Diverse Initiatives Manufacture / Manufaktura Inicjatyw Różnorodnych
The activists of Opole city
Today, the Diverse Initiatives Manufacture (MIR) Association has a membership of eight activists – female friends who support each other and work to change the local reality, believe in sisterhood, and bring feminist postulates together with artistic activities. They engage in gender-based violence prevention, anti-discrimination education, and herstorical campaigns. They promote WenDo – self-defence and assertiveness workshops for women, create equality-promoting murals dedicated to women, and organise the Women’s Circles festival.
They are a two-time FemFund mini-grant recipient, funds from both mini-grants allocated to activities to empower female remand prison inmates in Opole. They organised two editions of WenDo self-defence and assertiveness workshops for female inmates, and worked together with them to produce an auteur theatrical performance and paint a mural in the remand prison exercise area – all of which provided inmates with a sense of agency.
More feminism in Opole
The FemFund grant will allow the funding of assorted initiatives MIR has been finding difficult to fundraise for. Firstly, Association members want to organise the first Opole WenDo class for girls. “We also wish to develop intergenerational campaigns, building a community of young girls and women aware of their own strength”, they declare. Secondly, they are planning to design and publish a Women’s Circles calendar, and buy items they have identified a shortage of in the daily work of the Association. Thirdly, they want to continue co-operating with the remand prison and supporting female inmates – which is why they are planning to deliver a series of sessions on violence prevention, consent, and legal assistance seeking.
Grant amount: PLN 8,800.00