Women to Women: Intercultural Forces is a grassroots initiative led by Arabic- and Farsi-speaking migrant and refugee women in Slovenia. It is a living example of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in action - women building peace, social cohesion, and a sense of belonging from the ground up. Since launching its first activities in January 2025, the initiative has combined peer-support networks for women’s social integration with community arts, storytelling, and collective learning to create bridges across cultures and communities.
Our activities were first launched in January 2025 by a team of 15 Arabic- and Farsi-speaking women and girls from diverse backgrounds. The initiative’s actions combine theatre, art workshops, research, and policy advocacy.
Through workshops such as Political Healing through Henna, the initiative reclaims henna as a women’s tradition from the SWANA region and transforms it into a space for critical intercultural learning, care, and socio-political solidarity. Through performances such as Al Ghawazi na Poti, migrant women share stories through art and creativity to challenge gendered and ethnic stereotypes and build connections beyond borders.
The initiative also creates a strong support network among women with diverse identities and lived experiences, including Muslim women, trans Muslim women, atheist women, queer women, and others, fostering solidarity across differences. Its weekly Women to Women Reading Circle invites migrant and refugee women, as well as wider community members, to read and discuss books written by women about women. The current circle is facilitated by a woman from Afghanistan living in Slovenia, and the selected book is Under the Sky of Kabul, a collection of stories by Afghan women.
Beyond cultural programming, the initiative produces policy recommendations on migration and integration, with its first issue already submitted to the Centre for Information for Foreigners in Slovenia. It brings together arts, research, and knowledge production to amplify the leadership, voices, and expertise of migrant and refugee women from different faiths and social identities, including LGBTQ+ communities. The initiative also includes an Intercultural Youth Club, created by migrant youth in Slovenia, which uses digital platforms to connect young people, share resources, and support their own intercultural dialogue activities.
Explore our activities below :
This section presents the activities of the Women to Women: Intercultural Forces initiative, including different forms of community engagement, creative practice, and collective work.
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This section includes a collection of educational videos that address topics related to everyday life and social contexts in Slovenia.
This section brings together practical resources developed to support migrant and refugee women in Slovenia. It includes accessible information on essential services, rights, and integration processes.
This section highlights stories, reflections, and creative work that amplify the voices of women, particularly from migrant and refugee communities. Through storytelling, reading circles, and feminist narratives, the initiative creates space for women to share lived experiences, challenge dominant stereotypes, and connect across borders.
After the Arab Spring, women’s rights movements in Jordan and in Tunisia are mobilized to reform public policies. While the democratization in Tunisia started with the fall of the authoritarian regime, the political reform in Jordan was initiated from the top. We used inductive reasoning and qualitative research methods to study the role of the movements in reforming gender discriminatory policies. In both countries, broader women’s rights narratives differ from women’s rights narratives for gender equality. Despite the differences in the political context, the movements for gender equality in both countries have encountered similar challenges. Islam as a socio-political ideology opposes gender equality at the legislative and implementation levels. Without secularization, gender equality in all sectors cannot be achieved. WRMs in Tunisia have made progress due to the radical transition led by a secular party. State feminism and co-optation of female leadership have meanwhile hindered WRMs in Jordan in amending the nationality law. While state feminism in Tunisia has supported the movement in the efforts for equal inheritance law, this support has been perceived as selective feminism, which prevents the movement from receiving a wider social support for their cause. Intersectional feminism is a potential tool for the Tunisian movement to combat selective feminism, while the movement in Jordan has been hindered by limitations on mass mobilization imposed by the repressive regime. The general frame can be applied for further studies in other Arab Muslim countries.
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