JASS (Just Associates) was founded in 2002, was built on long-standing relationships of political trust and  solidarity, grounded in shared ideas about how change happens. They joined together across five continents as activists, organizers, popular educators and scholars, connected by years of experience in common struggles for social justice and human rights. Working with women and diverse organizations and social movements in 27 countries, JASS trains and supports activist leadership and grassroots organizing and builds and mobilizes alliances amplified by creative media strategies to influence change in discriminatory institutions, policies and beliefs. The agile regional and international structure and processes link grassroots activism to local-to-global solidarity and action, placing frontline activists and agendas at the heart of the social justice work. JASS documents the messy process of change to generate cutting-edge knowledge about power, movements and change to shape theory, practice and policies for advancing women’s rights and democratic change.

JASS strengthens and mobilizes the voice, visibility and collective power of women to advance rights and end violence. They train and support activist leaders linked to women’s organizing on diverse justice issues from sexuality, HIV and land rights to protections for human rights defenders.

The unfulfilled promise of women’s equality cannot be realized without mobilizing the power of women’s voices, knowledge and numbers for sustained pressure and influence on policies, institutions and social norms. With growing backlash and violence today, organizing women is also about protecting activists and their organizations.

JASS’ holistic movement-building strategies work to train and support activist leaders, promote grassroots organizing, and build and mobilize broad alliances to respond to urgent problems, and opportunities for strategic influence of powerful institutions; they amplify women’s voices, agendas and media outreach, and they document the efforts to generate important analysis, how-tos and knowledge directly from action.

JASS believes that women who are most affected by the political, economic, environmental and health crises reverberating across the world are on the frontlines of change.  While they rarely have a seat at the decision-making table, they are organizing their communities, developing solutions and promoting justice—often at great risk for going against the grain. As a global women-led human rights network of activists, popular educators and scholars in 31 countries, they work to ensure women leaders are more confident, better organized, louder and safer as they take on some of the most critical human rights issues of the time.