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[“fem” as feminist, “mektep/maktab/mekdep” as school in Central Asian languages] is a place of co-learning and collaborating, aimed at strengthening and advancing expertise, leadership, and collective capacities of Central Asian girls, women, transgender and non-binary practitioners through institutional and organizational development, direct unrestricted funding, employment, peer mentorship, exchange of experiences, skills, and knowledge(s).
How did it start?
The lack of information about organizational development and access to flexible funding opportunities has long been a structural barrier undermining Central Asian grassroots communities’ resilience, leaving us in silos of precarious under- or non-paid activism or under pressure of strict and limited project-based funding, draining our movements, causing competition and forcing us to quit our activism due to burnout and insecurity.
For years, we at FemAgora︎︎︎ have challenged this status quo through public engagement, resource-sharing, crisis-fundraising, movement-strengthening, solidarity-building, creating knowledge and documenting processes, practices, contribution with our peer grassroots feminist and girls/women/transgender and non-binary people’s initiatives and organizations.
1. Movement-strengthening is solidarity work within movements and civil societies that are built, real, and living.
2. Grassroots are local people in the particular geography that are directly affected and/or impacted by the issue, decision, cause. Intersectionality matters.
2020
femmektep began in 2020 as a capacity-strengthening program aimed at meaningful engagement and institutional support of Central Asian transgender, non-binary and queer people, especially women and youth among them, in leadership and expert positions within the civil society and non-profit sectors.
As part of the programme we collaboratively developed the guiding principles and recommendations for non-profits on engaging, employing and building solidarity with transgender and non-binary experts Formal Transgender Employment as a Dream for a Shared Future Principles and Recommendations︎︎︎.
3. Solidarity is practiced in dissensus, because we are together whether we agree or not, like or not, share views, values, visions or not.
As part of the programme we collaboratively developed the guiding principles and recommendations for non-profits on engaging, employing and building solidarity with transgender and non-binary experts Formal Transgender Employment as a Dream for a Shared Future Principles and Recommendations︎︎︎.
3. Solidarity is practiced in dissensus, because we are together whether we agree or not, like or not, share views, values, visions or not.
2021
In 2021, we partnered with the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia - Kazakhstan︎︎︎ for a four-year collaborative project “Feminist organizational capacity-building program for women-led civil society organizations and initiatives”. It is now open for groups from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Each year, our program supports 10 unregistered and registered women-, trans*, and non-binary organized/led grassroots organizations with less than five years of project history through this micro-grants and mentorship program, prioritizing organizations and/or initiatives operating in rural areas and/or with rural communities, by and for people living with HIV, migrants, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ community.
For example, our program engaged and resourced organizations of girls in STEM Unite Girls︎︎︎, anti-violence media organizers Tell Me Sister︎︎︎, rural shelters Kaniet︎︎︎, young women scientists Кyrgyz Space Program︎︎︎, environmental artivists Artcom Platform︎︎︎, transgender sex workers Transdocha︎︎︎, МырзАйым︎︎︎, former prisoner educators BATYS life︎︎︎, people impacted by war and conflict Dialog︎︎︎, and many more.
For example, our program engaged and resourced organizations of girls in STEM Unite Girls︎︎︎, anti-violence media organizers Tell Me Sister︎︎︎, rural shelters Kaniet︎︎︎, young women scientists Кyrgyz Space Program︎︎︎, environmental artivists Artcom Platform︎︎︎, transgender sex workers Transdocha︎︎︎, МырзАйым︎︎︎, former prisoner educators BATYS life︎︎︎, people impacted by war and conflict Dialog︎︎︎, and many more.
What is the program’s design?
The programme is a leader-to-leader mentorship, collective-to-collective and peer-to-peer exchange between FemAgora and participating initiatives and organizations, illuminating capacity and mission of each group when designing its theory of change and strategies together.
4. Togetherness is embodied interdependence as we co-exist and live within one place while our roles, perspectives, positionalities, and identities might entangle, overlap, differ, oppose, so on).
The programme is a leader-to-leader mentorship, collective-to-collective and peer-to-peer exchange between FemAgora and participating initiatives and organizations, illuminating capacity and mission of each group when designing its theory of change and strategies together.
4. Togetherness is embodied interdependence as we co-exist and live within one place while our roles, perspectives, positionalities, and identities might entangle, overlap, differ, oppose, so on).
The program spans over five months and incorporates a range of components:
- feminist mentorship: providing guidance and support rooted in feminist principles;
- expert advice and thematic training: covering topics such as external and internal communications, digital security, and visual storytelling;
- peer-to-peer feedback and recommendations: creating a collaborative space to learn from each other;
- networking and community building: facilitating connections with other Central Asian women’s and feminist groups and organizations and donors and international community partners;
- access to resources: sharing opportunities for funding, including crisis fundraising.
What are the results?
