We ended our month of April in the capital of KPK province, at the border with Afghanistan for the 2018 edition of the Digital Youth Summit.

Started in 2014, the event is the opportunity to bring together the next generation of digital innovators in Pakistan. We gave a talk about the need to build a tech environment more inclusive of women (only 14% of the 2 days 70 speakers were female and most of the audience was also male). We also moderated a panel on the entrepreneurs below 30 (as is 60% of Pakistan’s 200 Million population…).

We even were at the first row to listen to the talk of the local hero, Imran Khan, former captain of the national cricket team who won the World Cup, and local politician running soon to be Prime Minister.

All the groupies were there!

After the talks, with the amazing Azima Dhanjee from ConnectHear and Saba Gul from Popinjay, two excellent tech entrepreneurs from Karachi, we roamed around the old bazar of the storytellers in Peshawar and hided inside the caranvanserails of the old city!

At the end of April, we were back in Lahore for a few days to speak at the Women in Business 10th conference organized by Pakistan Society for Development and Training.

You can watch our talk there!

We met again with two beautiful athletes, Hajra Khan, captain of the Pakistan female football team and Rameesha Shahid, Pakistan’s first female kickboxing instructor!

And we also explored the old city with our Omani friend Lamya Al Haj!

Posing with the beautiful bag from our friend Hirra Babr from WARP. Check it out!

When one dreams of quiet and peaceful nature, grandiose landscapes and progressive culture, which country comes to mind? New Zealand of course! With a young female pregnant Prime Minister and the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893! So we decided to explore this remote territory once and for all!

First we discovered the splendid mountains of the Southern Island, from Queenstown to Christchurch. And it was WOW!

After that, we landed in Wellington, the country’s capital on the Northern island to attend the New Frontiers event from the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. EHF is supporting a community of impact entrepreneurs, investors and changemakers to build meaningful solutions to global problems.

A basecamp for a better world!

We met so many passionate entrepreneurs during this week that we sincerely hope to be part of this community soon! Fingers crossed!

Last month of March, we discovered the immense Australian continent for the first time!

We first landed in Western Australia, in Perth and ran a crazy session there with local innovators!

Then we visited the fabulous campus of UWA (University of Western Australia) and ran a session for their French club before meeting the members of the local French Alliance.

Then we crossed the whole country to go to Melbourne to talk to an architect group there about how to build cities for women.

And finally we landed in the beautiful city of Sydney where we presented the book to the local HEC alumni chapter before being a mentor and jury member of the first Australian Sextech Hackathon which was a lot of fun!!!

We definitely want to come back and discover all the cities we have missed as well as the rough outback! See you soon!

During the months of January and February, we have been touring the country, delivering classes, workshops and talks on social activism and feminism to the young generation.

Our social activism class at Beaconhouse Defense Campus.

Kinnaird College

Training Asma Jahangir’s paralegal staff

Citischool Muslim Town Campus

KLF Panel

On January 13th, we had the opportunity to visit HUBBA for the first time, the first and largest coworking in Thailand and we had a great conversation there with the local community! It was the occasion to share our book for the first time and to get feedback from local activists and entrepreneurs. Hopefully we will be back in Bangkok in the coming months for more activities!

More than 3 years after the creation of Shiftbalance, we thought we needed a revamped website so here it is!

We wanted to share with you the diversity of our work and we are particularly excited about the new prospects : the book, the tour and much much more so stay tuned!

You can register here with our mailing list if you want us to keep you posted about our recent updates ! Happy New year!

Mid December, we flew to Yangon to deliver a storytelling workshop for the rising stars of the Wedu mentoring program.

These young and promising women learned to better tell their story and master their own narrtive in order to give powerful interventions in public.

Check Wedu website if you wish to mentor some of their mentees!

At Shiftbalance, we believe that gender equity will never be reached if men do not question the traditional conception of masculinity.

We think most of the conversations focus on women empowerment but 2017 sexual harassment scandals and the #metoo campaign showed us that men need to reflect deeply on what it means to be a man as well.

In India, the famous actor Amir Khan challenges the norms of masculinity through his mainstream TV show Satyamey Jayate and his last movie Dangal where a father is teaching his girls to wrestle.

But we found that this conversation was not really taking place on the other side of the border.

So, last month of March, while we were working in one of the most patriarchal countries on earth, Pakistan, we decided to interview local activists, artists and entrepreneurs about this topic.

The result has been the Maard Ban (Be a man) documentary. 28 minutes of interviews from the famous South Asia feminist Kamla Bhasin, the human rights lawyer Jibran Nasir or the UN Women Country Representative Jamshed M Kazi on how men need to be more in touch with their emotions.

The new media channel Propagaanda decided to promote our work on their platform. Watch the vlog here!

During the month of November, while we were teaching at Beaconhouse Schools young kids about social activism, we had the opportunity to partner with the French Alliance and the French Embassy in Pakistan through the program Open Doors which promotes French artists and intellectuals in the country in order to screen our documentary on different locations.

We started in Lahore at the Feminist Comic Con and during the media week from FC College, followed by an intervention at the Feminist Society of LUMS prestigious university, as well as National College of Arts.

In Karachi, we had a very intense post-screening debate with the HFem Collective of the prestigious Habib university. The writer Bina Shah and the professor Severine Minot were part of the panel as well as Sadaffe Abid whose campaign #elevatepak promotes the participation of women in panels and conferences.

Then we had the opportunity to screen the documentary at the Women of the World event in Karachi. The international event, supported by SouthBank Center and the British Council, showcased the vest feminist initiatives of the country.

And then, in Islamabad, we had the best screening of all, at the FACE cultural center, in presence of the French ambassador and of some of the activists interviewed in the documentary.

We will be back in Pakistan in February, for more screenings and workshops so stay tuned!

Last November 2^nd, we were in Paris to screen for the first time our documentary in Europe. We were hosted by the crowdfunding platform KissKissBankBank and we had a great conversation with the audience there!