Our Strength Is Not Ours Alone, But Derived From Many
Unpacking Collective Care
What comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘collective care’? Do you imagine a yoga class, spa vouchers, community rituals, or something else? Do you find it challenging to define what it truly means in simple terms, even though you know the intention behind it? Or do you sense that the vision of an alternative world, a feminist future, resides in the very promise of collective care, even if articulating its full significance feels elusive? If any of these thoughts resonate with you, you’re not alone. At Urgent Action Fund, Asia & Pacific (UAF A&P), we have experienced similar reflections and dilemmas, navigating through a range of emotions, from frustration with the unknown, the joy of discovery, and the confidence that comes with affirmation.
We view our work on collective care — whether through our grant-making or our written materials — as an ongoing series of iterations. These iterations have manifested in various forms, including the Urgent Action Sister Funds’ Rooting Care report, our blog about convening with care, and, we hope, a more comprehensive iteration that will be released next year.
We view these iterations as a means of documenting our own journey, and in this particular iteration in the form of a blog, we offer insights that have emerged from the multiple dimensions of our work and the relationships we’ve cultivated with those accompanying us on this path. In doing so, we aim to articulate what others may find difficult to express, while also offering provocations that can contribute to the development of this narrative. Having said that, we have learned from our work, as well as from the collective wisdom of not only the UAF Sister Funds but also our grantees and partners, that collective care is not, and cannot be, a singular story, definition, or understanding.
However, what has emerged from these iterations is a pressing need to find terminology that genuinely resonates with our regions. While there has been an increasing body of work on collective care — some of which have deeply inspired us — we, at UAF A&P, along with activists in the Pacific and Asia, continue to struggle with articulating a vision that is in harmony with our unique cultures and activist frameworks. Often, our response takes the form of a series of reflections on what collective care is not.
Thus, in presenting here a list of what collective care is not, we aim to clarify, for ourselves and for others, what it truly encompasses, based on our ongoing learning and observations of how this vision is unfolding in practice in our regions.
1. There is no collective care without justice.
Without pursuing social justice that addresses the root causes of the threats and injustices faced by human rights activists and defenders, any safety and care provided becomes an isolated activity or indulgence. It fails to address the need for collective healing and community care, where individuals can truly feel safe and cared for.
What does the journey with care look like then? In a recent conversation with activists in India, one of them raised a pertinent question, and one we get often: “When we do not have food on the table, how can we think of human rights?” A similar question was raised almost fifteen years ago by a defender in Cambodia, who expressed that when they are struggling for basic necessities like food and shelter, it is hard to think about what rights they have or do not have.
What would a community of care look like where people do not have to struggle for basic needs? What would a community of care look like where transitioning from surviving to thriving can become a reality?
During the pandemic, many communities within our regions turned inward to sustain and support each other in the absence of access to the most basic needs — an absence that reflects the state’s failure. Community gardens, community kitchens, forms of mutual aid, traditional healing and well-being practices, and the general sharing of resources became vital lifelines, illustrating the power and resilience of community care.
2. Collective care cannot (always) be found away from home.
We heard from our grantees, advisors, and partners about the need for physical spaces in our regions where activists could be relocated without feeling uprooted from their communities, isolated from their cultures, and completely detached from the movements they were rooted in. They shared their own stories, as well as those of others, about how relocation outside their regions might have saved their lives, but also stripped them of their sense of belonging, agency, community, and activism.
One stark example is that of a Sri Lankan defender who was forced to relocate to a European country, where she had no community, no language, and no understanding of the local culture. Back home, she had been studying for a law degree and working as an activist, yet the only job she could find in her new country was as a domestic worker. However, due to the language barrier, she was unable to retain that job. These experiences left her feeling deprived of a means to survive, but the most significant blow was to her dignity, which deeply impacted her emotional and mental wellbeing. And so, the question remains: how do we care for not only their physical safety, but also their emotional, mental, spiritual, and environmental well-being?
3. Collective care cannot be co-opted. Neither is it a set of individual-centric offerings.
Our most fundamental divergence from current scholarship on collective care emanating from the Global North is that, while we value the importance of practices that help individuals heal or care for themselves, we often find that current discourses stop there — without truly engaging with the collective dimensions of care. We believe that because care is typically understood in relation to the individual, it is more susceptible to being co-opted by capitalism and commodified. In order to retain our radical political agenda, an emphasis on the collective is essential.
One way to support individual well-being is to invest in group well-being activities. Through conversations with our partners who provide psychosocial counselling and mental health support to human rights activists and defenders, we found that women, trans, and non-binary activists were more comfortable accessing collective, group-based care and were often hesitant to engage with individualised services.
Collective care is also deeply interconnected with our natural world and its relationship with our minds and bodies. Our survival and thriving depend on holistic and relational approaches that center interconnectedness and community, recognizing that the well-being of any individual is deeply intertwined with that of the whole group. For many Indigenous communities in the Pacific, healing and health are viewed as interconnected with physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, as well as with the environment and community.
This holistic and relational approach to healing recognises that the trauma or injustice currently experienced by these communities is often intergenerational — rooted in colonisation, conflict, displacement, or assimilation.
This suggests that true care, in feminist practice, is not about isolating the individual, but about rediscovering oneself within community (among all living beings), solidarity, and mutual support. Understanding care as a shared, collective resource — rather than an individualised luxury — is central to building sustainable and transformative movements.
4. Physical infrastructures of care are not beautiful resorts and well-being centres (though they could be a part of the mix).
Physical infrastructure for communities committed to feminist collective care can take many forms, extending beyond conventionally recognised spaces such as shelter homes. Any space where women, trans, and non-binary communities can feel seen, heard, and embraced without fear — where they can simply exist as their authentic selves — is a safe space for them. These spaces cultivate solidarity, sisterhood, and emotional safety. They allow people to breathe, laugh, and reconnect with their humanity, complex identities, and both individual and collective being.
While formal infrastructures initially emerged as shelters for survivors of violence or informal gathering spaces, spaces of respite for activists can also include a trusted person’s home or even online gatherings. These spaces, where individuals can come together, become not only a refuge but also sites of collective resourcing, healing, and power.
These collective spaces have also become symbols of resistance against ongoing violence and oppression. Online gatherings have expanded the concept of physical infrastructure, demonstrating that what matters most is not the material form, but the collective meaning and support embodied within these spaces.
Furthermore, these infrastructures of care can also take the form of community-led rituals rooted in traditions and cultural practices that fuel collective resourcing. Reviving and celebrating practices that have been marginalised, criminalised, or erased is an act of both resistance and care. These practices are often deeply relational — tied to land, ecology, and community. Activities such as weaving, farming, and the exchange of skills and knowledge passed down through families are being reclaimed as acts of care and healing, linking holistic well-being to ecological stewardship.
By reconnecting with traditional ways of eating, living, and coexisting with the natural world, Indigenous leaders underscore an ethics of care that extends beyond the human — nurturing both the soul and the planet through ancestral knowledge and practices. However, with ecosystems under increasing strain from the rapidly changing climate, as well as the pressures of “development” and “globalisation,” these rituals — which form part of the infrastructure of care — are being threatened as well.
5. Investing in collective care does not have a blueprint.
Intentionally investing in community-led, holistic infrastructures of care means resourcing all forms of formal and informal structures — regardless of their shape, form, or space. Movements are not linear, and neither is activism. There will be times when activists need safety, care, and protection because they are highly active and visible; and there will be periods when activists or movements may not appear publicly active.
Yet this “inactivity” is often a critical time for rest, reflection, and healing — essential for sustaining feminist movements over the long term. Many activists, especially women and marginalised groups, have been conditioned by oppressive systems to believe they do not deserve to prioritise their own well-being. This denial is itself a form of systemic control, historically used to suppress autonomy and resistance. Supporting activists to centre their own safety, care, and well-being helps to destigmatise self-care and creates space for them to honour their needs and sustain their work.
Care is more than a set of practices
All our iterations underscore a fundamental insight: care is more than a set of practices. It reflects a fundamental shift in relationality — between people, systems, institutions, and ecosystems — that makes another world possible. This radical, transformative concept sustains our political reimagining of the world and resonates with our activism, rooted in our regions. Our work gives us the opportunity to push the boundaries of collective care as a radical, transformative idea that extends beyond individual well-being.
We believe that without collective care, individual well-being cannot truly be achieved — and therefore cannot be separated from a deeper transformation in how we relate to one another. This is what makes collective care such a radical concept: it represents a paradigm shift from mainstream understandings of self-care. As we articulate this relational paradigm, we also examine how resourcing and infrastructure can support and sustain this transformation in ways that also reshape the world around us.
At UAF A&P, we have a unique role in resourcing these infrastructures — bringing together ecosystems of care that continue to support community-led approaches. To that end, we will continue to keep our ears to the ground, listening to what women, trans, and non-binary communities say about their needs, and respond with the kinds of resources that build and sustain these infrastructures. We will do this through grants, and by creating spaces for reflection and imagination. Additionally, we will continue to influence the broader ecosystem by advocating for investment in infrastructures of care — not only for activists and their communities, but as part of our shared responsibility toward social and ecological justice.
Written by Jebli Shrestha, UAF A&P’s Enabling Defenders Facilitator, and Vinita Sahasranaman, UAF A&P’s Co-Lead, Programmes and Innovation.
