What Would You Say to Her? is a community-based digital campaign that invites you to participate by posting your messages of unity, collaboration and solidarity with women and gender-diverse communities who have shared their experiences of displacement and gender-based violence. We invite you to respond to their stories and connect as agents of change-–because we believe compassion and connection are as essential to sustainable development as food and water.
Trigger warning: this page contains sensitive content which some individuals may find distressing.
Our campaign
What Would You Say to Her? is a Footage Foundation advocacy campaign that invites you to connect in a safe, compassionate space with women’s, in all their diversity, stories of displacement, prejudice and gender-based violence (GBV). We invite you to ask yourself, when you reflect on these stories: What would you say to her, if she were with you now?
At Footage we believe that everyone deserves to feel seen, heard and worthy. We use narrative and expressive approaches to connect women, gender-diverse people and marginalized groups as agents of social change. What Would You Say to Her? encourages multilateral, intersectional, compassionate responses to the deeply affecting human stories that demonstrate the experiences and realities of our time.
Our feminist research interventions show how sharing stories in a supportive space nurtures self-compassion, diminishes shame, and fosters belonging. For us, storytelling is more than just sharing experiences—it’s a tool for healing, learning, and serves as a mechanism for compassion, connection, and transformation.
Who is “Her”?
Footage participants are some of the most marginalized girls, women, vulnerable and gender-diverse communities in the world. They have fled persecution from dangerous hostile governments and conflict zones, experienced displacement, abuse and exploitation. They tell their stories to make us see and hear the truth, asking us to not turn away.
Our research with those who have been forcibly displaced and experienced gender-based violence powerfully shows us that while feelings of rejection and dislocation can inhibit connection, feelings of equitable “human” treatment are paramount for building belonging and fostering connection. Time and again, we unknowingly—and sometimes to avoid the pain of reality—dehumanize those in crises and conflict. Moreover, we know that dehumanizing people is how fear and separation are perpetuated. Yet, participants in our programs consistently express their desire to be seen, treated, and valued the same as those who are not displaced — as “human.”
The narratives shared are from our courageous participants across the globe, including those forcibly displaced from countries such as Afghanistan and Ukraine, as well as from survivors of violence from places such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Syria, and Cameroon. We invite you to reflect and respond compassionately to those who have shared their wisdom, humanity, and stories of survival and resilience. By participating in this campaign and sharing your compassionate messages, “seeing” those whose stories you respond to, you not only intensify your own compassion, you strengthen our ability to raise awareness and advocate with leaders and policymakers to adopt and implement laws and policies to prevent and address gender-based violence.
New stories will be uploaded each week to this page. Using the form below, you can respond to any of the stories. We welcome text, art, poetry, voice recordings, videos or any other creative format as responses.
Important Information
Most of the narrative accounts generated over the years by Footage navigate sensitive topics, please take care of yourself when engaging with the campaign.
When responding to the question: What would you say to her? Footage recommends focusing your response on one story at a time.
Please remember to include the name of the participant whose story you are responding to in your written response or file name. All names have been changed to protect participants identities.
We may share your responses on social media and in our communications to promote the campaign. If you would prefer not to have your response shared, please check “no” in the consent option below.
Through What Would You Say to Her? we aim to expand our community, and create a global gender-diverse network, listening and engaging from a space of empathy and love.
Please follow the journey on our social media accounts and share it with your friends, family and networks. Now is the time to hold together. #WhatWouldYouSayToHer?
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In my journey to Europe I met a good looking guy. I loved him and he loved me, like two birds.
After a year and a half, the guy just left Greece and went to another country and the girl stayed in this place. After a while, they left each other because of the general problems of being together. But the girl continued to love him and spoke about him in a very good way, with love and respect. Then the day came when the guy spoke about her ugly and in a bad way. He said the worst things that you cannot imagine and the girl was shocked. She knew she was living a big lie with him. After all that, she went to her mother and talked to her and told her everything. Her mother did what every good mother would do. She stood by her daughter until everything ended.
