Beauty Parlor awarded the IFA Synergy grant for our Kurdistan collab!

🎉 We got the grant! Stories from the Beauty Parlor x JusticeNow are meeting up in Kurdistan 🎉

Do you remember when we told you about a magical dinner over Yemeni food in a cold Berlin winter? About meeting Dimah Al Jurostani from the Kurdish feminist organisation JusticeNow, and the conversation that turned into tea, and the tea that turned into a vision for something bigger?

Well — it's happening. We are beyond thrilled to announce that Stories from the Beauty Parlor and JusticeNow have been awarded a CCP Synergy grant by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), one of Germany's leading institutions for international cultural relations. This is a big deal and our first state funded partnership for international collaboration.

The CCP Synergy programme supports civil society organisations from Germany and ifa partner countries who are building real, lasting collaborations across borders — in the fields of human rights, media and culture, politics and society, and sustainable development. Out of organisations across dozens of countries, our feminist tandem was selected. That means something.

Between May and November 2026, we will be working together on a joint initiative bridging Berlin and Sulaymaniyah in (Iraqi) Kuridstan — a podcast, a deeper exchange, and a growing collaboration on how feminist organising and feminist funds can work across very different realities, without white saviour dynamics, and with genuine transnational solidarity at the centre.

This grant is not just funding. It is recognition — that the conversation we started over dinner matters, that feminist movement building deserves more visibility and solidarity, and that cross-border feminist collaboration is worth investing in.

We are so grateful to ifa for this support, and so proud to be doing this work alongside the incredible Dimah and the JusticeNow team.