March 8 Fund project strengthens community responses to gender-based violence in Mexico City
In December 2023, Claudia Pamela Chavarría Machado, GRÓ GEST alumna of 2021 and Research and Development Coordinator with Iniciativa Ciudadana y Desarrollo Social, INCIDE Social, A.C. in Mexico City, completed her March 8 Fund project, *Community response to access to the right of women to live free from violence in Mexico City*.
The project, supported by a €10,000 grant from the 2022 GRÓ GEST March 8 Fund, set out to develop a community-based response to intimate partner violence in Mexico City. Its aim was to place the needs, knowledge and experiences of victims and survivors at the centre, while strengthening access to information, collective support, safety strategies and public services.
Over the course of the project, Ms. Machado and her collaborators developed a safe learning space rooted in popular education and feminist community practice. The project began in August 2022 and ran until December 2023. It brought together collaborators from INCIDE Social and beyond, including women, one non-binary person and one man, and gradually developed into a wider collective process.
One of the most significant outcomes of the project has been the creation of *La Colectiva*, a community-based collective formally established on 8 December 2023. La Colectiva grew out of online and in-person workshops, accompaniment work, interviews and collective reflection. It now provides a platform for victims, survivors and those who accompany them to share knowledge, identify obstacles, build safer strategies, and advocate for more effective responses to gender-based violence and intimate partner violence.
The project also had a direct practical impact. From March 2023 onwards, women began reaching out to the project team after hearing about the initiative through friends or community contacts. By the end of the project period, the team had provided information and orientation to 25 women affected by intimate partner violence and one man. What began as a project offering information about available services developed into a more structured directory of institutions, specialists and alternatives for support.
A central part of the project was the design and testing of eight workshops addressing gender-based violence from different practical and conceptual angles. These included workshops on understanding gender-based violence and intimate partner violence, mapping available services, psychosocial accompaniment, safety when organising, human rights tools, economic alternatives for a dignified life, and community responses to violence. The workshops were first tested online and later adapted for face-to-face implementation.
From October to December 2023, the project held in-person workshops at Faro Escandón in the Miguel Hidalgo borough of Mexico City. Sixteen women participated in these sessions, ranging in age from 13 to 68. Participants included students, workers, housewives, mothers, daughters, grandmothers and staff from the community space itself. The diversity of participants required the workshops to be adapted so that they could respond to different levels of prior knowledge, life experience and care responsibilities.
The project’s emphasis on safety became especially important as the team began supporting women in complex and sometimes high-risk situations. The project developed tools for first contact, risk assessment, threat assessment, safety planning and referral. These tools were designed not only to protect victims and survivors, but also to recognise the risks faced by those who accompany them. This was a particularly important development in cases where perpetrators had access to organised crime networks, police power, digital surveillance or other forms of coercive control.
In addition to its learning and accompaniment work, the project carried out interviews and stakeholder mapping to better understand the obstacles victims and survivors face when seeking help. Ten interviews were conducted with women who had experienced violence, and the project mapped government institutions, civil society organisations, foundations and community actors offering services related to gender-based violence and intimate partner violence in Mexico City. The findings showed that many women had encountered institutional obstacles, revictimisation, unclear information and limited access to effective support.
The project also reviewed the role of LUNAS, the Territorial Units for the Care and Prevention of Gender Violence in Mexico City. These public units provide legal, psychological and social support to women experiencing violence and became one of the most frequently referenced services in the project. The review identified both their importance and their limitations, including restricted resources, barriers to access, and the need for stronger follow-up and more transparent information. The project team will continue this work into 2024 with the aim of developing recommendations for improving access to public services.
By the end of 2023, the March 8 Fund project had moved beyond its original activities to create a foundation for continued community organising. La Colectiva has developed a work agenda for 2024 that includes continuing to build a group with victims, survivors and accompaniers of intimate partner violence; producing a fanzine on alternatives and possibilities for organising against violence; exploring art and audiovisual materials; developing an economic project to sustain collective work; preparing a strategy for dialogue with authorities; replicating the learning spaces; and making mapped information about services more accessible.
The project demonstrates the importance of community-led feminist responses to gender-based violence. It shows that survivors and those who accompany them need more than referrals to institutions: they need safe spaces, reliable information, collective care, practical tools, economic alternatives and opportunities to shape public demands in their own words.
The GRÓ GEST March 8 Fund was established to support alumni-led initiatives that advance gender equality and social justice. Ms. Machado’s project speaks directly to the priorities of the Fund and to GRÓ GEST’s commitment to supporting transformative work led by alumni in their own contexts. It has contributed to SDG 5 on gender equality and SDG 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions by strengthening community-based responses, supporting access to services, and building collective capacity to challenge intimate partner violence.
We congratulate Claudia Pamela Chavarría Machado and her collaborators at INCIDE Social and La Colectiva on the completion of this important project. Their work has created tangible support structures in Mexico City and laid the groundwork for continued collective action towards women’s right to live free from violence.