020 within London’s City centre. The campaign targeted survivors of sexual harassment, to inform them of their rights and who to contact. This campaign also targeted employers and demanded accountability from abusive staff. In these meetings, the WARMI helped inform policy-makers, by giving detailed accounts of what it is like to be a cleaner in the City of London, and presenting evidence from LAWRS’ reports. These meetings have prompted collaborative work with other stakeholders.

In January 2019 the WARMI collective participated in a consultation with NHS providers in the boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark, and Lambeth on access to interpreters.

The NHS has a duty to provide healthcare to all. However, to guarantee this service it is absolutely necessary to provide the crucial service of language interpretation.

Many in the Latin American community in London cannot access their fundamental right to healthcare due to the language barrier. The WARMI collective shared their lived experience of requesting and accessing interpreters. Many shared how the hostile environment seeps into all aspects of life, including accessing proper interpretation. The study revealed a gap in provision and the result was a commitment to investing in the service of interpretation to guarantee proper access to health care in South East London.

In November 2018, we participated in the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty open mic, and outlined the issues faced by the Latin American community. We gave evidence at the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT), an event that aimed to expose the “Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples” in the UK. The PPT on Migrant and Refugee Peoples aimed to put migrant voices at the heart of a process of claiming social justice. We spoke at the event and submitted a 10-page report documenting the stories of the group members, a document that was made collectively with them during a labour exploitation focus group.

From November to December 2019 the WARMI collective played a key part in Amnesty International’s Write for Rights Campaign 2019. Each year, Amnesty International runs a global solidarity campaign to support struggles across the world. As part of the Step Up Migrant Women campaign, coordinated by LAWRS, AI chose to focus on the matter of safe reporting for migrant women survivors of domestic violence. The WARMI informed the campaign’s trajectory and demands. Actions proposed by the WARMI included signing petitions, collecting donations for migrant women and their children in refuges, creating online content in different languages on the subject of safe reporting, a hand in of all letters of support to the government, training on violence against women and girls for survivors, and a Christmas gala event where the WARMI expressed the importance of supporting survivors.

The WARMI collective uses the arts to explore many of the intersecting forms of oppression Latin American Migrant Women face in the UK. Art is an ancestral form of resistance in Latin America. Through sewing, singing and theatre of the oppressed, the collective continues to practice these traditions in the diaspora.