Young Women’s Leadership in Kazakhstan

Reflections from Dr. Kristen Ali Eglinton, Footage Foundation

“Don’t feel alone, look your fear in the eye […]. There are many of us, and we are somehow united by the stories we experience.”

In response to the urgent need for information and programming addressing gender-based violence in Kazakhstan, in 2019–2020 Footage Foundation adapted and implemented their Girl-talk-Girl flagship initiative — an award-winning program and the largest digital platform for young women’s voices on gender-based violence globally. Girl-talk-Girl, which includes workshops, seminars, and storytelling with participants around the world was implemented in partnership with the local organization Rodnik and supported and sponsored by the U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Kazakhstan — that year Girl-talk-Girl increased 100% of participants’ understanding of GBV and digital storytelling.

In 2021 Footage received a second generous award from US Embassy & Consulate in Kazakhstan to scale their Girl-talk-Girl program through a ground-breaking peer-to-peer leadership model. To conduct this work, Footage again partnered with Rodnik, together building young women’s capacity as leaders, and catalyzing civic engagement.

The following piece by Dr. Kristen Ali Eglinton, Footage’s Executive Director, and Girl-talk-Girl Director, begins to capture the power of young women’s leadership in Kazakhstan. This piece focuses on her experience during intensely inspiring, Girl-talk-Girl fieldwork in Kazakhstan in 2022, and the ways in which young women in Almaty showed up, not only to share their own experiences, but to — as all great leaders do — hold a space for the greatness of others.

“This latest recap is sent between meetings with our team and colleagues around the globe as we work non-stop for our upcoming 16 Days of Activism campaign. However, before we launch our campaign, we more simply and urgently want to share thoughts from our recent, intensely inspiring, Girl-talk-Girl fieldwork in Kazakhstan.

While there we had the honor of working with the most courageous young women — young women who came from across Central Asia, and who exemplify the compassionate leadership that can transform our world.

Our time in Almaty was tireless, uplifting, and profoundly moving.

Once again we worked with our unstoppable Kazakh partner Rodnik — known for preventing trafficking in the region — and were fueled by our generous sponsor, the U.S. Consulate and Embassy in Kazakhstan. Our mission in Almaty was clear: to build on the success of our previous Girl-talk-Girl program there in 2019–20, and foster young women’s leadership capacity as they scale the program with their peers.

As many of you know, Girl-talk-Girl focuses on the global crisis of gender-based violence (GBV) and uses the science of storytelling and compassion to level the inequalities that sustain GBV, such as a lack of leadership opportunities. It encourages and inspires the confidence of young women participants to raise their voices in the knowledge that they are not isolated or forgotten.

Without question, we did what we set out to do.

In fact, while in Kazakhstan I told our young women participants, the skills they so naturally have are those very skills that constitute compassionate leadership. As compassionate leaders, the young women we trained to scale the program took action, listened deeply, collaborated, built trust, and acted creatively. These young women — young women we now have the privilege of calling friends and sisters — are the inspirational leaders we seek.

Indeed, our participants gave all of themselves for their peers and for women around the world — including women they never met, but cared so deeply for — deeply enough to explore their own vulnerabilities, to (re)build themselves in order to support others, to heal themselves in order to hold a space for others, to share their experiences so others could know they are not alone.

We are unspeakably proud of these young women — who showed up day after day, on their weekends (and weekdays), working for hours on end to help us scale the program. Watching the young women participants overcome their fears was truly awesome — whether speaking in public, leading a group, or facing their own emotions, including the feelings of shame so many of us have with respect to GBV, regardless of our past.

I am still immeasurably moved when I think about the young woman who told us that during our workshops she “felt comfortable” in a group for the first time in her life, and about the others who revealed that until now they never had the opportunity to share their feelings (including everyday feelings of frustration or sadness) with anyone.

Many of our participants have never in their lives spoken about their experiences with violence, about their understanding of inequality, or about the myriad ways they are silenced.

Through the safe space we all created, many participants understood — for the first time in their lives — that they are not alone, that they are seen, that their trauma is shared and that their experiences as young women from countries across Central Asia — including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan — are at once singular and collective — and that their voices are WORTHY of being heard.

We are truly indebted to our participants, to our partner Rodnik, and to our sponsor at the U.S. Consulate and Embassy in Kazakhstan.

For now, we are forever altered and our mission to create a more compassionate, just, and equitable world is stronger than ever. I personally vow, to continue, in hope.

Please visit our social media and share our work, and contact me personally if you want to know more about our future plans in Central Asia and/or how you can help advance our work across this region where it is very much needed. Indeed, it is painful to think that our work focusing on GBV remains more vital than ever.

About Footage Foundation: Footage is a U.S. based feminist organization raising voices to elevate lives through creative research, wellbeing interventions, and advocacy — all advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Footage has received nine Public Diplomacy awards from the U.S. Department of State to design and implement programs focusing on women and violence primarily in the Post-Soviet region. A nonprofit organization founded by PhD colleagues at Cambridge University, Footage uses narrative and expressive approaches empowering young women around the world to connect as agents of social change. Our programs provide connection — a community for women on the frontlines of gender inequality where their ideas matter and their voices count. We have a particular focus on forced displacement and gender-based violence and believe compassion and connection are as important to sustainable development as food and water. Girl-talk-Girl connects young women worldwide, using mobile digital storytelling (2–5 minute multimedia narratives produced on mobile phones) to spark dialogue and change around the gender-based violence present in their lives.

• GBV = acts intended to hurt women or make them suffer physically, sexually, psychologically and/or economically.

Girl-talk-Girl Kazakhstan is generously supported and sponsored by the US Embassy and Consulate in Kazakhstan.