Personal experiences with cancer treatment, living with HIV, postpartum depression, or pregnancy loss can help others. How? This will be discussed at the Equal Fest.

Peer counselors are individuals with unique personal experiences who help others who are just facing similar challenges. This could include the experience of a serious illness, the loss of a loved one, the unique challenges of motherhood, and so on—there are more than 20 different areas in total. Peer counseling does not replace the work of doctors or psychologists—it is not a job, but a volunteer activity coordinated by specialized charitable organizations, such as the co-organizers of the Equal Fest.

This year, the Equal Fest will be held in a combined format for the first time: a professional conference for peer educators and NGOs will take place on October 31st, and five multi-format events for a variety of audiences will be held from October 14th to 28th. The festival will thus demonstrate how personal experience—even the most traumatic—can be transformed into a tool for change. Through stories, stand-up comedy, workshops, and discussions, people can learn to understand their own experiences, share them safely and ethically, and turn them into a public resource.

The festival program includes:

October 14 – Stand-up comedy "Legalizing Conversations About Complex Issues" on women and motherhood. Speakers include comedian, actress, and social entrepreneur Elena Novikova, as well as peer counselor and mother of many children Yulia Kovrova. Venue: Stand-Up Cafe, 16 Pokrovka Street.

October 22 – Workshop "Personal Experience as a Way to Draw Attention to a Social Problem," featuring Miroslava Sergienko, founder and president of the Onkologika Foundation. Venue: Online.

October 24 — workshop "I Want to Become Equal," featuring Ekaterina Fryshkina, director of the Motherhood Support Center "Mama's Soul." Venue: online.

October 25 – “We Want to Tell You About You” workshop on media relations Speakers include Natalia Rodikova, editor-in-chief of "Novoye Ochag," and Maria Passer, editor of the T-Zh program "Kto Pomoshch." Venue: online.

October 28 — discussion "Cinema as a Driver of Social Change" featuring Yulia Snigir and Evgeny Tsyganov, showrunners Alexey Kiselev (Psycho, Actresses, Ballet, Happy End, Mama's Son) and Paulina Andreeva (Psycho, Actresses, Mama's Son), and director Alexander Alyabyev (Mama's Son). Venue: offline.

October 31 – Professional conference for NGOs, peer counseling awards ceremony, and a headline lecture in Ted Talk format. Speaker: Nyuta Federmesser, founder and director of the Vera Hospice Foundation. Venue: offline, Boiling point Timiryazevka, st. Larch alley, 2, bldg. 1.

A detailed program is available on the festival website . Participation is free on all days, with advance registration required.