Kobietostan is a theater collective which, using artistic tools, deals with counteracting the exclusion of persons due to various overlapping identities and characteristics: social status, place of residence, occupation, and gender identity. In its activities, it engages persons with experience of imprisonment, but also the crisis of homelessness, those who experience violence, mental illness, and gender-based discrimination. “We want to restore the voice of excluded persons, persons at risk of exclusion or in a demanding life situation, and therefore all those whose voice is missing from the current public discourse,” declare the members of the collective.

Kobietostan has established a long-term relationship with inmates in the Correctional Facility in Krzywaniec, with whom it has been working for several years and where it has recently launched the Inmates Art Center. “Prisons have been one of the primary areas of our activity for years, because we want to fight the oppressive penitentiary system in Poland, especially in the context of gender (rigid segregation, huge differences in the program offer addressed to women and men, leading to the reinforcement of harmful gender stereotypes)” – say the collective’s members.

The Empowerment Grant will serve to create the management, development, and communication strategy of the Association: “We want to take create a wise strategy of the organization (…) and, above all, take care of the relations within our Collective.” A part of the grant will be allocated to the coordinator’s remuneration, development courses, and training in accessibility for the entire team, as well as for regular individual and group supervision for persons working with inmates.

The Empowerment Grants in 2022 were co-financed by the Federal Foreign Office as part of the project “Civil society dialogue – including all voices”, implemented jointly with filia.die fraunestiftung.