NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 5 | ISLA FEATURE
Illumination, Inclusion, and Alignment: Reflections on Our Internal Practice
May 2026
By Kay Mahonde
We find ourselves in a period of deep reflection about the kind of organisation we are becoming and the feminist institution we continue to build. Over time, the Feminist Litigation Network (FLN) has grown into a continental platform for advancing women’s rights through strategic litigation. With this growth has come a clearer appreciation that our work is iterative: we learn, we adjust, and we strengthen our systems with each step.
The Illumination Retreat, held in Nairobi, Kenya from 8-10 September, created the space to step back from implementation and reconnect with the foundations of our work. Retreats have long been part of ISLA’s institutional rhythm, but this one came at an important moment. It allowed us to examine how we integrate new opportunities, how we sustain our model, and how we remain accountable to the African feminist movement we serve.
Retreats matter because they help us slow down enough to see the bigger picture. They reconnect our practice to our values, highlight where alignment is needed, and ensure that our decisions remain anchored in the infrastructure that keeps the FLN coherent. They are not pauses from the work; they are part of the work.
Reintroducing Our DEI Approach: FLN+ as a Way of Working
A core focus of the retreat was reaffirming ISLA’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion through the FLN+ modality. Over time, we have become clearer about what FLN+ is and what it is not. FLN+ is not a standalone thematic area. [NW2.1]It is our approach to inclusion within the FLN. It ensures that lawyers and organisations from marginalised communities, including women with disabilities, LBTQI+ persons, migrants, and those experiencing intersecting oppressions; are meaningfully integrated into our existing work. It also recognises regional inclusion: the intentional incorporation of Francophone West Africa (FWA) into the FLN as part of our commitment to supporting different legal traditions, political contexts, and movement realities. This is inclusion in practice: not creating parallel work, but ensuring that our existing pillars, themes, and systems are equipped to hold different identities, contexts, and needs. Inclusion requires preparation. It requires organizational readiness, reasonable accommodation, mentoring, curriculum adaptation, and clarity about how intersectional or regional issues sit within themes such as Violence Against Women, Women’s Socio-Economic Rights, and Countering Anti-Rights Actors.
Lessons from Immigration Detention, Disability Rights, and FWA
The retreat gave us room to reflect candidly on recent experiences in immigration detention, disability rights, and FWA. These areas arrived through new funding opportunities and, while the intentions were positive, the work was initially positioned in ways that stretched the FLN model. The challenge was structural positioning, not content. Activities were framed as if they were new thematic areas, with their own internal processes. This created fragmentation and moved us away from the sequence required to establish any thematic area, leadership, strategy, curriculum, then institutional strengthening.
Several lessons emerged:
• Inclusion must be located within existing themes, not set up as standalone work.
• New thematic areas should not be donor-driven; they must follow ISLA’s internal processes.
• Growth must reinforce, not dilute, the FLN’s infrastructure.
• Donor relationships work best when grounded in shared strategy and collaboration.
• Regional inclusion, especially in FWA, requires adapting the model to context while maintaining its core integrity.
These lessons strengthened our alignment and helped us recommit to integrating new opportunities through the structures we already rely on.
Looking Ahead: Anchoring Growth in Coherence and Care
Over the past year, our work on disability rights, immigration detention, and the expansion into Francophone West Africa has shown that inclusion is not a single intervention, but a set of practices that must sit within our existing structures. It requires us to adapt the model to different identities, legal cultures, and contexts, while keeping the FLN coherent. The retreat helped us see these strands together and align around a clearer, more grounded approach to inclusion.