Yakoua is an international collective of QTBIPOC feminist self-defence trainers from France, Belgium and Switzerland. They develop movement practices that advance and protect the rights of racialised and genderqueer people. Their work directly responds to the current political climate across in Europe, where racialised women, children and queer people face a rise in verbal, physical and sexual violence, a climate that is fuelled by the fascisation that we see in the streets, the institutions and in the media. This results in a heightened state of vulnerability and exclusion of those most impacted, making community-based and led strategies that strengthen safety, confidence and agency not only necessary but very urgent.
It is because of this that Yakoua is building a movement to train affected people in feminist and anti-racist self-defence towards individual and collective power. Their work is the living proof that self-defense is not too granular to achieve collective safety: according to workshop participants, these tactics have been vital to restore confidence and strength in the face of daily struggles, as much they have been instrumental to build community capacity to respond to violence. Since they host these workshops in activist spaces (as well as vulnerable community hotspots), this work has the potential to be upscaled and proliferated as resistance tactics.
Besides the physical component of their work, YAKOUA also uses storytelling strategies to build resilience in the community: sharing real-life examples of participants who escaped, prevented or stopped violence using self-defense techniques has been a real catalyser of community action and wellbeing. Sharing these stories inspires participants to recognise their own strengths and equips them with concrete tools for responding if they ever face similar situations.
The Guerrilla Redistribution
The priorities for resource allocation are to strengthen the European and North-African QTBIPOC self-defence network and continue to give free feminist self-defense workshops for women and queers who experience racism. Namely, they used the money to create, adapt and expand their self-defense playbook and bring it to more queer anti-racist grassroots organisations who are increasingly seeking them. With these resources, they have also hosted an international 10-day in-person gathering at La Bassa Mar (Catalonia) to exchange practices, co-develop training tools, and set shared priorities. On the storytelling front, they want to create lasting resources (facilitation guides, visuals, story collections) to make self-defence knowledge more widely accessible. Lastly, they will use the money to identify and support new trainers, especially those working in under-resourced communities, and strengthen their leadership, aiming for future “training of trainers” sessions.
All of these activities are stepping stones towards a long-term goal: a resilient, intersectional network of QTBIPOC trainers able to address systemic violence, share resources across borders, and ensure that racialised queer, trans and gender-diverse people have safe access to transformative self-defence education.