Community Activism

Shahjehan Aapa grew up near Delhi in extreme poverty. In the late 1970s, her young daughter was burned alive because of dowry harassment, a tragedy that moved her to social activism. She helped found Shakti Shalini in 1987, an NGO that addresses gender-based violence by working both with individuals and with the broader community. The GFP staff note with sadness Shahjehan's death in September of 2013 after an accident on her way to Mahela Panchayat.
Keywords: feminist conferences, gender-based violence, community activism
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Professor Binta Abdulkarim was born on February 10, 1956, in Anchau, a town east of Zaria, in Kaduna State, northern Nigeria. She is the Coordinator of Gender Studies, at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and is also Director of Girl Child Education there. She received her degree in Geography from Ahmadu Bello University and along with her leadership role in Gender Studies at ABU which began in 2003, she teaches courses in the Department of Geography and in the Faculty of Science Education. Her special interest in the education and well-being of women at ABU has led to her participation in ASUU (the Academic Staff Union of Universities) as financial secretary, in the National Association of University Women (Nigeria), and in the federal Anti-Corruption Unit, as the university representative who oversees sexual harassment cases at Ahmadu Bello University. She is also an active participant in the World Association of Victimology and has attended association meetings in Nairobi, Amsterdam, and Nigeria, where she contributed to discussions of the victims of weather extremes and the after-effects of war.

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, environment

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi was born in 1971 in Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria. Akiyode-Afolabi studied law at the Obafemi Awolowo University. She received her LLM from the Notre Dame School of Law in the US and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London where she specialized in women’s peace and security studies. In 2002, she established the Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC), a not-for-profit focused on maternal and reproductive health advocacy, gender-based violence, and social justice. She also teaches International Humanitarian Law at the University of Lagos. Akiyoda-Afolabi organized grassroot networks connecting women in Nigeria. Such networks have been established in colleges across Nigeria. Read #Womanifesto: What Nigerian Women Want, an important document in Nigerian women’s movement efforts that Akiyode-Afolabi collaborated on, here.

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, environment

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Alice Biagi was born in Modena in 1984. She received her Laurea Triennale in Communication Science at the Alma Mater Studiorum Bologna. She currently works as the school and training coordinator at Cassero, and is also a swim instructor. She has been an activist at Cassero LGBTI center since 2007.

Keywords: LGBTQ+ rights, community activism

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English)

Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) was an activist and writer. A daughter of Chinese immigrants, she moved to Detroit and worked in grassroots projects together with her partner, James Boggs. They founded Detroit Summer, an intergenerational multicultural youth movement, and wrote in the Michigan Citizen newspaper. She published her autobiography, Living for Change, and among others, received the distinguished Alumna Award from Barnard College, the Chinese American Pioneers Award from the Organization of Chinese Americans, and a lifetime achievement award from the Anti-Defamation League. A plaque in her honor is at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. The GFP staff were saddened by Grace's death in 2015. Read the NYT obituary to learn more about her remarkable life, spanning a full century, as a human rights activist.
Keywords: gender and health, community activism, education, intersectionality, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Susana Chavez Alvarado, born in 1959, has a master’s in Public Health from Cayetano Heredia University. She is an obstetrician graduated from the National University of San Marcos and a specialist in sexual and reproductive health public policy. Susana is a founder, member, President, and Executive director of Promsex, a non-profit organization with a focus on sexual and reproductive rights that reflects a dignity, justice, and equity approach. She is also an executive secretary of the Latin American Consortium against Unsafe Abortion (Consorcio Latinoamericano contra el Aborto Inseguro, CLACAI). She has significant experience in the development of programming and scholarship around sexual and reproductive health and gendered violence. Along with her level of expertise in the field of sexual and reproductive health, Chavez has a particular interest in helping adolescent and child mothers navigate pregnancy. Her work with these adolescent and child mothers includes advocating for abortion rights. Susana is a widely published scholar in the field of Women and Politics Research, Human Rights, and Health Policymaking, collaborating with other researchers in various studies. She has authored, co-authored, and edited several books, including Life Histories of Women Who Experienced An Abortion Because Of Sexual Violence (2015), Stories To Avoid Forgetting: Violence In Relation To Adolescents’ Maternal Mortality, a qualitative study in Peru 2012-2014 (2015), Border spaces: Encounters between social services and health needs of women in La Pampa (2017), and Perceptions About Sexual And Reproductive Rights In Adolescents (2007), among others. Susana has published several studies in academic journals. She has also been an instructor of Health Public Policy with the Institute for Citizenship and Democracy (Instituto Ciudadanía y Democracia).

