The Birth of BFI The ideas behind Bishkek Feminist Initiatives (BFI) were born in 2009 as a small initative group of students in Bishkek who began organizing themselves around public actions such as performances of the Vagina Monologues. By 2010, this unofficial group of students had become SQ, which by 2011 had officially registered as Bishkek Feminist Initiatives SQ. and by 2013 the organisation BFI had its own space. Over time, the name of the organization was shortened to just Bishkek Feminist Initiatives (BFI). BFI’s mission was to strengthen the solidarity and collective strength of the feminist movement while living, building, promoting, documenting, and applying the variety of community activist (queer, trans *, girls and women, grassroots, local) practices, processes and principles in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and Central Asia.
Aizat Saadat We practiced intersectional feminist activism. We promoted feminist educatucation experience exchanges, held protests and street art actions, and conducted campaigns against all forms of violence, oppression and hatred both publicly and online in our efforts to promote feminism. 46
We had a house: a safe and cozy learning space. Various initiatives were started in that house that were aimed at meeting our own needs like a library, a “do-it-yourself, do-it-together” workshop, a garden and an office. It was a place where we studied, worked, discussed, relaxed and had fun.
