Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences

When we say “disabled women” we mean self-identifying disabled women, girls, and gender non-conforming people.

Our Vision  

A future in which disabled women are empowered, celebrated, informed, connected, valued and at the centre of society.

Our Mission

To make our vision a reality:

• • We create platforms that support opportunities to learn, share different experiences to increase our knowledge which enable us to challenge oppression and explore new possibilities

• • We speak out against abuse, injustice and discriminatory practices.

• • We fight for disabled women’s voices to be heard in diverse places of influence.

• • We don’t accept tokenism. We expect our allies to demonstrate meaningful engagement and commitment to securing disabled women’s liberation.

• • We embrace and celebrate our diversity by seeking out and highlighting the stories of disabled women from diverse intersectional backgrounds

• • We take opportunities to show how structures of oppression are connected and affect us all and call for their removal

• • We challenge unpaid labour of disabled women, strive for remuneration for our work and ensure our contributions are valued as individuals

Our Values and Ethical Principles

• • We are committed to the social model of disability and an intersectional approach to our oppressions and identities

• • We do not abuse or use our positions as a means to achieve

• • We are proud of who we are as disabled women and girls

• • We are committed to the continual process of challenging power and privileges, internally and externally

• • We believe in the self definition of identity and commit to not policing our identities

• • We expect accessibility and are creative, proactive and work in collaboration to achieve respectful and accessible spaces

• • We recognise, accept and challenge the oppressor within ourselves

• • We ensure credit is given to other disabled women for their ideas, involvement, contributions and work

Explanation of the logo: (logo designed and explained by Frieda Van de Poll)

The Kolibri or Hummingbird is a symbol for accomplishing that which seems impossible. For the native Americans, the bird is a symbol of rebirth, and of resurrection. It brings special messages for us, in its capacity of going in any direction; the only creature that can stop while traveling at full speed and the only bird that can fly backwards as well as forwards, up and down.

Frida had a special connection with this bird. She painted her eyebrows in the arc of the wings of the hummingbird, perhaps identifying herself with the extraordinary life skills of this colourful, tiny and vulnerable bird with the heart of an eagle. The logo is set in a stamp which fits the idea of the kolibri being a messenger… 

Why Sisters of Frida?

We took a long time deliberating on a name. We are disabled women but that is not our only identity – we are also embracing the whole package of being women and disabled. And we believe strongly in the social model of disability. We want to celebrate the difference of being of different ethnic origins, different cultures and nationalities, of different sexual orientation, of being mums, having partners and being single women. We are creative and our creativeness is born from our identities – of the very pain of being impaired and disabled at times. But we are not victims.

Hence we found a role model in Frida Kahlo. She is not one immediately associated with disability and yet her art was filled with images of the crippled body. She was also an activist and she wanted a life full of love, of relationships. In her art we also glimpse the dark landscape of her mental health in the aftermath of still births and in her stormy relationship with Diego Riveria.

We can strive to live our lives as full as she did

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