The future is collective 🌍
And it’s being shaped right now by movement leaders rooted in land, care, and community.
On this International Women’s Day, we’re introducing you to six leaders who are building our collective future, each one offering a vision of what’s possible when communities lead on their own terms.
These women are working with their communities to stand up to extractive industries, advocate for food sovereignty, and protect their land and water for generations to come.
For them the work is complex, but the aim is simple. They are fighting for a better life and to see their families and communities have a joyful and loving future.
We invite you to read their stories at the link in bio.
📸 Photography by @yakamoz_ayse
🌀 It takes a movement to create a just and thriving future.
We’re in a moment in our world where we have risked it all. We have risked our biodiversity, our communities and our planet. At this moment, the only risk that will have a lasting impact is the risk of inaction.
Grassroots movements around the world are leading transformative and inspiring solutions to our world’s biggest crises. We’ve been supporting these movements for decades, and to mark our 40th anniversary we’re proud to premiere our new film, “It Takes a Movement”–a celebration of community, grassroots leadership, and the collective power that fuels collective change.
You are a crucial part of this future. Thank you for being part of our community.
Celebrate with us by watching the FULL film at the link in bio and if it inspired you, spread the word by sharing it with your networks ✨
And if you want to keep supporting these movements, please consider giving today.
Over the past year we celebrated our 40th anniversary, connected with our community, and reflected on the road ahead.
We met and had consultations with all of our movement partners to shape our trajectory for the coming decade and ensure we keep witnessing, learning from, and accompanying our partners at the frontlines of the struggle for justice and self-determination.
The courage, leadership, and trust of our partners is what guides us. We want to show our deepest gratitude to our movement partners for 40 years of Collective Power, Collective Change. Without you there is no Thousand Currents.
🌎 Real transformation in philanthropy happens when teams can learn, reflect, and change practices together.
The Thousand Currents Academy is a transformative space, ideal for decision makers and team cohorts who can influence their organization’s grantmaking strategies and support internal change — a practice made that much more powerful when done together as a team.
In this video from a recent Academy, hear what shifted for a cohort from The Omidyar Group and what they’re imagining for the future.
What practices do you want to shift as a team? Join us for our first ever global Academy in São Paulo, Brazil, from August 2–7, 2026. Tag the teammates you’re bringing to the Academy 👇
See more details and register today: https://tcurrents.exposure.co/join-us-for-our-next-academy
Grassroots movements are creating a better future for all — A world where we can eat well, live well, and breathe well.
This #EarthDay we want to celebrate and honor the movement partners who are protecting our forests and rivers from extraction, growing nutritious food in harmony with nature, and creating renewable energy systems powered by local leadership.
They remind us that working collectively is the only way to make this future a reality.
Watch the video and tag a friend who believes in #CollectivePowerCollectiveChange.
For Esther Girón our bodies and our territories are inseparable. Protecting the land means protecting our livelihoods and our sovereignty.
As the co-founder of Colectivo @aquelarrebonao in the Dominican Republic, she leads Bonao’s first collective of young queer Afro-feminist women. Aquelarre brings together people across generations to organize and defend their land and water against large-scale gold mining and other extractive industries.Aquelarre’s actions range from cultural events to supporting women’s cacao collectives to ensure the land remains in their control.
Read more about Esther and five other movement leaders shaping our future. Link in bio.
Mariama Sonko grew up seeing the power of ancestral knowledge: soil regeneration, seed preservation, and community sustenance.
When industrial agriculture and top-down agricultural policies began eroding local food systems across West Africa, she remembered her family’s teachings and started to organize with other farmers. Across nine countries, they came together to defend their seeds, their land, and their right to feed their communities with dignity.
Today, Nous Sommes la Solution, the movement Mariama founded, gathers over 175,000 women farmers to preserve, share, and build upon their ancestral knowledge and build a food system that is rooted in their land.
Movement leaders around the world are building rooted futures that benefit us all. Read more in our latest photo essay. Link in bio.
As sea levels rise, climate change accelerates, and extractive industries continue to devastate land, islands in the Pacific are suffering the worst impacts while being excluded from decision making.
In Fiji, Chantelle Khan works to shift that power by ensuring those most impacted are leading the way forward. As the Executive Director of Social Empowerment and Education Program (SEEP), she guides grassroots movements across the Pacific Islands to organize around climate justice, agroecology, and gender justice.
Through deep listening, political education, and funding support, SEEP is enacting a vision for the future where strong movements can show the world where solutions lie.
Check out our latest photo essay to see how Chantelle and other leaders across the world are making climate, energy, and food solutions a reality: https://tcurrents.exposure.co/the-future-is-collective
🌏 In times of crises, we turn to the learnings of grassroots movements.
We recently hosted a Learning Series to hear about strategies and tactics that both social movements and donors in the Global South use in challenging times, and a Giving Circle on agroecology to connect with movements who are fighting for land sovereignty, economic justice, and climate resilience.
Throughout these sessions, we kept coming back to one key reflection: Even amidst political shifts, climate disasters, and uncertainty, grassroots movements have always found a way to organize, fight for their rights, and create better futures.
This is the work that we continue to support 💪
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The voices of Indigenous and rural women in Peru must be heard. That’s the goal of Lourdes Huanca Atencio, president of FENMUCARINAP, a women-led movement spanning all of Peru.
Lourdes works alongside thousands of peasant, Indigenous, and artisan women to defend territory, water, seeds, and ways of life threatened by extractive industries and patriarchal policies.
Under Lourdes’ leadership, women have strengthened their political voice at local, regional, and national levels, demanding recognition for their unpaid labor and proving that those who steward the land need to be at the forefront of decisions and solutions.
Take a look at our latest photo essay to see how Lourdes is transforming lives, and how leaders from the Dominican Republic to Fiji are doing the same.
Nonhle Mbuthuma grew up along South Africa’s Wild Coast, where livelihoods are rooted in farming, grazing, and fishing. Her community’s lifestyle was threatened by mining companies who wanted to extract the minerals in the ground which would displace hundreds and leave the land uninhabitable.
Nonhle co-founded the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) to organize her community and defend the region. Under her leadership, ACC won a landmark ruling affirming that communities must give full consent before mining can proceed on their land. They also halted seismic testing, protecting countless marine species.
Nonhle and the members of ACC have proven that grassroots organizing can have long-lasting positive effects on people and nature.
Take a look at our latest photo essay to read more other movement leaders leading climate, food, and energy solutions.
Once erased by extractive palm oil plantations, Thailand’s landscape is making a comeback. Landless farmers across the country are reclaiming abandoned and illegally occupied plots, restoring the soil, and converting the once barren land into a thriving food haven.
Choosri Olarkit is one of the leaders holding this work together. As part of the Women’s Articulation Committee of the Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand (SPFT), she represents farmers, women, youth, and Indigenous people cultivating public land while organizing for land reform and shared stewardship.
For Choosri, land is life. It is where food is grown, futures are imagined, and collective power takes root.
Read more about SPFT’s innovative approach to land management and their vision for the future, and meet other movement leaders driving long-term change. Link in bio.
