In this episode, we speak with Wardarina and Vernie Yocogan-Dianoabout their feminist participatory action research projects advancing women's rights and development justice through building autonomous feminist movements and organizations with the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development.

Wardarina is an activist, feminist, and feminist participatory action research enthusiast. She is originally from Indonesia and moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand 12 years ago to work with APWLD. She's currently the deputy regional coordinator of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), which is a network of 265 plus organizations and diverse women's groups from 30 countries in Asia and Pacific.

Vernie is an indigenous women's human rights defender. She's been an activist for over 30 years in her home region, Cordillera, Philippines. She's also an activist at the national level in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific region. She's a training facilitator for APWLD, which is an integral part of her work, leading, igniting, organizing, and mobilizing women. She joined APWLD as a mentor and trainer facilitator in 2012. 

The conversation starts with exploring the background of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, its mission and membership (02:24); Vernie’s community, activist work and her journey to APWLD (05:32); APWLD's Journey into Feminist Participatory Action Research (10:26); APWLD's commitment over time to Feminist Participatory Action Research (18:22); Supporting women's groups to do Feminist Participatory Action Research (27:52); Women’s learnings in Feminist Participatory Action Research projects (30:46); Dealing with the dangers of doing FPAR and organizational solidarity (36:22); Women workers’ labor rights in an era of digitalization - a  Feminist Participatory Action Research project (44:15); Reflexivity as feminist participatory researchers (45:43); and APWLD's commitment to FPAR and building participatory interactive tools (51:23).

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/  This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold, Shikha Diwakar, and Kavya Harshitha Jidugu. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.