In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, as an African elephant trumpeted in the South African bushveld, a call to prayer echoed through the streets of Lebanon, and a toucan croaked in the tropical forest of Central America - six women opened their laptops and joined a virtual meeting that would change their lives.

They came together to work on We Lead: a global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights programme dedicated to strengthening the influence and position of young women whose rights are neglected the most - young women living with HIV, young women with disabilities, young women affected by displacement, and young lesbian, bisexual and trans women, across nine countries in Africa, Central America and South West Asia and North Africa.

Our first task was to ensure the work was truly inclusive. We designed and facilitated workshops across time zones and cultures, co-created methodologies that centred the voices of rightsholders, and navigated the challenge of building real collaboration across screens and borders. 

When we finally met in person, at advocacy conferences, global convenings, youth leadership workshops and in-country trainings, what had been a working relationship became something warmer, friendship. The programme brought together passionate people from all over the globe to link, learn and advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights, and within that current, we found each other. 

In 2023, we co-designed an art-based advocacy methodology rooted in decolonial thinking, challenging what it truly means to do development work that doesn't reproduce the very structures it claims to dismantle. Through co-creation, creativity, artivism, feminism, and a touch of witchcraft, we dreamed into life an exhibition of artworks and soundscapes woven from the beautiful stories of women pushed to the margins by econoheteropatriarchy and systems of oppression. This gathering has become the foundation of our collective and way of working - always looking to nature for inspiration.

The We Lead programme came to an end in 2025, but the impact we were able to achieve has remained and has inspired us to birth Florecer. We have gathered nourishment from every encounter, every lesson, and every act of resistance, we absorbed the wisdom, stories, and possibilities that shaped us. The cocoon has now broken open, and from all that has been held, transformed, and dreamed, Florecer is ready to emerge.