Keywords: community activism, reproductive rights

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Sandra Coney is a feminist, women’s health advocate, writer, environmentalist, and local body politician. She was one of the founders of Broadstreet feminist magazine and the advocacy group Women’s Health Action. In 1987, with Phillida Bunkle, she wrote the Metro magazine article ‘An Unfortunate Experiment at National Women’s’ that led to the Cervical Cancer Inquiry (also known as the Cartwright Inquiry) in 1987-88 and, subsequently, to significant reforms in health consumers’ rights. She wrote a regular column of political and social comment for New Zealand newspaper the Sunday-Times between 1986 and 2002, and has won both the Qantas Senior Feature Writers’ Award and the Jubilee Prize for Investigative Journalism. Sandra has written or edited over 18 books, including the major Suffrage Centennial publication Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women Since They Won the Vote (1993), and Stroppy Sheilas and Gutsy Girls: New Zealand Women of Dash and Daring (2004). Since 2001 she has been a councillor and board member in Auckland local government, serving on the Waitematā District Health Board for 10 years, and currently on the Waitākere Ranges Local Board; her particular interest is centered on parks and the environment. 

Keywords: community activism, gender and health, intersectionality

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

JD Davids, born in 1967, is a US-based health justice and communications strategist working with national networks of disabled and chronically ill people. He co-founded Strategies for High Impact and its Network for Long COVID Justice in 2021. Davids has been an external expert advisor to the NIH, CDC, and local health departments, and has served as a strategist and organizer with many pivotal groups, including ACT UP Philadelphia, AVAC, the Coalition for a National HIV/AIDS Strategy, Health GAP, the Health Not Prisons Collective, the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, Positive Women’s Network – USA and the U.S. Caucus of People Living with HIV. As a queer and trans person living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Long COVID and other complex chronic conditions, he writes and hosts conversations for The Cranky Queer Guide to Chronic Illness (@TheCrankyQueer), sits on the board of #MEAction and is a contributing member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, which released the first comprehensive study on Long COVID. 

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, community activism, disability rights, gender and health, international rights

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, born in Lagos in 1966, is a specialist in gender and development and a human rights advocate. She received her B.A. in English, and her M.A. in development studies with a special focus on women’s issues, from the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, the Netherlands. She worked for a few years for the Constitutional Rights Project (CRP), and then in 1999 established Project Alert on Violence Against Women, a not-for-profit that addresses gender-informed abuses The Project provides counseling, advocacy, and temporary shelter for abused persons. The organization opened the first shelter for abused/assaulted women and girls in Nigeria in 2001.

Keywords: community activism, gender-based violence, reform of domestic/family roles, environment, feminist conferences

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Sabrina Othman Faraji is an entrepreneur, fashion designer and activist working to promote welfare of rural women through women economic empowerment programs such as tailoring courses. She has a diploma in Business Management & Public Administration from the State University of Zanzibar, Tanzania.  In her work, Faraji encourages entrepreneurship skills among women living with HIV, and recruits some of the trained women into her own enterprise (Kanga Kabisa). She also coordinates the Zanzibar International Film Festival, and many community-based activities (e.g. Marathon, beach clean-up, women empowerment workshops, hand-made crafts exhibitions for the annual Women’s Panorama of the Zanzibar International Film Festival.  Faraji is the recipient of several awards including Business Woman of the Year by Zanzibar Ministry of Trade, Best Social Venture Award by the Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and Outstanding Community Service Award by the Zanzibar International Film Festival.

