Who we are
We are a team of four friends - artists, organizers, activists, and facilitators - with a range of positionalities and realities. This diary began as a way to creatively channel our concern and grief about the ways self-acclaimed feminist organizations and groups (formal / informal; big & small; local & international) often mirror the borders and fault lines of power based on race, class, culture and socio-economic systems. This is an independent, voluntary, and deeply personal project for us rooted in our lived realities and politics. Thank you for joining us here.
Ayan, Cassie, Nida and Virginia
Ayan A
Ayan is a trans artist and organiser based in Goa, India. He has a background in trans organising in spaces of economic and climate justice and the intersections of art and activism.
He is the founder and director Queer Arts and Action (former Amra Odbhuth Collective) and the former creative director of a grassroots trans led organisation, Samabhabona based in West Bengal, India.
In 2021, Ayan supported Behesht Collective to evacuate over 40 queer and trans persons from Afghanistan.
He has worked for 8 years as a visual communications consultant and artist for INGOs such as the UN, AWID, Thousand Currents, FRIDA and others. He firmly believes in using art as a compassionate storytelling practice to hold and create a safe space for social impact data, research and advocacy.
Cassie DENBOW
Cassie is a facilitator, reparations organiser, and resourcing consultant living in Goa, India and originally from Cleveland, USA. Her work comprises two focal areas 1) resourcing small - medium sized, self-led feminist and gender justice groups working on contested issues, in contested spaces and 2) mapping, analysing, and tracking money movement to feminist movements.
She has worked with Fearless Collective, VOICE, The Accelerator for Gender Based Violence Prevention, Women Now for Development, Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, and Mama Cash, among others. She is a resourcing advisor for The Queer Muslim Project (TQMP) and co-manages the US-based Solidarity Giving Circle. Her personal creative practice explores the politics, practice, and feeling of mixing, sampling, and merging through music, sound, and food.
Virginia García Bolívar
Virginia (28) is humanitarian worker and emerging facilitator originally from Madrid, Spain. Currently, she is based between Guatemala and Colombia. Committed to advancing gender justice and interconnected issues, she brings analytical skills/strategic thinking, and a feminist perspective to her work. With over 4 years of combined experience in the humanitarian-development sector, her focus lies on Project Design and Strategic Planning for organizations like VOICE and Action Against Hunger and an interest in participatory research and evaluation methodologies, enhancing them through facilitation knowledge and practice.
Nida Mushtaq
Nida has most recently worked with Global Fund for Women, Women’s Fund Asia, VOICE, UN Women Generation Equality Forum as well as a director at Fearless Collective to center arts and creative expression in social justice programs. She is a Radical Love fellow at Mama Cash and runs a street art collective in Pakistan that makes murals, graffiti, and wheatpastes as feminist responses to state and societal oppression.
Previously, Nida has worked with UNICEF in three regional humanitarian response programs, at Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Center for Women (ARROW), and served on the board of Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights.