Community social norms and support
This petal reflects the importance of an enabling environment where social norms are free from stigma and discrimination related to abortion, and where individuals feel empowered to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights. In a truly sustainable ecosystem, communities actively uphold these rights. At Ipas LAC, we collaborate with civil society organizations to strengthen their capacity, hold duty bearers accountable, and cultivate collective narratives that normalize care, dignity, and autonomy—replacing silence and shame with solidarity and support.
In 2024:
We co-organized the second annual Green Wave Gathering in Mexico City, a space that brought together more than 140 activists, advocates and experts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the United States, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Together with the Women's Equality Center, Ipas United States (US) and the Guttmacher Institute, we fostered key conversations on strategies for policy change, movement building and effective messaging in a context of increasing threats to democracy.
2. As part of our Community Model, in 2024 we established joint work with 44 organizations and 23 support networks in the region to implement community plans focused on promoting reproductive rights. These organizations, supported or subsidized by Ipas LAC, carried out information and awareness-raising activities on comprehensive sexuality education, the use of modern contraceptives and violence prevention aimed at youth, adolescents, youth advocates and teachers in schools.
3. To strengthen access to accompanied abortion, Ipas LAC supported the creation of a self-care and collective care protocol designed with networks throughout the region. This tool provides concrete strategies for assessing the context of accompaniment, measuring attrition and establishing individual and collective interventions. Its design allowed its application both in restrictive contexts and in countries with more open legal frameworks, such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. Seven Central American networks and three Mexican networks participated in its validation , which guaranteed its relevance and usefulness for strengthening accompaniment networks.
4. We worked hand-in-hand with Ipas US to strengthen support networks in response to abortion restrictions in the United States. We supported the training of new networks in several U.S. states and worked closely with cross-border networks in Mexico that provide information and manage resources to assist women and women of childbearing capacity in migration situations, promoting a collective and collaborative response that ensures access to safe services regardless of borders.
5. In August 2024, in Lima, Peru, we co-organized the Intermovement Dialogues on Democracy: from Crisis to Action, a space thatbrought together close to 100 people from different countries in the region, representatives of movements and organizations working on human rights, democracy, environment, health, anti-corruption and more.
During the event, key issues such as economic inequality, environmental and climate justice, structural racism, violence and criminality, the use of law as a tool to weaken democracies and the impact of technology on political participation, especially of youth, were discussed. At Ipas, we believe in the power of articulation. This space allowed academics, journalists and activists to exchange experiences, identify challenges and reflect on strategies to strengthen democracy in the region. The systematization of these lessons learned will allow us to replicate and strengthen collective practices that promote joint action.