This facilitated session engages with colour, metaphor, and monologue as creative storytelling tools for destigmatizing abortion experiences. Participants will engage in affective and embodied learning throughout the session and can use the tools and materials introduced for themselves and their communities as healing and collective mobilization practices after the session.

Key objectives of the training:

• To guide community advocates, healing justice facilitators, and knowledge mobilizers in affective and embodied explorations of storytelling tools and techniques for de-stigmatizing abortion
• To equip participants with an introductory understanding of color psychology and storytelling techniques in abortion justice work
• To acknowledge and hold space for the diversity and complexity of abortion experiences through community and creative care

Date & Time

November 10, 2022, at 1:30 PM UTC (3:30PM CET / 9:30AM EST). The session will last 2 hours.
Select your timezone in the registration form to see your local time, or check with this timezone converter tool.

Who is it for?

The workshop is open to all inroads members and folks from aligned groups, collectives, and networks. It is planned for people who have had abortions, community leaders, creative persons, abortion storytellers, and anyone who has experiences around abortion.

If you are a member, we ask that you activate your account in the inroads Community Workspace and agree to the code of conduct there if you haven’t already. If you are not a member yet, you can join here. 

Interpretation is available in English, Spanish, and French.

This space will be facilitated by:

Amrita (she/her) is a writer, creator, and community facilitator currently completing a PhD in Human Geography. Her work focuses on gender equity, diasporic experiences, and reproductive health and well-being. Amrita is the founder and creator of “Shades of Brown Girl,” a creative storytelling and community healing space for diverse South Asian identifying women.

Since we have limited spaces, we ask members whose registration is confirmed to treat their registration as a solid confirmation of their attendance and participation, and if you decide not to attend, to email services@makeinroads.org at least 3 days before the session so we can let someone on the waitlist in. 

Join our inaugural inroads Artists fellowship cohort as they share their stigma-busting journeys and artistic projects with the network! 

The Artists Busting Abortion Stigma Festival is a celebratory community space happening in two sessions! In each session, our stigma-busting art fellows will present their artistic projects to the community, and share their journey & learnings.

Let’s come together to celebrate, explore, and appreciate the creative and transformative power of narrative, storytelling, and arts-based work in our stigma-busting universe!

ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP

Aligned with our goal of shifting power & narratives and resourcing the communities powering the reproductive justice movement, inroads launched the Artists Busting Abortion Stigma fellowship to support and advance the work of inroads members using their diverse artistic talents to create stigma-busting narratives able to shift the conversation to build a happier, healthier and more just world free of abortion stigma.

FESTIVAL DATES & TIME:

September 29, 2022, at 1:30-3 PM UTC – The session will last 90 minutes.
October 5, 2022, at 1:30 PM UTC – The session will last 90 minutes.

The sessions will have interpretation available in Spanish, English, and French.

THE FELLOWS

The Artist Busting Abortion Stigma fellows individuals and pairs that will be presenting their artistic projects and journey will be distributed as follow:

First Session – September 29th

• Verónica & Yela. Verónica is an activist for sexual and reproductive justice. She has worked for several years in the construction of narratives around abortion that contribute to busting the stigma and decriminalizing its practice. She is the co-founder of abortion justice groups Las Comadres and Surkuna. Yela is a fat Artivist, lesbian-feminist, musician, and abortion activist from Colombia. She raps with her own lyrics and compositions. She is part of Las Parceras – a Feminist Network of accompaniment in abortion,  and Liricas del Caos – a Feminist Rap Collective

• Lisandria is a visual storyteller based in Jamaica. Playing with color, shape, and familiar experiences, their work seeks to preserve the tradition of storytelling as a documentary practice. They use experimental techniques, illustrative methods, and graphic design.
  
• Asia is an abortion activist, facilitator, and illustrator originally from Poland, based in the Netherlands. Currently excited about exploring ceramics, somatic work, and coming back to zine making

• Erandini is a teacher and cabaret theater actress based in Morelia, Mexico. She is passionate about the defense of human rights, fiction, and collaborative processes.

• Ali is a communications and development professional based in Pakistan. His work is rooted in the politics and discourses on social and developmental issues in Pakistan. He is a multimedia artist, primarily working with film as a medium.

• Cecilia & Julia are both musicians from the Son Jarocho Feminist Collective, a group that aims to resignify the traditional music of Veracruz’s Sotavento, creating new versadas (sung poetry) that speak of the experiences, knowledge, and feelings of women and dissidence. Cecilia is an activist for sexual and reproductive justice and a musician based in Mexico. Julia is a transfeminist activist who likes to live with and learn from people who are working with their social, spiritual, and personal consciousness. The collective project they will be presenting was developed with the full Son Jarocho Feminist Collective.