Because of that, my friends don’t trust the nice guy who wants to travel on his own without his family. That guy who wants a small short relationship, playing with girl’s emotions just to get what he wants and nothing else. Thank you to everyone who is interested in hearing my story.
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I can't describe this feeling when you feel danger. We have it, we have a rape culture. It's huge. I woke up in the summer at home, at four o'clock in the morning because I heard that a girl was screaming. And she screamed, "why does it hurt so much?" Not, "please don't," but "why does it hurt so much?" It was very scary. She started calling the police. It happened right near our apartment building, it was hidden by trees, but I realized that there were several men. I was afraid to go out. I called the police several times, but they didn't come. She kept screaming. And when the police finally arrived, I immediately went out too. I turned around and looked at the building - all the windows were open. It's summer, it's hot, and all the windows are open. This means that everyone has heard. No one came out and no one called the police. When the cops arrived and took all these guys away, I said I would be a witness. No one called me, then I called them. They said that if no one called me, it means that the girl decided not to initiate criminal proceedings. And there's nothing I can do.
I mean, we have a terrible rape culture. Even in our, so to speak, activist environment, I myself was raped. When I was very young and spent time with my activist and anarchist friends, we drank. At some point, during a drunken party, one of the older guys took me to his place and I was abused. It was sex without consent, it was painful sex, he didn't stop when I asked him to. And in the morning, after much persuasion, he sent me home by taxi, because I didn't have any outerwear with me. He picked me up in my house clothes from a party, it was winter. And when I came home, I didn't get any support either. We lived together with these anarchists. I was greeted with the words "Well, what the fuck? Have you had a walk?" And the guy with whom we had some kind of friendly romantic relationship took offence at me. Apparently for the fact that I was not raped by him. I'm talking about this to show how huge the rape culture is. Those jokes about rape, that the fact of rape is the right of every man. And when I hear someone say, "here I am a man, but I think that this is not the norm," I answer, "yes, it is not the norm, but if you really want, then you can." Because that's how these men perceive rape. If no one protects her, then you can. If no one finds out, then you can. If no one believes it, and most likely they won't, then you can do whatever you want.
And so when I heard about what happened [there], I wasn't surprised. Because if the best of these people, the most progressive, reflective, educated, do it with their girlfriends, what will the worst of them... the most uneducated, the most aggressive, drunk of these men, do to those women that are considered enemies? Also the attitude towards women in our country is supported by the government and the state. A woman is a thing, a man's property, and a man can do everything he wants with her. In general, to be honest, I now do not know how to return back home after what happened [there].
Until that moment, I thought that I would return as soon as the tension and direct danger would disappear. Frankly speaking, for me, it means a complete break from what I imagined myself to be. I don't know. All my dreams and plans were connected with the house. Now I'm still like a person without plans. I have no plans now. It was a very important part of my identity. I love my city. I have done a lot for it and would like to do more. I thought I would live there all my life.
I do not know how to return home after what happened in the war. The boys will also return home, and no one will even tell them anything. And I have a daughter. This is a terrible situation. I don't understand how. What must happen to return? I cannot imagine going home while there are people who [support this]. How will I live and work with them? These are people who ignored what was happening. How will I go to the same spaces with them? With those who said, "Where is the proof of rape?" How I will walk the same streets with these people in the evenings, I do not understand. I am still enrolled in a university and I have a job that I have worked for many years back home. And I have nothing here. But the worst thing is that this is the best option of all that could be. This is a situation in which we are already lost – it does not even matter whether you left or stayed, or you got a visa, you just lost a priori, in advance. All your decisions are losers.
The only thing I want is for the war to end. Whatever happens, I'm just freaking out about what's going on. I have a lot of friends in war. And anarchists, too. Some of them went to defend their country, both women and men. I go to their web pages in the morning while I drink coffee, and I think "If only they were alive." And I'm just terrified. Just terrified of all this. And all sorts of everyday things they deal with.
Elena [forcibly displaced from Eurasia]
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