Colectiva Caminando

Colectiva Caminando (Collective Walking) was born in January of 2015. It is a feminist, autonomous and non-profit organization that works as a space for growth among women, constructed collectively and providing support to each other. With the contributions of different members of the group, the different strategies and / or mechanisms of denunciation are devised–art, performance walks, community communication, all aimed to tackle different problems faced by women and “dissident bodies”. Their feminist struggle is to achieve a world in which women have dignified lives free of any kind of violence. The group’s strategies start from their own experiences and are channeled into performances. In addition, the Collective participates in broad feminist networks, from which direct actions are proposed together based on communication and consensus.

Colectiva Caminando does not have a mission and vision per se, because “we are not interested in such structures, but we do have a starting point: to be a space for women to bond in which we can share stories among ourselves in confidence, with full security”. It is in this way that the collective considers taking care of women in hostile contexts: by creating networks of women and by continuing to grow.

One of the biggest and most successful stories of Colectiva Caminando has been their Radio Streets and Bodies project. The project started after a training workshop organized with Asociación Voces Nuestras (Our Voices Association, center for popular-community based communication), where they collaborated with other groups, like Poesía Irreverente (Irreverent Poetry), a group of performing and performing poetry founded in 2015. As a collective, CC feels they have also deepened the visibility and investigation of femicides in Costa Rica. With increasing ‘machismo’ (sexism) and male violence in the region, with the State being complicit of it, the collective seeks to keep records of femicides based on news from different media. In November 2016, they also organized a performance walk to recognize and name all the femicides that occurred in the last year. The walk took place on Avenida Central, together with other groups and feminists.