• Karolina is an abortion activist from Poland that has been doing embroidery work for 3 years, ever since she learned that it can be done for political and activist reasons.

Second Session – October 5th

• Ale & Antonella. Ale is a trans immigrant from Colombia living in Brazil. Their artistic practices are based on written-activist stories and poems. Their ethic-political-affective transits within the territories of transfeminism, the anti-colonial struggle, and the struggle for free wombs, for the decolonization of health, bodies, and affections. Antonella is a writer and activist for expanding access to sexual and (non) reproductive justice, originally from Argentina and currently living in Brazil. Her work as a writer focuses on the creation of possible and thoughtful abortion narratives and landscapes from a political amorousness that focuses on affective micro-revolutions.

• Itumeleng is a young feminist and traditional healer from Lesotho, based in South Africa. She is a social justice activist who is passionate about women and girls and the LGBTQAI+ community. Itumeleng enjoys writing as a form of expression and has worked as a content producer across multimedia platforms.

• Dana is a sexual health educator and advocate that aims to bring solidarity to those with stigmatized lived experiences. She has many artistic practices, including music and photography, and will be using knitting to create pieces that destigmatize abortion. Currently based in the USA, she is originally from Argentina.
  
• Manisha is an intersectional eco-feminist from Nepal working in the areas of health, climate, gender, and governance. She is an acrylic and watercolor-based artist, practicing artivism through her handmade paintings.

• Brita is the founder and Executive Director of Girl Potential Care Centre and Green Shero ltd in Uganda. She is an architect, cartoonist, social entrepreneur, and girl child advocate. Her work and art advocate and support the rights of women, girls, and people living with special needs.
  
• Carmina is an activist, teacher, painter, muralist, and calligrapher from Mexico. She has had the opportunity to paint in many places and share with infinite and beautiful people that “collective art moves mountains.”

• Selva is a visual designer, illustrator, and activist from Peru. She is a feminist activist that seeks to denounce, make visible, understand, learn, enjoy, and love the patriarchal and natural world in which she lives from the different means she has of artistic expression.
  
• Merlina is a self-taught graphic artist, feminist, and abortion activist from Bolivia dedicated to illustration and printmaking. She sees graphics and illustrations as visual manifestos and fighting tools.
  
• Milagros is a journalist based in Loreto, Peru. Her creative work includes journalistic chronicles, videos, testimonial narratives, and cultural organizing.

Learn more about this program and read about each of our fellows here!

In this 2-hour training session, we will introduce a holistic security approach to abortion stigma-busting and reproductive justice work. We will focus on how to integrate awareness and practices around security within all aspects of organizational work, with experiences derived from working in the field.

Holistic security holds close ties to abortion stigma-busting work and the reproductive justice movement as a whole, understanding that ‘security’ is a deeply personal, subjective, and gendered concept. More than ever, increasing the protections of our organizations and tools links to the sustainability of our efforts and the work that we do.

Key objectives of the training:

Participants who attend the training will explore and learn about:

• What constitutes security and safety and how is this best achieved? 
• How do you cultivate your own culture of security at work? 
• What are the risks that you are likely to face as reproductive justice defenders?
• Introduction to a security risk assessment for your organization’s work

Date & Time

May 26, 2022, at 12:30 PM UTC (2:30PM CET / 8:30AM EST). Select your timezone in the registration form to see your local time, or check with this timezone converter tool.

Who is it for?

The workshop is open to all inroads members and folks from aligned groups, collectives, and networks working on busting abortion stigma. If you are a member, we ask that you agree to the member code of conduct before registering, if you haven’t already. If you are not a member yet, you can join here. 

Interpretation is available for English, Spanish, and French.

This member-led space will be facilitated by:

Kinga Jelinska, co-founder and the executive director of Women Help Women (WHW). WHW is a feminist non-profit that runs a global online service providing counseling and access to abortion pills via post, works with more than 100 partner groups worldwide on community interventions, and changes the norms and discourse around self-managed abortion. Kinga comes from Poland, where access to abortion is restricted and stigmatized. She is also a co-founder of the Abortion Dream Team (ADT) in Poland and European feminist initiative Abortion Without Borders.

Ivette Mrova, security coordinator and co-founder of Women Help Women. Her practice is positioned at the intersection of sexual reproductive health rights and activism and rooted in the open-source concept.

Since we have limited spaces, we ask members whose registration is confirmed to treat their registration as a solid confirmation of their attendance and participation, and if you decide not to attend, to email services@makeinroads.org at least 3 days before the session so we can let someone on the waitlist in. 