Keywords: education, community activism, reform of domestic/family roles

Media: Transcript (Swahili, English), YouTube Video (Swahili, English)

Lourdes Huanca Atencio, born in 1968, is founder and president of the National Federation of Female Peasants, Artisans, Indigenous, Native and Salaried Workers of Peru (FENMUCARINAP). The organization was founded in 2006 with the purpose of defending and fighting for the rights of women in Perú. Rooted in an ancestral cosmovisión (or worldview) of their indigenous communities, a central struggle has been the fight for their subsistence, in maintaining land, water and seed sovereignty. The main goals include: (1) control and defense of the territory of the female body, which is often violated; (2) the political, economic, social and cultural empowerment of women who sustain society, yet whose work and contributions are not recognized; (3) defending the sovereignty of indigenous women’s subsistence, which is land, water and seeds, because a campesina (or rural woman) without those things has no choice but to move to city where she then becomes extremely impoverished.  Lourdes is one of five women promoters of human rights who were recognized by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Perú during a ceremony held in the framework of the commemoration of International Women's Day in March 2020. She has also participated in numerous UN initiatives (e.g., as a regular participant in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and is also a member of the Fund for the Development of Indigenous People of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC).

Keywords: community activism, rural women and land reform

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles) Name Pronunciation Audio

Interviewee Photo Credit

Ngozi Iwere, born in 1956, has pursued work in language teaching, journalism and communications, but describes herself as primarily an activist. Through her contributions to the United Nations Expert Strategy Meeting on HIV/AIDS and Gender preparatory to the UN General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, the Expert Strategy Meeting on HIV/AIDS as a security issue, and UNAIDS Consultative Meeting on Communication for Social Change, she played key roles at the national and global levels in shaping policies on HIV/AIDS. She developed a model program for HIV/AIDS Prevention that targets and involves the entire community, which earned her an Ashoka Fellowship.

Keywords: community activism, gender and health, reform of domestic/family roles, feminist conferences

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Maimuna Kanyamala was born in 1956, and is an activist, entrepreneur and feminist who has actively campaigned for women’s rights in Tanzania. She has translated her feminist activism to the grassroots level, while also bringing it to the national level policy platform. She was one of the co-founders and the first Executive Director of Kivulini Women’s Rights Organizations. Kivulini means "in the shade/shelter" and is intended to imply a safe place where women, men, and children feel supported. The organization seeks to address the root causes of domestic violence by working closely with community members and leaders to change attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate violence against women. In 2011 she was awarded ‘Tanzania Women of Courage’ by the US Embassy Tanzania in recognition of her efforts in challenging gender-based violence and promoting women’s rights in Tanzania. Scaling up her efforts on women rights, she has partnered with national, and international feminist groups in Canada and Ireland to build global solidarity on shared issues of violence against women, HIV/AIDS and poverty. In 2012 she stepped down from her leadership role in Kivulini and turned to founding MikonoYetu. MikonoYetu means “joining our hands” in Kiswahili, the national language of Tanzania. MikonoYetu is a women-led-non-profit organization based in Mwanza, Tanzania. She is a think tank member in the Ending Violence against Women and Girls group. She is currently working to develop a comprehensive history of African women, and ultimately establish a women’s history museum in Mwanza, Tanzania. 

