On July 31, 2023, students, professors, and New Haven residents gathered at Henry R Luce Hall to celebrate diverse storytelling voices and listen to the stories of a group that’s often spoken about but rarely heard from themselves: refugee girls and women.

The event, a photo-voice exhibition and storytelling session was hosted by Project ReClaim with the support of Yale’s Program on Refugees, Forced Displacement, and Humanitarian Responses. Featuring original work by 3 teenage refugee girls who are now Connecticut residents and photography from 6 refugee girls and women from Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran, the event aimed to showcase the diversity of refugee voices and empower women refugees with the tools to reclaim their stories.

Too often has the broad construct of ‘The Refugee’ been demonized and stigmatized in public discourse. Worst of all, these narratives always exclude the voice of one key stakeholder: the refugee themselves. Hidden behind the already invisibilized are the refugee women who are underrepresented in all spheres of life and largely absent as an independent voice from the media. Thus was born Project ReClaim, a storytelling and advocacy program by Yale MPH graduate Devina Buckshee with support from IRIS, which aims to put the pen in their hands and make the women the teller of their own stories. Through a 4-month course, we worked with refugee teenage girls and women to help them find their voice, and craft stories ranging from fiction to non-fiction, poetry, and oral testimony.

The event featured photography from 13-year-old Malak who came from Iraq to the US at age six, 15-year-old Tasneem Musa, who came from Syria and Jordan to the US when she was eight, 18-year-old Hashima Moradi who came from Afghanistan, post the Taliban takeover to the US in 2019. It also featured the works of Malak's mother, Hashima's older sister Zohra Mohadi, and 15-year-old ESUMS high school student Lameese Dagoum from Sudan, who were all tasked with photographing scenes based on the words ‘belonging’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘happiness’. The idea was to flip the script, and make the women who are often merely the subject of other’s lenses take back the means of control and share their world through their eyes.

For the performance, Malak, Tasneem, and Hashima read out their work - a glimpse of the writings we worked on this semester, which ranged from stories about fleeing Afghanistan post the Taliban takeover to worries about moving to high school from middle school. They each chose what they wanted to read, Malak read a poem about missing her father and a story about high school - it was sarcastic and sardonic and so universal as a commentary on teenage angst. Tasneem had a great, confident presentation style and read a short story about moving to the US, learning a new language and persevering. Hashima read two pieces - one titled 'Happiness' and one 'Goodbye'. Her stories detailed the chaos of the Taliban takeover, the chaos of fleeing to the US overnight, the trauma of seeing her parents break down and leaving her friends and family and home in an instant.

There are endless narratives about refugees written by outsiders, where they are victimized, generalized, and pathologized. What if refugees, instead of being the subject, chose the subject? What if they controlled the narrative? What stories would be told then? What images would be displayed?

LIVED, a University of Edinburgh-based think tank, has partnered with Refuweegee, a community-based project that aims to welcome refugees in Glasgow and provide them with the care and tools to thrive in Scotland. This includes support in finding housing, free English classes, skilling classes at the university, access to job portals, and more. 

At the height of anti-refugee media narratives fuelled by Brexit, we knew that the media was missing one side of the story: that of the refugees. With disposable cameras, journals, and art supplies, participants are invited to document and creatively describe their hopes and aspirations, sense of home and belonging, and emotional lives in Glasgow. These photographs were exhibited at the University of Edinburgh in May 2016 to give a voice to the refugees who have settled here.

At the crux of this activity is the principle that participants will tell their own stories -  rather than becoming subject to yet another outside narrative. 27 men, all recent arrivals in Scotland from Afghanistan and Syria, shared their stories in their own way with the audience of professors, students and visitors in Edinburgh. This project was revived in 2019 and the exhibition traveled to the University of Glasgow. 

Pink List India is India's first archive of politicians supporting LGBTQIA+ rights. Situated at the intersection of politics, queerness, and technology, we aim to push for accountability and transparency from our elected representatives.

Co-founded by Anish Gawade, Smriti Deora and Devina Buckshee, this website aims to create an archive of queer politics in India, curating a list of 2019 Lok Sabha candidates who have publicly supported queer and trans causes.

Pink List India has been covered by BBC, The Hindu, The Wire, Verve, Vogue, Elle, Harpers Bazaar, The Quint, Times of India, Mid-Day, Feminism in India, News18 and NDTV, among others.

In 2020, we launched QueeRelief - a donation page of ist of NGOs working towards providing immediate relief for the queer community across India.

(2019) Journalist and MEL researcher Devina Buckshee and fashion stylist Ojas Kolvankar photographed and conducted in-depth interviews with ten women about their challenges in various modes of public transport as an extension of Buckshee's MA thesis on feminity, mobility, and the construction of public space in Mumbai.

As a part of Global Anti-Harassment Week 2017, the non-profit Safecity launched the photo exhibit ‘Reclaiming City Spaces’ at an event entitled ‘Reclaiming Public Spaces: Challenges in Local Transport’. The event extended the conversation on public space access for gender minorities and featured an engaging panel comprising advocate Audrey D’mello, director of Majlis Law’s RAHAT program, and Dr Shilpa Phadke, School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, and author of “Why Loiter?", moderated by Buckshee.

Devina and Ojas traveled across the city for their photo series, using all modes of public transport available in Mumbai, and traced these stories of acceptance and resistance. They explored ideas of freedom and equality and looked at the lack of reporting on the gamut of sexual harassment faced by gender and sexual minorities while traveling on a day-to-day basis.

Through the course of the project, they sensed the lack of awareness around sexual harassment. Most of us are all too familiar with the beady eyes and the ‘ghoorna’ (staring). Still, not many of us acknowledge the violence of lecherous stares, as sexual harassment usually implies a more grave physical offense. Not many of us know that it is a crime punishable by law. Amidst all these stories, they also experienced many moments of sisterhood, understanding and protection, and the familiar cocoon of the women’s compartment.

Co-founded by Ojas Kolwankar, Binjal Shah, Fawzia Khan and Devina Buckshee in 2020, The Mental is Political is a feminist collaborative platform at the intersection of mental health, social justice and advocacy. 

The state of your mental health - and your access to quality, non-judgemental and safe mental healthcare - is determined by your socio-economic standing.

As the war-cry of second-wave feminism goes, ‘The personal is political." The personal includes health. And health includes mental health.

Enter The Mental is Political - a new feminist collaborative platform at the intersection of mental health, social justice and advocacy. We’re here to help make India’s mental health growth story inclusive, progressive and prioritised in public policy.
 

We’re here to help make India’s mental health growth story inclusive, progressive and prioritised in public policy. Through blogs and online think-pieces, the Mental is Political aims to take our mental health conversations deeper.