Join us for an interactive Bring your Own Questions (BYOQ) to explore questions about what it means to offer care in a collective way!

Your input in this session is vital. Help steer the direction of inroads by actively participating and sharing your ideas and questions related to Community Care practices in this workshop. It is a space for inroads members, board, and staff, to gather and reflect together on how to map and integrate this important value within our communities. 

The learnings from this BYOQ Care-Mapping session with our members will be fundamental to the development of inroad’s community care practices and spaces moving forward. Additionally, it will provide members with community care mapping & ideating tools to take back and apply in their own spaces. 

In a time when almost everyone is maxed out in their emotional, mental, and social capacities, we are holding this space hoping to explore questions of what it means to offer care in a collective way by making it more interpersonal and including systemic features, so as to reduce the burden on individuals to be solely responsible for their own care, and moving past a transactional relationship to care-giving and care-receiving.

In this interactive BYOQ session, we will explore “Care-mapping” as a tool to approach the conversation around care slightly differently, and find creative, joyful ways to process the sources and responsibilities of care in a way that brings to light the patterns in our own lives as well as the ones inherited from the cultures we are a part of, and to begin to find one’s ways around it.

In this workshop, we will playfully use the metaphor of a city to literally map out the spaces for giving and receiving care, and then think creatively about how to build better connections between these spaces to enable more flourishing and thriving. In that sense, it places care within the larger context of the self within one’s world and offers a fresh lens to navigate this.

Date & Time

April 28, 2022, at 2:30 PM UTC. Select your timezone in the registration form to see your local time, or check with this timezone converter tool.

Who is it for?

This workshop is for all inroads members! It is required to be an inroads member to join the session, but remember that if you recently joined the network you can attend too!

Centering Community Care

Community Care is one of the core values of inroads. The network values care in the abortions we want to destigmatize, in the work we do, and in the way we treat each other as fellow members in the network. We seek a world where abortions are considered normal and allowed to have the meaning and valence relevant to the person having that abortion; where people can access the abortions they need or want, with dignity and humanity. We believe support, exchange, and uplifting each other are integral to the work of ending stigma.

Meet our facilitator

Jayati is a facilitator, story-weaver, and frameworks designer, who uses stories, narratives, and metaphors to design tools, processes, and interventions that help solve complex problems. She works with international as well as local organisations, movements, and networks to help them bring about transformative change in various contexts, with a focus on belonging, care, and collective imagination. Jayati brings in lenses and tools from a variety of academic and experiential contexts including adult development, community organising, narrative theory, learning design, cultural studies and systems thinking, and art-based practices.

Join us for a 5-day virtual festival that aims to celebrate the lived experiences, intricacies, questions, reflections, and learnings of queer abortions! 

A space for the inroads community to gather and engage with questions, reflective activities, and practices that bust queer abortion stigma in themselves, their workplace, and their communities through various activities like art-making, dialogues, collective reflection, and learning spaces. All sessions have a participatory, relationship-building, and mutual learning objective— where the facilitators are easing, opening up, and guiding members through conversations, activities, and creative tasks. 

Who is it for?

The workshop is open to all inroads members and folks from aligned groups, collectives, and networks working on busting abortion stigma. While this space is meant to center the voices of LGBTQIA+ members, this workshop is open to allies too, and we ask that you attend in a learning and unlearning spirit. If you are a member, we ask that you agree to the member code of conduct before registering, if you haven’t already. If you are not a member yet, you can join here. 

Since we have limited spaces, we ask members whose registration is confirmed to treat their registration as a solid confirmation of their attendance and participation, and if you decide not to attend please email services@makeinroads.org at least 4 days before the session so we can let someone on the waitlist in.

Sessions calendar:

30 March – Destigmatizing Language: Considering Inclusivity and Wise Compassion I Facilitators: Shantae Porteous and Saint I 1:30-4:30 pm UTC I Activity-Reflection Based Workshop

31 March – Liberation through Creation: A Queer Introduction to Zine-Making I Facilitators: Saint and Emma Campbell I 1:30-4:30 pm UTC I Arts- Based Workshop

4 April – Causes in Common: Exploring intersecting stigma and liberation in our movements for abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights I Facilitator: Alexandra Teixeira I 1:30-4pm UTC I Activity-Reflection Based Workshop

6 April – Abortion + Embodiment I Facilitator: Zachi Brewster I 1:30-3pm UTC I Arts-Based Workshop

7 April – Abortos Diversos: a collaborative stigma-busting project in Bolivia and Peru I Discussants: Silvia Stefany Pinto, Nohelia Ramirez Gutierrez, Gladys Via Huerta, and Melissa Sanchez Esteban I 1:30-3pm UTC I Dialogue between inroads Grantee Partners

All sessions start at 1:30 pm UTC and the longer sessions have more breaks. Select your timezone in the registration form to see the time in your location before registering. You can attend all days or choose specific sessions to attend. The sessions will have simultaneous interpretations in Spanish and French.

