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.

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.

Topics and initiatives that were relevant at different times

• Feminist actions and campaigns; • Open Feminist School; • Multimedia art initiative; • HOUSE: Workshops and gardens; • Sexual and gender education; • Against sexual and gender-based violence; • Parent and Child Initiative; • Health, sports, outdoor activities; • TY4JE (Teenagers and Youth for Justice and Equality created their own website

Boktukorgon); • Girls Activists of Kyrgyzstan (DAK); • Initiative 20.1 Инициатива 20.1;

Read

Boktukorgon

Read

Girls Activists of Kyrgyzstan (DAK)

Initiative 20.1

While our work was focused on Bishkek, we also worked in the other regions of Kyrgyzstan and abroad. We collaborated with activists from throughout Central Asia as well as the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

BFI’s structure was flexible and often changed and transformed as needed. It consisted of members of the BFI General Assembly, the Working Team, the Organizing Group, the Solidarity Group, advisers and participants. We maintained a horizontal organizational structure and tried to follow those principles in our work at BFI. Below we also set out some of the challenges we faced while building feminist self-organization.