Mediterranean Women’s Fund
Supporting young survivors of violence and cyberharassment
Created in 2008, the Mediterranean Women’s Fund is a grant-making foundation that funds grassroots women’s organizations in countries of the Mediterranean basin to make a concrete and ambitious contribution to improve the status of women. In particular, it supports organizations focusing on responding to the specific needs of young women and activists to fight online and in-person abuse in France and in Italy.
In France, 1/6 women under 24 experience domestic violence. (En avant toute(s)!)
22 % of young people aged 18-24 have experienced cyberharassment. (Ifop)
41.4 million women in Italy have been victims of revenge porn, on average at the age of 27 years old. (Permesso Negato)
Via the Mediterranean Women’s Fund, the Kering Foundation supports three organizations in France and two in Italy:
• En Avant toute(s)!, an organization dedicated to providing support to young women and girls. This innovative organization created the first chat room in France, available on commentonsaime.fr, focused on responding to the needs of young people who are questioning their romantic relationships and the violence they may be experiencing in it : find out more here.
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• Feminists against cyberharassement (Féministes contre le cyberharcèlement), a feminist organization fighting tech abuse against women, girls and LGBTQIA+ people. With the support of the Kering Foundation, the organization is leading the digital project ‘Our Voices, Our Struggles’ (Nos voix, nos combats), which provides tools and resources to feminist activists being targeted by cyberbullying, threats and intimidation.
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• Les Effronté.es, a French feminist collective known for its innovative happenings designed to put feminist ideas at the forefront of public debate. The Kering Foundation supports the expansion of their awareness and prevention programs.
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• Chayn Italia is an Italian feminist platform that fights gender-based violence through digital tools and collaborative practices. The Kering Foundation supports a project in Rome that engages young people in the creation of tools tackling cyber-violence in their communities, including online harassment, cyber stalking and cyber bullying.
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• Associazione "La Città delle Donne”, Centro Antiviolenza Piacenza, an Italian organization. The Kering Foundation supports their local project TEACH (Teaching gender-equality against Cyber Harassment), implemented in the city of Piacenza. Through "peer education", trained male students raise awareness among their own classmates on gender-based violence and specifically cyber-violence. In the first year of the project, male “tutors” were trained by the operators of the Anti-Violence Center. In the next two years they will raise awareness in 12 classes of Piacenza high schools.
About the Women’s Funds
The Kering Foundation is convinced that social change begins at the community level. That is why it provides funding to five Women’s Funds with the objective of building institutional capacities of grassroots female-led organizations that work on preventing gender-based violence. Women’s Funds also promote alliances between grassroots organizations and other key stakeholders to strengthen movement building against gender-based violence. These funds are currently supporting 16 grassroots organizations.