Here you can see our wonderful facilitators:

Register for the upcoming inroads Online Training: Mapping and Mobilizing Resources for Abortion Stigma-Busting Work, facilitated by Xiomara Carballo.

In this training, we will cover:

– Understanding key resource mobilization concepts, such as learning the “language” of donors.

– How to map the landscape of donors and funding.

– Identifying the most appropriate calls for proposals for your organization.

To facilitate the participation of members based in diverse time zones, the same training will be available in two separate sessions and dates with opposite hours: 

• First session: January 19, 2022, at 2:00 PM UTC. 
• Second session: February 1, 2022, at 8:00 PM EST (UTC-5)

You can select your timezone in the registration form to see the time in your location before choosing your preferred session/date. Please, only register for one of the available dates, as both sessions will cover the same material.

This training is for inroads members who do not usually have professional support to ideate, advise, and reflect on resource mobilization and fundraising practices. We have limited seats and will maintain a waiting list once spots are filled.

As we have limited space in these workshops, we request you to treat your registration as a solid confirmation of your attendance and participation in the workshop. We ask that you honor your commitment by attending your selected session and actively participating.  In the case that you cannot attend the training, kindly email us in advance so that we are able to offer your spot to the next person on the waiting list.

If you are interested in this opportunity but are not a member yet, apply to join inroads today! 

We are happy to invite you to a multiday inroads Global Abortion Accompaniment Workshop, carefully crafted and facilitated by inroads members with vast experience accompanying abortion journeys in different countries and settings.

The workshop’s goals are:

• Mutual learning around inter-sectional and stigma-busting approaches to care and support abortion journeys.
• Relationship building between members who do the community-care work of accompanying abortions in distinct social, cultural, geographical, and political settings worldwide. 

The 5-day workshop is a participatory, learning, and un-learning space where participants will explore the following topics and questions:

November 15: What is Abortion stigma, medical abortions, and why is Accompaniment important? 

Facilitated by Daniela Tellez del Valle (Di RAMONA), Vane Jimenez and Sandra Cardona (Necesito Abortar), from México.

November 17: What does a world with accompaniment, feminist companionship, and referral look like in diverse settings? 

Facilitated by Ika Ayu (Samsara) and Mitra Kadarsih (midwife), from Indonesia.

November 18: Why must we talk about Intersectional stigma at the individual level when accompanying abortions? 

Facilitated by Karo Więckiewicz and Natalie B (Abortion Dream Team), from Poland.

November 22: How do we explore our values while supporting abortion journeys? How do we set boundaries?

 Facilitated by Zachi Brewster and Carly Manes (Dopo Abortion Support), from the United Kingdom, USA & Italy.

November 24: How do we unlearn stigma at the community level, and pull in various stakeholders to support accompanied abortions?

Facilitated by Rosemary Shikari (NAWIRI), from Kenya.

The workshop is for inroads members that:

1. Have accompanied abortions as doulas, acompañantes, midwives, traditional health attendants, hotline workers, nurses, clinic staff, doctors, therapists, etc., or who have supported abortion journeys in their lives for community members, family, partners, and friends.
2. Are interested in building networks and practices of community care to support abortions.

All workshops are 2 hours long, from 1:30-3:30 pm UTC. You can select your timezone in the registration form to see the time in your location before registering. The live sessions will have interpretations for English, Spanish, and French.

The space is limited to just 25 participants per session to make it as dynamic and participatory as possible. Members can attend all five days or choose specific sessions to attend.

Please treat your registration as a confirmation of attending the entire 2-hour session, and honor our commitment by attending and actively participating in the live session.

If you are interested but are not a member yet, apply to join inroads today! 

#wemakeinroads
#inroadsmembers

Register for the upcoming Online Training for inroads members titled Exploring Definitions and Measurement Tools of Abortion Stigma, focused on skill-sharing and mutual learning.

This 3 hour training aims to bring participants greater familiarity with current abortion stigma definitions and measurement tools at a range of levels (intrapersonal, individual, community). It will provide an overview of existing (scales) tools and methodologies for understanding stigma manifestations and measurement, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. 