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, education, feminist conferences, gender-based violence, international rights

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Yelena Viktorovna Kochkina, born in 1956, began working in gender research in 1990. Her work focuses on a gender analysis of legal reform in Russia, structural adjustment programs and the implementation of equal opportunity policies in Russia, as well as gender in the Russian education system. She is a research fellow and professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Studies of the Population at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords: academia and women's studies, politics and the law, intersectionality, community activism, reform of domestic/family roles, feminist conferences
Media: Transcript (English, Russian), YouTube Video (English, Russian), Name Pronunciation Audio

Anna Meela Kulaya was born in 1975 in Tanzania, and has spent almost twenty years serving her community through her work in the legal sector especially on issues around gender-based violence in the community and workplace. She holds LLB and Master of Law degrees from the University of Dar es Salaam.  She is an advocate of the High Court of the United Republic of Tanzania. She began working for Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) as a legal officer and subsequently held various positions within the same organization; she is currently the National Coordinator of WiLDAF Tanzania. Kulaya serves on various boards, and coordinates the 16 Days of Activism Campaign against GBV in Tanzania and its national campaign. She was the chairperson of the Legal Aid Committee of the Tanganyika Law Society, and is currently serving in a network for legal aid providers (TANLAP), and in the Tanzania Association of Non- Governmental Organizations (TANGO), an association with more than 100 Civil Society Organizations. She also leads Her Initiatives, a dynamic organization advocating for young women rights, chairperson of My Legacy and currently serves as a chairperson of CSO’S Women Directors Forum, which brings together more than 50 women Directors from the non-governmental organizations advocating for gender equality and women empowerment. She is also a member of the Committee of GBV Multi-Sectoral COORDINATED by the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHDEC).  She is also a member of the Tanganyika Law Society.

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, gender-based violence, community activism

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Fiona Lowenstein, born in 1993, is an award-winning independent journalist, producer, and speaker, covering health justice, wellness culture, LGBTQ+ issues and more. Their work has appeared in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, Vox, The Guardian, and Business Insider, among other publications. Fiona is the founder of Body Politic – home of the original Long COVID support group. They are also the editor of the recently published anthology, THE LONG COVID SURVIVAL GUIDE, out November 2022 from The Experiment. Photo credit: JJ Geiger

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, community activism, disability rights, gender and health, intersectionality, media

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Reiko Masai, founder and Executive Director of NPO Women’s Net Kobe, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, the first group in Japan to call attention to disaster-related gender-based violence and published reports documenting women’s experiences, including Women talk about the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (English translation available at https://wn-kobe.or.jp/bosai/eng/index.html). For over thirty years, Ms. Masai has worked to promote women’s rights and gender equality in Japan. In 2007, she launched Disaster & Gender Information Network, the first initiative of its kind in Japan, and co-founded Women's Network for East Japan Disaster in 2011 (http://risetogetherjp.org/?cat=46), also the first of its kind, advocating for more inclusive disaster response. For her tenacious activism, she has received numerous awards, including Kato Shizue Award in 2003 and the Champion of Change Japan Award from the Fish Family Foundation in 2018.   

Keywords: gender-based violence, community activism, gender and health

Media: Transcript (English, Japanese), YouTube Video (Japanese, English Subtitles)

Lia Migale, writer and economist, was born in 1949 and lives in Rome, where she was a professor of Business Economics at the “La Sapienza” University in Rome until the 2014/2015 academic year. She was a consultant on issues of the economics of art and planning and business strategy for Italian and international organizations. She also worked as an economic editor in the national press for a long period and published various economic essays. Feminist since the 1970s, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Casa internazionale delle Donne di Roma from 2014 to 2019. She has published several works on Italian feminism, including “Piccola storia del femminismo in Italia” (Empiria, Roma, 2016), and “Imprenditoria femminile e sviluppo economico”, (Nuova Italia Scientifica, Roma, 1996). She has also published novels, short stories, and other essays. With the novel L’innumerevole uno (Iacobelli Editore, Roma, 2018) she was the winner of the 2018 Capalbio Award. Her latest novel, “Incontri all’angolo di un mattino” was published in 2018 (La Lepre Edizioni Roma) and received one of the awards from L’IGUANA, Castello di Prata Sannita in  2019. 

