Bangladesh
She/Her
2023 Cohort
Syeda Samara Mortada is a feminist activist based in Bangladesh, and a SRHR expert currently working as the Co-Founder-Coordinator of Bonhishkha, that works towards achieving equality of genders, across the spectrum by removing gender-based stereotypes, and in creating a platform for youth to share their gendered experiences, using arts as the main form to interact.
Audio-visual stories of pleasure of women in Bangladesh 
Syeda Samara Mortada is a feminist activist based in Bangladesh, and a SRHR expert currently working as the Co-Founder-Coordinator of Bonhishkha, that works towards achieving equality of genders, across the spectrum by removing gender-based stereotypes, and in creating a platform for youth to share their gendered experiences, using arts as the main form to interact. Samara is an advocate of equal rights and bodily autonomy and contributes regularly to national and international dailies on the said topic. She is a core organizer of the RageAgainstRape movement in Bangladesh, and core member of the coalition called Feminists Across Generations. Samara is an IVLP Fellow, and an Acumen Fellow, 2021.
Samara plans on collecting and animating stories of women in Bangladesh around pleasure.
With Bangladesh being a Muslim dominated society, talking about pleasure and sex is a taboo topic, particularly for women. Further to this, disabled women are looked at as helpless beings, who need no sex at all, or contradictorily are hyper-sexualized. Samara wants to focus on collecting stories of women, their experiences around pleasure: when was the first time they thought about pleasure, what brings them (sexual) pleasure, etc. in the form of audio-visuals. The stories can range across a spectrum of experiences, starting from positive to negative ones.
GO BACK TO THE FELLOWS