About FPAR Academy

FPAR Academy is an online learning platform for feminist, decolonial education and activism.

For us, FPAR is a political choice. It is a collective, bottom-up, intersectional feminist methodology through which marginalised communities generate their own evidence and organise for change in their own contexts. FPAR challenges patriarchy, colonialism, racism, capitalism, heteronormativity, fascism, and other forms of social injustice. Visit our homepage to learn more about what is FPAR and why we chose FPAR.

The aim of the FPAR Academy is to foster feminist political education through deepening our understanding of how FPAR can contribute to building and strengthening collective power to create long-lasting structural change.

We share our knowledge products under open licences. The fees we charge for our courses cover our platform and infrastructure, the basic running costs of the Academy, and our labour. This is a deliberate choice: it keeps us sustainable and autonomous, so we can learn what we think matters rather than what a funder wants to see.

Through our courses, we offer tools and resources for understanding key components of FPAR and explore how to integrate them in our work. Our key audiences are feminist advocates, activists, academics, and networks and movements who work alongside marginalised communities and collectives to bring about sustainable change.

FPAR Academy was founded and incorporated in Malaysia on 20 September 2022 by two feminist organisers from the Global South, Trimita and Diyana, and is supported by a strong team of activists and scholars across the globe. See profiles of some of our advisors and associates below.

Meet the Co-Founders

Co-founder & Director Trimita Chakma

Trimita is a feminist researcher, organiser, and facilitator from the Indigenous Chakma hill tribe of Bangladesh. She specialises in using FPAR for strengthening social movements and evidence-based policy advocacy across gender, labour, climate/ environmental, and Indigenous People's issues. She has led numerous feminist research projects across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. With an MA in Asian Women's Studies (Ewha Womans University, South Korea), an MSc in IT Management (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), she is currently pursuing a PhD in Just Transition at Edith Cowan University, Australia, using Eco-FPAR. Trimita is passionate about translating complex social research into accessible campaign materials that drive grassroots action.

Co-founder & Director Diyana Yahaya

Diyana is a feminist activist, researcher, and training facilitator from Malaysia with more than a decade's international experience in advancing women's human rights. Her work spans economic justice, trade justice, gender-based violence, gender and politics, and sustainable development. She has delivered capacity building and training to diverse audiences from activists, educators, Indigenous women, trade unionists and parliamentarians worldwide. Diyana has also produced and authored various research, advocated for policy reform, and strengthened movements' capacity to challenge traditional economic models, with particular focus on the current economic, trade and investment rules. She is passionate about thinking and creating alternative economic and political systems with grassroots communities and social movements.

Meet Our Associates

FPAR Academy Associate Yasmin Che

Yasmin is a queer feminist activist, researcher and facilitator from the Global South. She first learnt about participation from Robert Chambers’ workshops at IDS. Fascinated by the power of Participatory Action Research, she then joined APWLD, where she worked with grassroots feminists in FPAR on trade justice and adapted the methods to the COVID crisis in 2020. Since 2021, she has been providing freelance consultancy services for movement organisations.

FPAR Academy Associate Bea Moraras

Bea is an activist researcher with Masters degrees in Evaluation and International Development. She has eight years’ experience in Southeast Asia with academia and non-profits, primarily in education, capacity-building, advocacy, network-building, humanitarian assistance, and human and environmental rights. Bea is passionate about using research and data to advance social justice and improve programs benefiting marginalised groups. She specialises in participatory, collaborative, and utilisation-focused research and program evaluation approaches. Bea is a native English speaker and fluent in Thai.

FPAR Academy Associate Alma Sinumlag

Alma is an Indigenous women's rights activist and a feminist researcher. She was a co-researcher for Cordillera Women’s Education Action Research Center (CWEARC)'s FPAR project on Uma indigenous women's resistance against Chevron’s geothermal energy project in 2012-2014. She has been involved in several research projects on extractive industries, public health, and social services among Indigenous Peoples. She aims to contribute to decolonising the narratives of Indigenous Peoples.

FPAR Academy Associate Olaoluwa Abagun

Olaoluwa (Ola) Abagun is a Nigerian-trained lawyer, equality, diversity and inclusion expert and unapologetic feminist. She holds a Masters in Gender and Development (with distinction) from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex. She brings over 8 years of experience in grassroots and high-level gender equality advocacy, programme design/implementation, and participatory research on SRHR, gender-based violence and gender transformative education. She has also served as a consultant with several INGOs and multilateral institutions including Plan International, ActionAid International, UNICEF and UN Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI).

FPAR Academy Associate Alba Ruibal

Alba Ruibal is a Researcher at CONICET, Argentina, studying feminist movements in Latin America. She holds a Ph.D. in Law and a Ph.D. in Political Science. She has been a consultant for UN Women’s Spotlight Initiative, South Feminist Futures, and ActionAid International. She currently works on the role of movements and counter-movements in the constitutional politics of abortion in Latin America, and on feminist legal mobilization in the Argentinean provinces.

FPAR Instructor Banamallika Choudhury

Banamallika Choudhury is a feminist activist and researcher with over 20 years of experience empowering marginalized women globally. She is an expert in participatory methodologies, program development, and amplifying excluded voices. Banamallika has partnered with diverse communities in India on issues of gender justice, health, climate change, education and violence prevention. Her passion is cultivating grassroots women's leadership and driving transformative change through ethical, inclusive processes centered on lived experiences.

Meet Our Advisors

Strategic Advisor | Digital Security Instructor Sanam Amin

Sanam Amin is a Bangladeshi writer, researcher and facilitator committed to building a more equitable and just world. She has five years’ of experience in feminist movement building and organising, and has led the Women’s Global Strike campaign. She believes in the power of community organising and cross-movement solidarity. If women stop, the world stops. [Photo credit: Lotusmark]

FPAR Advisor Dr Naomi Joy Godden

Naomi is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow at the Centre for People, Place and Planet at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. She has 19 years of experience in community development, feminist research and activism in areas such as gender justice, poverty alleviation, and environmental justice. Naomi engages in Feminist Participatory Action Research with social movements to collectively understand intersecting injustices of climate change and develop and implement actions to demand feminist responses in policy and practice.

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FPAR Academy is an independent online learning platform developed through our own labour and resources. We aim to make quality feminist education as accessible as possible through free and affordable content. You can help support our work by buying us coffee or making a small donation.

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