Shucheesmita Simonti participated in our #AGORA2018 young feminist summer camp. She is currently based in The Hague, Netherlands, remotely working as policy director of SAFIGI Outreach Foundation Ltd. and Editor of Women Chapter English. She is part of Women Deliver Young Leader 2018 Program.
I grew up in Bangladesh and later moved to India for pursuing higher studies. In both the countries, I met countless women who have stories that break one’s heart- stories of oppression, violence and discrimination. As a young woman born from parents who belonged to different religions and eventually got separated, my childhood was anything but easy. I felt like a minority for as long as I can remember, and I felt being a woman made my experiences even worse. I felt I would have been less vulnerable had I been a man in a male dominated society- I don’t know. But my experienced fueled in me the desire to get involved in activities through which I could contribute towards wellbeing of women, but I didn’t know where to begin from.
AGORA 2018 selfie
On a personal level, I tried to be supportive towards other women in the way I knew best, whenever I could. My feminist journey began the day I came across a call for online volunteers from an organization called Safety First for Girls- an NGO based in Zambia. The tasks looked easy to begin with, hence I applied. And my journey began as a feminist. Since then I have worked with other initiatives too, including Women Chapter- an online portal founded in Bangladesh, as editor of the English site. I often witnessed division within the feminist movement around me, and that disappointed me. When I applied for AGORA 2018, I looked forward to meeting other young feminists from Europe and hoped to broaden my knowledge and network with other feminists, but never did I imagine that the five-day event will become a transformation period for me. But this is what happened, and I am grateful for it.
It was only five days that I spent with all the wonderful staffs of EWL and the amazing feminists, but in such short span of time I learned so much, met such wonderful people and most importantly, I feel more confident about myself and the ways in which I am trying to contribute as a young feminist. I believe this is where the success of AGORA lies- enhancing self-confidence of the young feminists, and in showing us how to be compassionate towards each other, embrace diversity and making the commitment to uplifting each other. I am an introvert person, but I believe in five days I spoke my mind without hesitation and I felt at ease all the time. AGORA provided a safe space for us, which allowed us to express ourselves and share our ideas and get feedback from others, and to allow ourselves to focus on self-growth as feminists, while also having a lot of fun with each other. The program was designed in a unique way, which provided a space for every participant to be interactive, rather than choosing to be passive.
AGORA group 2018
One of my favorite takeaways from the camp is the exercise on our limiting beliefs where we paired up with another person and opened our hearts, about thoughts that are so intimate and personal- facts of our lives that may make us wonder at times if we are doing justice to our feminist selves was not. It was not even for an hour, but I felt I just got rid of a burden that was dragging my spirit down every now and then. It was also inspiring to learn about the activist journeys of other participants and to engage in extremely fruitful sessions with them over ideas which we believed could contribute towards building a better and safer world for women.
Another fact that captured my attention and touched my heart was that when we were told that we need to be compassionate, and not call out on each other. It is so important to remember that everyone has their own vulnerabilities, and it does not make the person lesser of a feminist. In such situation, calling out on the person only will trigger feelings of exclusion. AGORA emphasized on intersectionality, and practicing solidarity. Living for couple of days with feminists from different backgrounds and different ideologies only showed us how to go about being more compassionate. To make the world a better place for ourselves and for others, we need to be united first and AGORA just showed us the way.
Thank you EWL and all the amazing women I met during the camp. I love you all and I salute your spirit. Much love!
This mode enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode
Improves website's visuals
This mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode
Helps to focus on specific content
This mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode
Reduces distractions and improve focus
This mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode
Allows using the site with your screen-reader
This mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Online Dictionary
Readable Experience
Content Scaling
Default
Text Magnifier
Readable Font
Dyslexia Friendly
Highlight Titles
Highlight Links
Font Sizing
Default
Line Height
Default
Letter Spacing
Default
Left Aligned
Center Aligned
Right Aligned
Visually Pleasing Experience
Dark Contrast
Light Contrast
Monochrome
High Contrast
High Saturation
Low Saturation
Adjust Text Colors
Adjust Title Colors
Adjust Background Colors
Easy Orientation
Mute Sounds
Hide Images
Virtual Keyboard
Reading Guide
Stop Animations
Reading Mask
Highlight Hover
Highlight Focus
Big Dark Cursor
Big Light Cursor
Cognitive Reading
Navigation Keys
Voice Navigation
Accessibility Statement
womenlobby.org
27 April 2025
Compliance status
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience,
regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level.
These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible
to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific
disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML,
adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Screen-reader and keyboard navigation
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with
screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive
a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements,
alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website.
In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels;
descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups),
and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag
for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology.
To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on
as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Disability profiles supported in our website
Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments
Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over seven different coloring options.
Animations – person with epilepsy can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.
Browser and assistive technology compatibility
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Notes, comments, and feedback
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to
