© Fédération de l’entraide protestante
The Activist Women in Exile project (projet Femme exiles engages – FEE) builds on the expertise and experience of refugee women engaged in social change in their countries of origin or in France. It offers a collective response tailored to the challenges they face and places their agency at the heart of its approach. This initiative emerged as a continuation of the “Women and Migration” conference held in December 2023 at the Palais Chaillot.
The dialogue and analytical work initiated by Synergies Migrations since 2023 with activist exiled women, civil society actors, philanthropic foundations, and public stakeholders have highlighted the specific challenges these women face — often rendered invisible or portrayed solely as victims — their unmet or insufficiently addressed needs, and have contributed to the development of appropriate solutions.
This project is based on a collective dynamic: it is co-designed and implemented by several partner organisations, with the active participation of refugee women and the support of an alliance of foundations. It is structured around three areas of intervention:
COMPONENT 1
Protecting at-risk activist women through safe and legal pathways
Led by the Fédération de l’Entraide Protestante (FEP), in partnership with the International Refugee Assistance Project Europe (IRAP Europe) and the Centre d’Action Sociale Protestant (CASP), this component aims to protect and welcome in France 30 women human rights defenders—along with their families—currently based in Lebanon and whose safety is under threat. The goal is to enable them to enter France through humanitarian visas, to provide reception through citizen-led initiatives, and to support them within a sustainable integration framework.
COMPONENT 2
Strengthening and supporting socially driven initiatives led by refugee women
Led by La Ruche, in partnership with Aide Humanitaire et Journalisme (AHJ), The Human Safety Net France, and Universités & Réfugié.e.s (UniR), this component offers support to 25 refugee women already living in France. The aim is to help develop or strengthen their social and solidarity-based projects, accelerate their autonomy, and foster their integration in France.
COMPONENT 3
Promoting visibility and a positive narrative
Led by Synergies Migrations, in partnership with AHJ, this component—co-developed with the women concerned—seeks to highlight their experience and engagement in order to shift public perception in host societies and enable their full participation.
The FEE project is an experimental initiative led by Synergies Migrations, designed with a long-term perspective. It is grounded in a process of continuous evaluation, promotion, and sustainability. At the end of the project, an assessment will draw lessons from the experience in order to more broadly support initiatives led by activist women in exile and improve the relevance of responses to their specific situations.
The FEE project is part of the multi-stakeholder initiative “Avec Elles” led by France within the framework of the Global Refugee Forum.
Our publication
Migrant Women Are Taking Action
This publication presents the portraits of five women who are quietly committed—women from five different countries, with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, who are involved locally in various ways. This collection aims to give a voice to these often invisible yet engaged women, to create a space dedicated to them, and to offer them an opportunity to unfold their stories and share their perspectives, analyses, convictions, as well as the processes behind their engagement.
News from the Activist Women in Exile project
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