{"id":39070,"date":"2021-06-14T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amazingy.com\/magazine\/?p=39070"},"modified":"2021-06-14T22:48:37","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T20:48:37","slug":"charity-spotlight-international-women-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amazingy.com\/magazine\/charity-spotlight-international-women-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Charity Spotlight: International Women* Space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For this year\u2019s DO GOOD, LOOK GOOD, FEEL AMAZINGY CHARITY BOX<\/em>, we are happy to announce that we will be donating to not one but TWO incredible charities! We conducted interviews to spotlight each of these amazing(y) organizations and give you all an idea of the incredible work they\u2019re doing and why it\u2019s important to support them \u2661  Now, please welcome to the stage International Women* Space<\/em> \u2013 a feminist, anti-racist political organization focused on amplifying the voices of migrant & refugee women* in Berlin and beyond!<\/strong>

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As the story goes, the first draft of IWS was created in Berlin as an extension of the Refugee Movement of 2012, in order to address the issues of migrant & refugee women through a more intersectional lens. Can you tell us a little more about how that first space came to be, and who initially led the charge?<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


International Women* Space<\/em> started in 2012 as an actual physical space: a women\u2019s floor in the occupied Gerhart-Hauptmann- School. It was a place created by and for refugee and migrant women: women for whom there is little separation between the political and the private; women for whom a safe and political space is a necessity. Having our own space allowed us to organise and provide access to some basic services not available to refugee women living in the outskirts of big cities: free German classes, free legal advice, free access to doctors, free distribution of food (Tafel). It also allowed us to create networks, to share experiences, to empower each other, to discuss and share knowledge, to advise each other on bureaucracy and daily life in Germany, to fulfill social needs, to organise, to be active, and to face together the intersectional forms of oppressions we face as women, refugees and migrants. After the school was evicted, we worked between different spaces, before getting our own space again in 2018.  Our goal is to ensure the continual existence of International Women* Space as the center of our political work, and to develop it further as a social and political center for women.

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How has IWS evolved over the years? What are some of the biggest hurdles the organization has had to overcome in the process? What have been some defining moments of progress & success?<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


After the evacuation of the school, we continued our work of documenting our stories, our lives, our existence in our own voices. We self-published two books: \u201cIn Our Own Words\u201d and \u201cWe Exist, We Are Here\u201d. The books are a compilation of testimonials from migrant and refugee women living in Germany.

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In 2017, we organised the 2-day conference \u201cAls Ich Nach Deutschland Kam\u201d, which brought together 250+ migrant and refugee women from many different backgrounds to share and exchange  experiences, struggles, and knowledge. We published transcripts of the six panel discussions that took place at the conference in our third book.

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