The CURE Foundation originated from the need to change the attitudes of BiH society in relation to violence against women so that the violence that happens daily eventually becomes impossible, unacceptable for every citizen. Since 2004 we have started to work as a group of volunteers and implemented 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence global campaign.

In 2005, we were registered as a feminist activist foundation called CURE, and we adopted the meaning of this word in English as a part of our attitude that feminism heals and empowers individuals, communities, societies. In local languages, CURE stands for girls.

Activists – promoters of initiatives for the CURE feminist community worked in groups for women’s human rights in BiH and the region for almost a decade. Processes led for improving the lives of women during those years, mostly focused on economic social and psychological assistance to women, but the focus was mainly on women as victims.
One of the main political strongholds of the CURE Foundation is feminism and political involvement/engagement of citizens.

Feminist activism gives us a space in which women are survivors, strong, fearless and capable, and we perceive the tag of a victim as those who did not survive atrocities and violence they experienced, and those in the process of empowerment, healing from the violence that has happened to them.

Therefore, our beginnings were marked by going out into the streets as a sign of public protest against the violence, organizing performances against violence, connecting and organizing for action with the most diverse individuals – artists, scientists, educators, activists, and citizens all stating in their own form of expression that violence is unacceptable, that it is a responsibility of every individual to stop the violence, and that the issue of stopping the violence against women is the basic health issue of our society.

Although active for five years, we have worked as volunteers for the majority of this period, as well as people and organizations that have cooperated with us so far. This enables a practical way to illustrate and demonstrate the importance of engagement in the local community and for those initiatives that directly and indirectly improve the quality of life in our environment. We infer to specifically initiating and implementing a number of street actions and campaigns for stopping gender violence, artistic actions which directly deconstruct stereotypes about female and male roles, characteristics, writing up and keeping alive the memories and stories of women from various parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and much more.

From the very beginning of CURE’s work we have cooperated with women’s groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, feminists from less and less fragmented feminist community in our country, and the cooperation with feminist groups in the region is especially important to us, whether they work for women’s human rights through legal advice, campaigns, artistic initiatives, publishing or research.

The Long-term vision of the CURE Foundation is to open Multimedia Educational Resource Center for girls and women of BiH, Center that will be open to all people curious to learn and teach (yourself and/or others) about feminism(s), feminist movement in BiH, engaged arts, ecology, free software, volunteerism and engagement in the local community. This center is a place imagined as a dream that comes true, where the overall work of women and feminist groups from BiH and the region come together in one meeting place, to become an educational and inspirational model of learning and growth of the feminist community in our country.

We invite you to join us!