Dear reader,
Welcome to yet another year of FII! Thank you so much for staying with us till now 🙂
The last two years have been tumultuous for independent media organisations and FII was no exception. As the pandemic continue to ravage the world, we have completely transitioned to remote work and given up our office. We are grateful for this successful transition which helped us continue our work as usual, and even grow our team during this difficult time.
From launching our very first podcast, ‘Intersectional Feminism—Desi Style!‘, wherein our hosts Nishtha Shanti and Pragya Roy cover a range of everyday topics with an intersectional spin, highlighting the nuance and differences in experience that comes with caste, class, disability, mental health, and more to creating the FII Jobs & Opportunities Board, we have come a long way. Recognising the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic made job-hunting not only difficult but also necessary for many people, we created the job board so that the process can be easier and more targeted for people looking for jobs in the development and social work sector.
During the pandemic, we also focussed on employee mental health and well-being and announced mental health leaves as well as started doing internal workshops for FII staff focussing on skill development, team building and health related concerns. Some of the workshops that we have organised so far discussed POSH Act and sexual harassment at the workplace, mental health, stress management and burnout, sustainable menstruation, financial literacy, among others.
The FII Membership Program
In January this year, we launched the FII Membership Programme, which allows committed FII readers to support FII financially and receive premium content and added benefits.
Since 2014, FII has tirelessly created long-form stories, videos, podcasts, comics, infographics that have helped make feminism engaging and relevant to millennial and Gen Z women and youth. It’s been an amazing and fulfilling journey, made most rewarding by your faith and support. We have grown from a one woman army to an awesome all-women’s team of twelve, reaching a million people monthly.
In 2019, we also started FII Hindi to bridge the linguistic barrier and make feminism accessible in Hindi. Over time, FII has built a network and community of thousands of followers and readers.
But even as our work has grown by leaps and bounds, so have our bills. And it’s getting tougher each day–especially in the midst of a pandemic–to sustain ad-free, independent and honest feminist journalism. To stay true to our shared cause, we are therefore launching a paid membership program that offers premium content and benefits to our supporters. Each and every membership will help sustain our work and ensure we thrive in these uncertain times.
Impact Stories
While I think read, like, comment, share, subscription and listen counts, I am very happy to share some particularly special impact stories from the past year.
Two FII writers won the award for empowering stories in the Laadli Media and Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity in 2020! We are really proud of them and the work that they do!
- FII Writer Sagar Galani for his opinion piece on the film Kabir Singh and toxic masculinity.
- FII’s Hindi Editor Swati Singh for her story on women working as nurses.
An English course designed for French teens entitled Shine Bright terminale included an excerpt from one of FII’s articles on Sabarimala temple. The abstract appears in both print and digital versions.
FII’s Multimedia Editor Nishtha Shanti won the Orange flower Award by Women’s Web in the Best Short Film category for her video on PCOS and its challenges for women.
The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation has selected our website (https://feminisminindia.com/) for inclusion in its South Asian Gender and Sexuality Web Archive. The Archive is an initiative developed by librarians at the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Harvard University, under the auspices of the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, and exists to amplify the voices of those fighting against long histories of patriarchal dominance in South Asia.
Two of FII’s campaigns #GBVInMedia and #AbortionMeraHaq (in collaboration with Asia Safe Abortion Partnership) won the Social Media For Empowerment (SM4E) awards organised by the non-profit Digital Empowerment Foundation in May 2021.
The FII Shop
We recently also launched the FII Shop to sell our cool feminist merchandise and the important research work we have done on gender-based violence. You can support us by buying from our shop, and of course, our members get a discount on all products.
Lastly, FII is independent from any religious, political or corporate affiliations and requires funds to keep the websites running ad-free, and pay for our core costs like salaries of our core team members, remuneration for our writers, technology costs of running two websites, etc. We also want to be able to create more feminist resources that are time-intensive.
A few hundred rupees or a few thousand would go a long way in helping us stay ad-free, and we promise to keep serving you fresh feminist content that you love! On our seventh birthday, your contributions would make for the best birthday gift. Share your support by becoming an FII member and tweeting with #FIITurns7.
Or you could also make a one-time donation. For international donors, please click here. For Indian donors, please click here.
Independent and honest feminist media needs committed readers and I duly hope that you will consider supporting your favourite feminist media platform.
I’d love to hear your stories and experiences of how FII impacted you! We hope you will continue to support us as you have through this tough year, so we can all be a step closer to smashing the patriarchy.
Till then,
Japleen
