The 25th session of our Political Economy Teach-in Series, “Cultivating Alliances: Women, Urban Gardens & Collective Power” with Helena Silvestre, was held on July 23rd, 2025.

Helena Silvestre is an activist engaged in the defence of threatened territories and communities in favelas (slums) and peripheral urban neighbourhoods. A writer from the favela, she participates in marginalised cultural movements and is a popular educator at the Abya Yala Feminist School. She works on the self-organisation of women from favela communities in the southern periphery of São Paulo, supporting mothers whose children have been murdered by state violence, families of incarcerated people, and victims of gender-based violence. Together with her collective, she is currently dedicated to expanding community gardens that serve as organising hubs to secure access to dignified food, foster community health, and help reclaim power and autonomy over bodies and territories.

During this session, we reflected on how thinking about the self-organisation of impoverished and racialised women means questioning traditional forms of organisation that centre the patriarchal idea of a single, heroic leader. We explored what it means to build collective survival strategies and draw on ancestral resources that reconnect us to alliances beyond the human. Helena delved into the organisation of her movement, structured primarily around community gardens. Through caring for the land, planting and cultivating, and learning ancestral ways of producing food that challenge colonial perspectives, we discussed how to reclaim power that has been taken from us: power over our bodies, over our territories, and over our relationships with the human and non-human life around us.

Our South Feminist Political Economy Teach-in Series aims to strengthen intergenerational dialogue and build a cross-regional feminist constituency. The series covers various topics to interrogate and strengthen understanding of issues shaping conditions in the Global South.

We have curated a special reading list of resources on the topic of this session, available on our South Feminist Knowledge Hub. It is designed to deepen your understanding of the themes and inspire meaningful discussion – featuring powerful contributions from authors and thinkers across the Global South.