ThEMIS

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy

Organizational Vision

ThEMIS, founded by Ashoka Fellow Denise Dora, is working to democratize women's access to the justice system in Brazil through a program that challenges the society's paradigm of gender and race discrimination. ThEMIS trains and empowers women community leaders to fight for their legal rights. Since it's founding in 1992, ThEMIS has pursued two primary objectives: training courses for community leaders to enable them to become voluntary public legal prosecutors (PLPs); and the creation of SIM (Information Services for Women). SIM receives formal complaints about abuse and violence against women and provides assistance in individual and collective cases. With technical support from ThEMIS' staff, both programs are led and supervised by PLPs.

Citizen Base Strategy

With the objective of gradually reducing its dependence on financial donations to support its programs, ThEMIS intends to launch the ThEMIS products label in the market place. ThEMIS products are moderately priced and good quality t-shirts, overnight cases, tote bags, and personal planners. With these products, ThEMIS targets consumers who wish to contribute to social change. This sales initiative strengthens the viability of the organization by increasing its public visibility and funding base. PLPs are the primary sales people for these products and they receive a portion of the sales they generate. Collecting resources through the marketing of ThEMIS products also strengthen the mission and improve the immense challenge of being an instrument for the construction of equality between men and women.