Autonomy Foundation (Fundacja Autonomia) is a non governmental, non partisan polish organisation funded in 2007. Our main goal is to stop discrimination and violence based on gender and sexual orientation through educational and other activities including popularisation of WenDo-Self-defence and Assertiveness for Women and Girls, elimination of stereotypes, empowerment of those who are discriminated against, marginalised, excluded; popularisation of human rights (especially women's and lesbian's rights as human rights) and equal status of men and women, development of democracy, civil society activisation and co-operation between groups and individuals. FA is the only organisation in Poland that includes popularisation of WenDo-Self-defence and Assertiveness for Women and Girls as a violence prevention method in its statutory goals. FA's founders have been active WenDo trainers for 4 years.
Founders of Autonomy Foundation are Agata Teutsch and Monika Serkowska. We are initiators of "Nobody is born with prejudice" - anti-discrimination and anti-prejudice educational programme, founders of www.bezuprzedzen.org, initiators of "Free from violence"-violence prevention programme, certified WenDo trainers, educators of human rights, gender, gender mainstreaming and social competences. We have long experience in social and educational work with different groups - intellectually disabled women, women excluded from labour market, prisoners, girls, teenagers and adult women. We are experts on gender based violence prevention.
In 2010 we are working on:
- "Nobody is born with prejudice - 4th edition" - educational project on anti-discrimination-in cooperation with Konsola Women's Association
- festival od humar rights movies "Watch Doc" which will take place in October
- ant-violenece campaigne "16 Days of Action Against Gender Based Violence" which will take place from 25th November to 10th December
In 2009 we have been running following projects:
- "Nobody is born with prejudice" - educational project on anti-discrimination-in cooperation with Konsola Women's Association
- "Women's path - prevention of violence against young women and girls" - WenDo workshops, educational materials, street actions, campaign
- We co-organised festival od humar rights movies "Watch Doc"
In 2008 we have been running few projects:
- "Silence is not a gold" - against discrimination and violence based on gender and sexual orientation
- "Prevention of violence against young women and girls" - WenDo workshops, conference, educational materials, street actions, campaign
- "16 days against gender based violence" - international campaign
- "Nobody is born with prejudice" - educational project on anti-discrimination-in cooperation with Konsola Women's Association
In 2007 we have been very active working together with Crisis Intervention Society from Krakow in 2 projects:
- Wandering women - collecting histories of women who had to "wander" because of political reasons (wars, new borders etc.), empowerment and workshops for those women and their daughters
- Facing Hate Crimes - education on hate crimes for police, teachers and youth leaders
We are members of several groups and organizations:
Sisterhood street informal group
Equality and Tolerance Days Organizational Committee in Poznan
Within those groups we worked on several projects:
- Lesbian empowerment I and II - series of empowering workshops for lesbians
- Co-organization of Equality and Tolerance Days an Equality Marches in 2004-6 and co-ordination of legal action against banning of the Equality March in 2005. We have won a case against President of Poznan for banning the March (Pride).
- Co-organizing summer feminist camps for women (including lesbians) and their children. So far we organized 6 camps in years 2002-2008 (300 women as participants).
- Educational antidiscrimination program "Nobody is born with prejudice" including workshops, training materials, transferring educational movies (Blue-eyed, Tough Guise, Killing us Softly III) and big internet data base at www.bezuprzedzen.org
If you have any questions please contact:
Autonomy Foundation
Krakowska 19 street
31-062 Kraków