By the end of the program, participating initiatives:
- do a self-assessment of own organizational capacity;
- develop a theory of change and a strategic plan (including a communications strategy or visual identity);
- create an organizational profile suitable for potential donors;
- design a project with a clear concept, plan, and budget;
- complete a real grant application by its deadline;
- conduct gender analysis as part of the situation and context analysis.
Each group receives a flexible micro-grant of about USD 2,000. This grant can be used flexibly, including compensating for their contributions and time during the program.
Another crucial component of femmektep is personal meetings of the mentoring and program team with the program’s participants in their home countries. Although Zoom sessions make the program much more accessible, they cannot substitute the full range of engagement of being physically present in the spaces of everyday activisms of our participating groups.
Another crucial component of femmektep is personal meetings of the mentoring and program team with the program’s participants in their home countries. Although Zoom sessions make the program much more accessible, they cannot substitute the full range of engagement of being physically present in the spaces of everyday activisms of our participating groups.
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Since Central Asia is a very vast region with still-limited options of mobility across the region, such meetings require dense logistical preparations with adequate time, money, and physical effort of the femmektep team. In 2024, to meet 40 organizations from 14 cities of four Central Asian countries, FemAgora and EFCA team travelled for 24 days, crossed state borders seven times, with the total route length making 1752 km.
So far we could accommodate 10 groups each year, however there is a bigger demand: our current ratio is 17 eligible applications per a fellowship.
Two out of three initiatives that went through the program, have secured first funding within the first year of participation in our Program. We envision more programming, collaborations, and exchange.
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Since Central Asia is a very vast region with still-limited options of mobility across the region, such meetings require dense logistical preparations with adequate time, money, and physical effort of the femmektep team. In 2024, to meet 40 organizations from 14 cities of four Central Asian countries, FemAgora and EFCA team travelled for 24 days, crossed state borders seven times, with the total route length making 1752 km.
So far we could accommodate 10 groups each year, however there is a bigger demand: our current ratio is 17 eligible applications per a fellowship. Two out of three initiatives that went through the program, have secured first funding within the first year of participation in our Program. We envision more programming, collaborations, and exchange.
So far we could accommodate 10 groups each year, however there is a bigger demand: our current ratio is 17 eligible applications per a fellowship. Two out of three initiatives that went through the program, have secured first funding within the first year of participation in our Program. We envision more programming, collaborations, and exchange.
About FemAgora
FemAgora is a regional grassroots-led feminist civil society organization founded by Central Asian local practitioners from diverse overlapping causes and contexts.
Our mission is to amplify feminist and gender-sensitive work, expertise and leadership of grassroots practitioners like ourselves, connect with each other, and sustain our livelihoods, grassroots, and communities in Central Asia and its immediate neighborhood.
Our positionality is that FemAgora is an interdependent grassroots initiative by Central Asians for/in Central Asia, not above, not across but among and within the ecosystems of feminist and gender-sensitive communities, networks, and movements in our home region.
Our vision is a multiplicity of local feminist realities, communities, and ecosystems that are sustainable and interconnected in Central Asia, its immediate neighborhood, and the planet.
5. Expertise is a capacity that is synthesized from lived experience, competencies, skills, and knowledge, to navigate within one’s environment and its related ecosystems and to act upon our/their needs, interests, values, ideas, and dreams.
6. Communities are interconnected and know each other, share common causes and/or spaces, and/or ways of life, and have unity in our/their diversity and dissensus.
7. Neighbourhood
is Central Eurasia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Southern and Eastern Central Asia, Inner and North Asia, Caucasus. Integrity matters.
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FemAgora is a regional grassroots-led feminist civil society organization founded by Central Asian local practitioners from diverse overlapping causes and contexts.
Our mission is to amplify feminist and gender-sensitive work, expertise and leadership of grassroots practitioners like ourselves, connect with each other, and sustain our livelihoods, grassroots, and communities in Central Asia and its immediate neighborhood.
Our positionality is that FemAgora is an interdependent grassroots initiative by Central Asians for/in Central Asia, not above, not across but among and within the ecosystems of feminist and gender-sensitive communities, networks, and movements in our home region.
Our vision is a multiplicity of local feminist realities, communities, and ecosystems that are sustainable and interconnected in Central Asia, its immediate neighborhood, and the planet.
Our mission is to amplify feminist and gender-sensitive work, expertise and leadership of grassroots practitioners like ourselves, connect with each other, and sustain our livelihoods, grassroots, and communities in Central Asia and its immediate neighborhood.
Our positionality is that FemAgora is an interdependent grassroots initiative by Central Asians for/in Central Asia, not above, not across but among and within the ecosystems of feminist and gender-sensitive communities, networks, and movements in our home region.
Our vision is a multiplicity of local feminist realities, communities, and ecosystems that are sustainable and interconnected in Central Asia, its immediate neighborhood, and the planet.