Keywords: media, community activism, intersectionality, LGBTQ+ rights, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Penina O. Mhando Mlama was born in Morogoro in 1948; she is a scholar, gender activist, analyst and practitioner of popular theatre in Tanzania, a playwright. She studied at University of Dar es Salaam (BA (Hons) Education), MA Theatre in Education and PhD. Mlama joined the department of theatre arts at the University of Dar es Salaam upon graduating. She is one of the few female writers published in Swahili language in the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s. She was the first female Deputy Vice Chancellor – Academic at the University of Dar es Salaam. She pioneered several initiatives to increase admission and performance for female students at the University of Dar es Salaam, and was the co-founder of the TUSEME1 (speak out) empowerment model for gender equality for both primary and secondary schools. She joined the Forum for African Educationalists (FAWE) as an Executive Director and founded and led a progressive program on supporting access, retention and performance for girls. 

She has published her plays as well as many scholarly works, including works aimed at supporting activists.

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, education

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Giordana Moreira, born in 1980, is a human rights activist and has been working in the arts as a cultural producer since the-mid 2000s. In 2011 she created Roque Pense!, a network of women cultural producers that promotes projects and festivals through music and graffiti arts to raise awareness about women’s rights and to celebrate women’s artistic work.
Keywords: gender-based violence, art/writing as activism, community activism
Media: Transcript (English, Portuguese), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English) Name Pronunciation Audio

Maanda Ngoitiko was born in 1972 in Tanzania in a traditional pastoralist homestead, and grew up moving with her family and cattle. She refused early marriage efforts on her behalf, and pursued an education instead. She completed her secondary education in Dar Es Salaam; and continued to study for a diploma in Management of Community Development Programs, Arusha Tanzania. She received a further advanced diploma in Development Studies and Planning from Kimmage Development Studies Centre, Dublin, Ireland. Finally, she received a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Kenyatta University in Nairobi Kenya. Ngoitiko is a gender activist and a feminist who has advocating for equity, justice and the rights of Maasai women and girls. Along with 9 other pastoralist women, she founded the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), and she has been the Executive Director since then. She has been a councillor of the ruling political party (CCM) at the Ngorongoro District, in Arusha region since 1998. She is also an Education Coordinator for Soitsambu Cultural Learning Program under Lewis and Clarke University. She was a chairperson for the Ngorongoro District Council (2009 -2012). She sits on various boards of secondary schools, Hospital and CSOs in her home district of Ngorongoro. 

Keywords: community activism, gender and health, rural women and land reform

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Tania Pariona Tarqui, born in 1984, is an indigenous activist, Quechua leader, feminist, politician, human rights activist and former Congressperson. As an activist, she works to establish social equality for indigenous youth and women. She began her community work with National Movement of Organized Working Children and Adolescents of Peru (MNNATSOP), an overarching umbrella for many children’s working groups. She was chosen as a Latin American delegate and had her first experience of international representation at age 15 at the “World Summit for Children” at the United Nations in New York. She studied Social Work at the San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, graduating in 2009, and then Human Development at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima. She went on to work with the Centre for Indigenous Cultures of Peru (CHRIAPAQ), collaborating on several projects aimed at indigenous youth and women nationally and internationally. In 2010, with Andean and Amazonian sisters, she helped form the Organización Nacional de Mujeres Andinas y Amazónicas de Perú, (ONAMIAP) that promotes the participation of indigenous women and fulfillment of their individual and collective rights. She was the first youth secretary for ONAMIAP. She was elected to the Peruvian Congress in 2016 by the Broad Front for Justice, Life and Freedom, coalition of political parties. In September 2017, she joined the New Peru movement. From 2018-2019, she was the president of the Commission on Women and Family, which promoted the first thematic plenary session focused on a women’s agenda and equality between men and women. Her parliamentary work was dedicated to the defense of the rights of indigenous and native peoples against mining companies, the human right to water and reparations for the victims of the armed conflict, and working against impunity of the perpetrators of crimes, including compulsory sterilization under Alberto Fujimori's government. She is currently assuming responsibility for the Indigenous Women’s Program in CHIRAPAQ and has concerns for the indigenous populations of the Sierra and jungle coast, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: community activism, gender-based violence, indigenous issues, reproductive rights, rural women and land reform

