Alternative girls’ center was founded almost ten years ago, and has been a birth place of many important feminists, peace-building, and educational projects and actions for girls and young women in Kruševac and Rasina districts have occurred. Also, in the last couple of years it has became well-known for its feminist philanthropy campaigns to support girls. We are talking about all these topics with Jelena Memet, one of co-founders and coordinator of the Alternative girls’ center.
1. There is a lack of feminist organizations that comprehensively and dedicatedly work with girls, female teenagers, and young women. How was the Alternative girls’ center established? What motivated you to create this unique space for exchange, empowerment, and education?
As we lived in a small town and there was not much space for girls or feminist topics, women’s rights, violence against women issues, etc., and neither of these topics was discussed at the educational institutions, our motivation and initial idea were to create an open space for girls to meet, think and talk about these topics and other topics important to them and to empower themselves through workshops and informal education, to think critically, publicly express their opinion and be active in the changes they would like to bring. In the beginning, we were focused on adolescent girls of high school age with whom we have worked on subjects such as the prevention of gender-based violence and peer violence, and empowering their assertive behavior; as well as discussed topics such as antifascism, transitional justice, and antiwar/peace activism.
The year after we founded our organization, we started to work on regional projects with Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina on peacebuilding. We also started a program on digital security and privacy from a feminist perspective. And we are trying to talk about the position of girls from a younger age, by marking International Girls’ Day and by starting the campaign “Support the Super Girls“. Two year ago we started a philanthropy program, for supporting younger girls from the age of 8 to 14 years old.
2. In the last two years, your organization has become recognized for two, at least within the local context, exceptional and successful campaigns “Support super girls,” supporting further education of girls from all over Serbia in the fields of science, art, and sports. Through these campaigns, you awarded 16 stipends in 2021 and 20 stipends this year. In a time of multiple crises and challenges on global and local levels, why is it vital to invest in education, talents, and creativity of girls?
It was always important for us to highlight the position of young girls and young women, both in Serbia and internationally. We are aware that we are not born with the same possibilities, and although all children should have equal rights, the majority of them, especially girls from rural, poor areas or from minority groups, do not have the same opportunities for education, or development of their talents and skills. In small communities, far from the cities, there are not many opportunities to do something, but even in larger cities with more options, some girls do not have access to thoseoptions, due to their socio-economic conditions. By marking International Girls Day, our goal is to increase the visibility of that international problem, and at the same time to affirm and encourage the education of girls as an important aspect of reaching equality. We are aware that we live in a time of retraditionalization and we often have to defend the women’s rights that have already won. The education of girls is crucial part of the fight for emancipation!
3. The second campaign “Support Super Girls“ finished recently, three months ago. The impressions and experiences are still fresh. In both campaigns, you exceeded the initial goal and collected much more funds than you planned at the beginning of the campaign. How did you succeed to link the local community, individual donors, companies, and super girls in those two campaigns? What were the main challenges and what was the most important thing you have learned through the process of local philanthropy?
We believe that the transparency and integrity we obtained during the decade of our work contributed enough to the high response to the campaign. The topic is obviously recognized as important and that influenced the success of the campaign. We tried to be creative during the campaign development and visible in various areas. The most challenging part was working in a small human resource capacity, still, even though our team was small, we succeeded in increasing the set goal. The challenge is that we are doing other things besides the campaign, and the campaign consumed a lot of time and energy, thus sometimes it was challenging to finish everything we have planned, and again that resulted in huge exhaustion. We are grateful that our feminist and activist communities were themost responsive. Apart from them, citizens, some companies also heard about us, and recognized the importance of the campaign and decided to donate. The campaign contributed to the transparency of our work and helped the citizens gain trust in a feminist organization. We have learned throughout the campaign that we can go beyond activists’ settings, in order to spread feminist ideas, and that the good preparation and planning phases are “half work done“.
4. Alternative girls’ center is based and operates on feminist principles of solidarity and care. What do feminist solidarity and care mean for you, what kind of solidarity do we need today within the feminist movement?
As Lepa Mlađenović put it: “to hear other (woman) as we hear ourselves“ – we are guided by that feminist solidarity and care mean following the needs and interests of girls and young women, our feminist friends and others with whom we collaborate; we are guided by principles of confidentiality, respect for differences, responsibility, work transparency. I would say that at this moment feminist movement needs open communication, taking responsibility, solidarity, care, mutual understanding, and openness to hear different opinions.
5. “The world remains on youth“ – after 10 years of continuous work with girls, female teenagers, and young women in Rasina district and beyond, how do you see your organization in the future? What inspires you to continue forward?
We hope that we will be, as we used to be till now, the nursery for new generations of young feminists, and as an organization, we will grow to be even better support for girls and young women in many fields. The energy that smart and capable girls and young women have, gives us hope that the work we have done is important and meaningful and gives us motivation and inspiration to go further on and invest all capacities in younger generations. Now it is up to us to pave at least part of the way for them and to give them the strength to continue where we left off.
Interview by Diana Miladinović
