Telavi Feminist Festival "Oppression and Privilege”
On June 1-3, Feminist Festival with the title “Oppression and Privilege” was held in Telavi, Kakheti region of Georgia. It is the second year that the festival took place, the first one was held in Kutaisi in 2017 and was devoted to the 100 years anniversary of the first feminist newspaper “The Voice of a Georgian Woman”. The location of the festival was chosen due to the fact that Women’s Fund in Georgia is trying to decentralize its activities in the regions of Georgia and enable the dissemination of the information among the groups that might have less access to feminist knowledge.
The three days festival touched some of the very important topics that are relevant to Georgian Feminist Movement. The academic part was mostly devoted to speaking about Intersectionality: Concept, history, context and consequences for the feminist policy; Gender Aspects of Eco-Migration – presentation of the study made by the grantee partner of WFG; How Has Labor Been Creating Women in Georgia since 1990 till now; Feminization of Labour Migration; Women from Pankisi; Feminist Audio Library for Blind and Partially Sighted Women; Women and Gender Based Violence: LBT Women’s Specifics; BarbareEristavi - Literacy Tradition, Idea of Linguistic Continuity and Answers on Some Questions;
Time was devoted to presenting some new platforms and web-pages in Georgia, such as the website "All about You" which concerns SRHR issues and targets youths and young women with diverse backgrounds and experiences; Presentation of the platform Women from Georgia; Presentation of the book "Who is Afraid of Feminism?";
Furthermore, there were more informal and engaging activities planned on the issue of security and well-being (physical security workshop, Yoga session) as well as film screenings, and Feminist Library, where the participants had a chance to physically meet and speak to radical, queer, liberal and socialist feminists. In frames of the festival many of the WFG grantee partners had an opportunity to present their initiatives and learn about the others’ work.
In total, the festival has gathered up to 100 feminist activists, scholars, researchers, WHRDs, students interested in the topic.