The feminist community emerging from the war in Ukraine
The feminist community emerging from the war in Ukraine
Inside a shelter dubbed ‘FemApartment’, residents support one another as they help others affected by the Ukraine war.
A photo of Mira having a conversation with two other people sitting at the kitchen table.
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FemApartment residents Mira, left, and Veronika chat with Katya (seen from behind), a coordinator at the NGO Feminist Workshop who helped find shelters in Lviv for displaced activists, women and children [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
By Amandas Ong
Published On 10 Jan 202310 Jan 2023
Lviv, Ukraine – Boisterous female laughter emanated intermittently from the corner unit of a drab, Soviet-style residential building. Sandals and a pink lamp sat at the entrance to the warmly-lit apartment, reached via the gloomy communal corridor. Inside, the smell of baked fish wafted from the kitchen. Twenty-three-year-old Mira Kapitan, a cheery copywriter and hip-hop artist originally from a suburb of Kyiv, had just popped mackerel in the oven. Also in the kitchen was her flatmate Tanya Vynska, an 18-year-old political science student with dyed orange hair. Over the past few months, Mira, who arrived in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv with just a small suitcase, has enjoyed sharing clothes and style tips with Tanya. “We both love dresses,” she grinned, divulging how Tanya loaned her a dress for a date the other day.
The suburban Lviv apartment where Mira and Tanya live – known affectionately as “FemApartment” by its residents – was originally meant to be a temporary home to five young women. Now, however, it is a refuge for the women – strangers to one another until June last year – for as long as they need.The women were forced to flee from different parts of Ukraine – mostly in the country’s northeast – when the full-scale invasion by Russia began in February 2022. Unable to afford to rent a room in Lviv, they found themselves homeless, but through TikTok and other social media, they learned about a shelter for women involved in different types of community activism.
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Mira cuts fish in the kitchen of FemApartment [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
A home for activists
Katya Dovbnia is a coordinator at Feminist Workshop, a grassroots-led NGO that conducts seminars and other activities on social issues relating to women, including gender-based violence. When the war broke out, she secured temporary housing in Lviv from private owners for about 23 women and children who lost their homes in February, and accommodation for internally displaced women activists. Aside from taking care of the rent at both places, Feminist Workshop provides basic essentials like household and hygiene products and a weekly food basket. Both homes are supported through online fundraising and grants from other NGOs in Europe. To qualify to live at FemApartment, the women had to have some experience in activism and be willing to volunteer to support others also affected by the war. These requirements, Katya says, are in line with the organisation’s ethos that feminism tackles a wide range of social injustices.
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Tanya and Veronika sitting on the bed they share in the apartment [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
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The women’s shoes by the front door [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Feminist initiatives
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Tanya brings in the laundry [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
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The women brought precious few items with them to FemApartment [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
A feminist family
Even so, Ivanka began volunteering with the war effort on the very day she arrived, sorting humanitarian aid and serving food to the traumatised and dazed people arriving at Lviv railway station. Being busy assuaged some of her initial loneliness in a city where she had no friends. Ivanka believes that her rat was equally unhappy. Her pet died suddenly one month after they arrived in Lviv, and left her feeling “alone in this world.” But today, she feels more settled. Aside from volunteering at the shelter, she cycles around the city delivering free vegan food to members of the Territorial Defence Forces and families in need. She cares for the shelter’s nine displaced children, teaching them to read and write, taking them on walks when the weather permits, and giving them art lessons. “In the future, I would like to work more with children with antisocial behaviour,” she said. She has found a substitute family at FemApartment and through her wider volunteering. “At first it feels like there’s nobody waiting for you, and that nobody really needs or wants you here,” she said. “But then you realise that feminism is like a big machine, it works well when every woman decides to be one small part of it.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/1/10/the-feminist-community-emerging-from-the-war-in-ukraine
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