Jamila Talla

Background
Jamila Talla has been active in the area of women’s emancipation since 2005. Talla, who herself is a refugee from Afghanistan, has used her own experiences to counsel and assist other women. Initially, Talla’s work took place on an informal and voluntary basis. Talla developed activities and projects for women in her direct environment to discuss taboo-subjects such as domestic violence, honour-based violence, gender based violence, sexual violence and forced arranged marriages. In 2010, the foundation Voice of Afghan Women was established. The foundation continued the legacy of Talla’s work and developed projects aimed at the emancipation, agency and autonomy of women. Since 2010, the foundation and its activities have expanded, resulting in Voice of Afghan Women reaching an increasingly larger audience. This led to the participation of the foundation in an international project in Afghanistan in 2017. Due to Talla’s endeavours, Voice of Afghan Women was able to establish a large network of Afghan migrant families in the Netherlands and since 2013, the foundation has increasingly been able to reach women from other migrant communities such as the Iranian, Pakistani, Somali, Eritrean, Syrian, Palestinian, Chechen and Uyghur migrant community. In June of 2020, the foundation changed its name to Voice of All Women, to ensure that the name of the foundation reflects their broader reach.
Presently, VOAW works on project basis. For each project and the subsequent activities, VOAW receives funding from government institutions and various funds