Our Services
We are committed to power-critical work in the not-for-profit sector – because good intentions are not enough when structural inequalities persist.
We question existing power structures and work to dismantle historically rooted inequalities – with the goal of reshaping collaboration within organizations to be fair, humane, and equitable.
Topics such as intersectionality, decoloniality, equality, inclusion, and belonging are not trends for us, but core foundations of our consulting work.
Our services are structured into three key areas:
Research
Trainings and Facilitation
Organizational Development
Research
We design and accompany evaluations, studies, and analyses using a feminist, participatory, and power-critical approach. This includes project evaluations, staff surveys, advocacy reports, and other research-based formats.
Our focus lies in making marginalized perspectives visible, questioning structural power relations, and developing knowledge collaboratively – always in close cooperation with our clients and the communities involved.
Trainings & Facilitation
We offer practice-oriented workshops, trainings, and facilitation on topics such as diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, decoloniality, and anti-discrimination organizational development.
Our formats are designed for leaders, staff, and teams – within the third sector and beyond. Using feminist, intersectional, and power-critical methods, we foster reflection, agency, and lasting change – whether at team retreats, professional conferences, or internal trainings.
Organizational Development
We support diversity-oriented change processes – with a needs-based and process-oriented approach. We develop strategies, policies, and concepts, and provide support from the first conversation to practical implementation and evaluation – including long-term accompaniment.
This includes, among other things, prevention and intervention strategies against discrimination and harassment, mentoring and empowerment programs, monitoring and reporting systems for diversity development, as well as complaint and conflict management systems.
How we work
Our work is characterized by feminist-intersectional approaches. This is reflected in our methodology and the way we cooperate with our customers and in our network.
Methodologically
Methodologically, we work with intersectional-feminist approaches inspired by post-colonial, decolonial and feminist theories. This means, among other things, that we place a special focus on anti-bias approaches, participation processes and inclusion as well as bottom-up processes.
With our clients
We want to provide more than just a service for our clients. We are interested in a meaningful exchange and collaboration, as well as a common project building In practice, this approach always looks different, therefore, we offer tailored services that combine both your interests and our work methods. However, it is important that everyone is involved in the process in order to be effective together.
Network
In our team, we treat each other as equals and encourage all perspectives. Although responsibilities are clearly defined, we have flat hierarchies and appreciate different opinions. For this reason, we always prioritize working in tandems.
Sustainability is particularly important to us. Wherever possible, we avoid travelling by plane, we prioritize using public transport and we mostly work remotely. This is our way of minimizing our carbon footprint. In those cases when it is essential to be on site, we work together with like-minded, locally based, and feminist consultants, trainers, and evaluators.
Our Story
FEIN is the story of the friendship between Alena, Sheyma and Samantha, who have supported, empowered and listened to each other in their decolonial (un)learning processes over the years.
Across multiple migratory movements, different intersecting educational and professional development paths, and different professional experiences and experiences of discrimination, a space for growth, power-sharing, and empowerment emerged.
The idea to found a feminist-intersectional consulting society out of this space and to accompany organizations through consulting, training and research on their paths to power-critical and discrimination-sensitive (international) cooperation was born.
Since August 2023 we are active under the name FEIN and thus bundle our knowledge and experience – together with many other great people we count to our close network.
are grounded in intersectionality, solidarity, and multi-perspectivity. These values guide the way we work with our clients, as well as how we collaborate within our team and with our partners.
We also apply these values when selecting clients, assessing the scope for shaping individual projects, and evaluating the potential of each assignment to contribute to social change.
…is a world in which people and organizations come together to engage critically with power and discrimination, working collaboratively on globally relevant issues and toward just social change.
Through power-critical and multi-perspective consulting services – grounded in a clearly intersectional and feminist approach – we contribute to making this vision a reality.
…is to accompany organizations, teams, and individuals on their journey toward greater justice and power-critical collaboration – step by step toward lasting change.
Consultants play a crucial role in international cooperation: they impart knowledge, moderate processes and plan and evaluate projects and programs. If international cooperation continues as it is, our business must stand out with more innovative and inclusive approaches.
We have actively made the decision to be a for-profit organization because it allows us to work independently, without the often-complicated administrative requirements that are placed on associations in Germany, and to fully concentrate on our work with our customers.
Our Team
Our main team consists of seven people:
Sheyma Arfawi (she/her) is a linguist and political scientist, as well as a systemic organizational consultant, facilitator, and trainer specializing in discrimination-critical work environments and language.
She also leads a project at an organization committed to educational equity, supporting participation projects in daycare centers, schools, and municipalities that take a critical approach to discrimination and racism.
Sheyma is a partner at FEIN.
Dr. Alena Sander (she/her) is a systemic organizational development consultant, trainer, and facilitator, and also a social scientist.
She previously worked for several years in what is commonly referred to as international development cooperation and later completed her PhD in social sciences on the topic of microfeminism.
In addition, Alena is the host of the book podcast “Patriarchy, wtf!? A Podcast on Sexism” and a co-founder of the collective “Dear White Feminists,” a grassroots initiative that provides free anti-racist educational materials.
Alena is a partner at FEIN.
Dr Samantha Ruppel (she/her) is a social scientist, evaluator, presenter and author. She specialises in international partnerships and power imbalances.
Samantha is partner at FEIN.
Maguy Ikulu (she/her) is a jurist and political scientist specializing in equity , diversity and inclusion with an expertise in sustainability, anti-racism, intersectionnality and decolonial approaches.
She has served as DE&I coordinator for the biggest French speaking university in Belgium and as a political councelor for the federal minister of sustainable development in Belgium.
With more than 10 years expertiences in DE&I and SDG she has helped private and public organizations to implemant action plans for inclusion and diversity.
Yara Dampha (she/no pronouns) is a political scientist working in workshop formats and organizational development processes on discrimination, with a focus on anti-Black racism, queerness, masculinity, whiteness, and intersectionality.
Dr. Victoria Scheyer (she/her) is a researcher, trainer, and activist in the field of social justice. She holds a PhD in political science and is a co-founder of the collective “Dear White Feminists,” where she works on anti-racist education.
Luca von Borstel (he/him) is a social scientist working at the intersection of research, civil society and the political sphere. His research focuses on qualitative social research into intersectional inequalities, power structures and processes of social polarisation.
References
Here's what people we've worked with have to say about us:
Publications
Many of our projects and studies, as well as almost all our scientific publications, are available for free:
Samantha Ruppel, 2023.
Alena Sander, Victoria Scheyer, Lucas Steinbach, Kimberly Vindas, 2023.
Samantha Ruppel & Lucas Steinbach, 2023.
Samantha Ruppel & Julia Leib, 2023.
Isabelle Eberz, Samantha Ruppel, Neringa Tumėnaitė, 2023.
Samantha Ruppel, Bernd Rieche, Debey Sayndee, T., Christoph Schlimpert & María Requena López, 2023.
Elena Aoun, Lyla André & Alena Sander, 2023.
Our Voices, Our Choices Podcast Series der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, 2023
Contact
Lust bekommen, mit uns zu arbeiten – oder einfach nur eine Frage? Kontaktieren Sie uns gern über unser Kontaktformular: