Programs

Woven Agenda is an LBQ-led feminist organization dedicated to producing knowledge, documenting lived experiences, and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities to advance social justice. Through rigorous, participatory research, we uncover the systemic inequalities and human rights violations affecting LBQ women, survivors of gender-based violence, and children. We translate these findings into powerful storytelling—documentaries, films, and public-facing knowledge products—that center lived realities and challenge social norms. Beyond documentation, we build movements and strengthen coalitions, creating spaces for collective advocacy, leadership, and policy engagement. By combining research, storytelling, and movement building, Woven Agenda positions affected communities not as passive subjects, but as knowledge producers, rights-holders, and agents of social transformation.

• The Promise Path documentary

The Promise Path follows the stories of three girls in Machinga District, Malawi, who survived child sexual violence. The film highlights the systemic challenges that increase their vulnerability—poverty, early marriage, and limited access to education—while showing the protective systems in place, from community leaders to police. Despite these structures, gaps in justice and survivor support persist.

By centering the voices of the girls alongside institutional perspectives, the documentary exposes both the failures and possibilities of Malawi’s child protection system. The Promise Path is a call to action for stronger, survivor-centered interventions that ensure safety, justice, and hope for all children. The Promise Path is a collaborative project between Woven Agenda and Youth Response for Social Change.

• In The Quiet

Woven Agenda through its Founding Director, Ms Christie Banda together with 3 other activists (Alinafe Likoya, Nyatuwe Phiri and Tabitha Phiri), led Malawi’s first LBQ-led research project on conversion practices targeting lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. This work culminated in the documentary In The Quiet. The film documents the lived experiences of 10 LBQ women, exposing how conversion practices operate through family, religious, cultural, and workplace pressure. It demonstrates that these practices do not change sexual orientation or gender identity, but instead cause profound harm, including trauma, economic insecurity, and social exclusion.

In The Quiet has been screened in Malawi, Nairobi, and Luanda, expanding regional dialogue on conversion practices as a form of gender-based violence and a human rights violation. The Malawi public premiere, hosted with German Development Cooperation, became the largest queer-focused public event in the country to date, bringing together over 60 high-level stakeholders

• LBQ Coalition in Malawi

Beyond documentation, we build movements and strengthen coalitions, exemplified by our leadership in establishing the LBQ Coalition in Malawi in partnership with the Ivy Foundation, creating a platform for collective advocacy, leadership, and policy engagement. By combining research, storytelling, and movement building, Woven Agenda positions affected communities as knowledge producers, rights-holders, and agents of social transformation.

The LBQ Coalition in Malawi addresses the long-standing invisibility and exclusion of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women within national policy, advocacy, and service-delivery frameworks. Despite being part of the broader LGBTI community, LBQ women have been largely absent from HIV, SRHR, GBV, and gender equality policies, resulting in limited access to health services, protection, and justice. The coalition creates a dedicated political and organizing space to articulate LBQ-specific realities, including corrective rape, forced marriage, unwanted pregnancy, and systemic stigma, and to ensure these experiences are recognized and addressed.

In a highly criminalized and surveilled context, the coalition also provides safety, legitimacy, and collective power. Organizing as a collective reduces the risks faced by individual activists and organizations, while enabling coordinated advocacy, shared strategies, and mutual protection. A unified coalition strengthens engagement with government institutions, donors, and human rights mechanisms, increasing influence over policy reform, service provision, and accountability processes in ways that isolated efforts cannot achieve.

Finally, the LBQ Coalition shifts the narrative around LBQ women from silence and marginalization to leadership and movement-building. It positions LBQ women as knowledge producers, feminist leaders, and agents of social transformation rather than passive recipients of support. By building shared leadership, collaboration, and continuity across organizations and activists, the coalition ensures the sustainability of LBQ-led advocacy and helps preserve and deepen gains for LBQ women’s rights in Malawi over the long term.