Webinar: “Activist Leadership in the COVID Crisis: Lessons for Human Rights”
Katie Dwyer
This webinar is part of our series of Covid programs, designed to address current events while also providing opportunities to engage in critical Human Rights education while the pandemic restricts our ability to gather.
Friday, December 18, 2020
Hosted by
Dr. Hugo Slim
Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) at the Blavatnik School of Government.
Dr. David Mwambari
Lecturer in African Security and Leadership Studies at the African Leadership Centre,
King's College London
Program Description
A new wave of community activists, of all ages, has swept across all countries in response to the COVID crisis. Stepping up to lead from the onset, some supported those who became sick. Others provided important social and economic support to people severely affected by lockdown, isolation and deepening poverty. All of them had to work within the new operational imperative of social distance to reduce viral transmission. Mutual aid and neighborhood action was accelerated and innovated in the formation of new activist groups and the re-purposing of others. Parents became frontline educators. Family members became 24/7 careers. Every person experienced crisis in some way and was called to respond as a resilient individual and community member alike.
In this webinar you will hear what that means for the many activists working to improve conditions for others both before and during the pandemic, as well as how lessons learnt may change the face of future human rights activism. We will hear from four young activists from around the world who will share how they have adapted their strategy under COVID and their thoughts on what has changed along the way. These four inspiring activists will be Aaron Hughes, a doctoral student and mutual aid organizer at Oxford University; Wai Wai Nu, founder of the Women’s Peace Network from Myanmar; Wawira Njiru, founder and director of the Kenyan NGO Food 4 Education; and Secunda Joseph, community organizer and activist with ImagiNoir/BLMHTX and Project Curate of Houston, Texas.
