Charismatic pensioners

The group of senior citizens was formed on March 30th 2016 in response to a need “to develop a sense of community, safety, and preserving good relations. We are also united in our awareness of being taken advantage of by our family and immediate environment.” The group comprises senior women from across Pomerania, including smaller towns such as Chwaszczyno, Tczew, Wyspa Sobieszewska, and Osowo.

The group meets on a regular basis, running a poetry circle and organising meetings with interesting people, sightseeing excursions, mushroom-picking outings, and dance evenings. “We also took part in the shooting of a feminist film about Clara Baedeker, reformer of women’s clothing, i.a. burning corsets and shouting liberation slogans on the set.”

Releasing breath and voice, experiencing one’s own physical power

Feminist Fund support will make it possible to organise WenDo self-defence and assertiveness workshops for female senior citizens from the TriCity region. “We frequently experience mental violence. We are abused for being ill, not fully operative physically, slower in gaining knowledge. This is why we need practical assertiveness classes. We want each and every one of us to see herself as a fully-fledged member of the society. We want to feel needed, safe, visible, and heard. We also want to stop feeling helpless in the face of verbal and physical abuse in public locations, in the street, and at home.”

Seniors need to learn how to respond to violence and different forms of boundaries being crossed, how to feel self-confident and reclaim self-esteem. “The workshop programme will be adjusted to reflect our physical capacity. We will order boards below standard thickness, for example. The only thing we are concerned about is that our community might not understand the point of our classes, but since this is an assertiveness workshop, we will not care :)”

Grant amount: 4400.00 PLN

Photos: Agata Kubis/ .kolektyw