Participants who attend the training will be able to: 
-More precisely define stigma and how it manifests in members’ working context (causes/targets/consequences);
-Gain familiarity with some tools to measure abortion stigma (SABAS, ILASS, CLASS, APSS) and understand some of their strengths and weaknesses
-Practice the administration of a scale in groups to familiarise with how questions are posed and what kind of answers may be given

We have limited seats, and once they fill up we will maintain a waiting list. We request that if your registration is confirmed that you treat it as a solid confirmation of your participation, and in case you cannot attend the training that you email aditi@makeinroads.org before October 25 @ 10am UTC to let us know of the same.

About the Facilitators:

Shena Cavallo is a consultant based in Mexico City. She works with non-profit organizations, social movements, activists and funders on strategic planning and resource mobilization. She is passionate about supporting grassroots organizations to access long-term, flexible funding. For eight years she worked at the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) where she worked directly with partner organizations in Latin America, the Middle East/West Asia and North Africa. She has a B.A from Duquesne University in International Affairs and Political Science and an M.A. in International Development, with a concentration in Human Security, from the University of Pittsburgh.

Claudia Lo Forte is a social development and feminist practitioner based in the UK. She has 15 years’ experience in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa and in her own country, Italy. Claudia works in M&E design, programme and policy development and evaluation in topics such as gender equality and women’s empowerment, masculinity and men’s engagement, violence against women and children and sexual and reproductive health. Claudia is currently studying for a PhD in Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine focusing on the social and political determinants of marriage, family formation and SRH access, including safe abortion, in the MENA region. Claudia is also exploring de-colonial research methodologies that generate context-sensitive knowledge glossaries and programmatic responses to issues affecting the communities.

Over the last month and a half, inroads members who have vast experience centering the voices of people with disabilities, advocating for disability and reproductive justice, inter-connecting the disability struggle with that of women, trans and queer people who use drugs, sex workers and people living with HIV, have come together to plan for this week. 

We have a fabulous line-up of inroads member facilitators, each who will be inviting you to brainstorm around the BIG questions that come up in this work, sharing from their contexts, successes and challenges and facilitating members through an activity to reflect, build understanding and anti-stigma practices. 

You can attend all three days (if possible, this would be a marvellous opportunity and lead to an inroads Cohort who are taking up these questions together) or choose specific sessions to attend. The sessions are on October 12,13 and 14 from 2pm-4pm UTC.

October 12

Dismantling Disability Stigma in Abortion: An Exploration of  Different Contexts

Facilitated by Lillian Kivuti and Phylis Mbeke (Kenya)

This session will focus on stigma faced by girls and women with disabilities while accessing abortion services and discuss possible way mitigation. Given the dynamic nature of stigma– enacted through structures and individuals, and mediated by relationships of power, control, and domination that are continuously produced and reproduced by actors either intentionally or unconsciously—How can we normalize abortions among people with disabilities?

October 13

Intersectional Stigmas: Abortion, HIV, Drug Use and Sex Work

Facilitated by Medea Khmelidze, Esma Imerlishvili and Gvantsa Kvinikadze (Georgia)

This session is focussed on Intersectional Stigmas of Abortion: HIV related status, Drug use, and/or Sex Work. Through, collective brainstorming, exchanging information on unique legislation and socio-economic and cultural context, the workshop will create space for sharing realities PLHIV, those using drugs and in sex work face when trying to reach out abortion services.

The workshop explores linkages between HIV, disabilities and abortion, enhances learning on enabling environmental determinants and special needs PLHIV, those using drugs and in sex work have, as well as unwraps impact of intersectional stigmas on the physical and mental health and possible mitigation strategies.

October 14

Abortion & Disability- The Whispered Conversation

Facilitated by Naomi O’Connor and Jakki Hanlon (Northern Ireland)

The session will explore the experiences of people who live at the intersection of disability and reproductive justice. People with disabilities, who live at the intersection, care deeply about both protecting reproductive autonomy, including the right to access safe abortion, and dismantling harmful disability-related stigma.

Is it possible to live in a world where abortion justice and disability rights can co-exist?This workshop examines why that is not only possible, but also necessary.  If we are to dismantle the ableist anti choice patriarchal stigma that prevails and is continuously pedalled by opponents of abortion rights who co-opt disability rights language to impose greater restrictions on abortion access, then it’s time to take the ‘whispered conversation’ out of the closet and place it front and centre where it belongs.

Join this session to learn from inroads staff about our vision, mission, values and strategic goals that are part of inroads’ Strategic Plan 2021-25. This session is a space for open conversation, questions and building alignment between members of our network.