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Interviewee Photo Credit

Olutola Oluyemisi Ransome-Kuti was born in 1947 in a family deeply engaged in the political life of Nigeria. Ransome-Kuti was educated in both the United Kingdom and Nigeria, where she earned degrees in business management, aesthetics, counseling, and human resources management. She was involved in the struggle for democracy in Nigeria and was arrested and sent to prison on her way to attend the Beijing Women’s Conference (1995). Ransome Kuti founded the Nigeria Network of NGOs, an umbrella organization that coordinates and regulates the activities of NGOs in Nigeria. She once ran Girl Watch, an organization that focused on educating young Nigerian girls from low socio-economic backgrounds. In 2006, the World Bank appointed her as the civil society advisor on Nigeria’s working groups on millennium development goals and poverty eradication.

Keywords: politics and the law, community activism, environment

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Mary Rusimbi was born in 1953 in Tanzania. She holds a BA in education (University of Dar es Salaam), and a Masters in Community Education (University of New Zealand). 

She is a gender activist, policy analyst, and feminist, who has translated feminist principles in organizational culture. She is a co-founder of civil society organizations and women’s rights organizations in Tanzania, such as Tanzania Gender Networking Program (TGNP), Women Fund Tanzania Trust (WFT-T), Foundation for Civil Society (FCS); Tanzania Gender Networking Program (TGNP), HAKIELIMU, Women Fund Tanzania Trust (WFT-T); and UZIKWASA-Pangani and Tabata Development Fund (TDF). She served in various national, regional and international boards including Tanzania Gender Networking Programme, Foundation for Civil Society, Research for Poverty Alleviation, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre, and Partnership Africa Canada (Canada).  She has produced many publications. She brings rich experience to the women’s rights movements, and has worked with government, bilateral, multilateral and NGOs in the region and beyond. 

Keywords: community activism, gender and health, politics and the law

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Sista II Sista is a Brooklyn-wide, community-based organization located in New York. It is a collective of working class young and adult Black and Latino women building together to model a society based on liberation and love. The organization is dedicated to working with young women of color to develop personal, spiritual and collective power, and is involved in a variety of projects, including The Freedom School for Young Women of Color, The Big Mouth Project, and Sista Liberated Ground.
Keywords: community activism, gender-based violence, intersectionality
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Katherine Soto Torres, born in 1993, studied Sociology at the Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal and is currently completing a Master's in Public Policy at the Universidad Católica-Peru. She is the daughter of migrants and the first in her family to have access to a college education. Kate is a young activist, recognized by the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations for her work with Carabayllo youth through her club of girls SULANS (Siempre Unidas Lograremos Alcanzar Nuestros Sueños; United Always We Will Reach our Dreams), which works to create safe and empowering spaces for young girls. Among other awards, Katherine received the “Order of Merit for Women” from Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra in 2018, in recognition of her social work in the promotion of women's rights and the fight for gender equality. Kate founded Mujeres Desaparecidos Perú (Missing Women-Peru), an organization that reports cases of missing women and girls and was born out of the disappearance of her friend Solsiret Rodríguez, who is still unaccounted for. Kate is also the coordinator of the CHIRAPAQ, a Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú project that promotes the affirmation of identity and the recognition of indigenous rights in the exercise of citizenship, with a special commitment to indigenous children, youth and women.

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, community activism, sex work

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Interviewee Photo Credit

Ruth Vanita, born in 1955, is an author and professor at the University of Montana, where she teaches courses in the Humanities, Literature, and Women's Studies. She was formerly a reader in English at Miranda House and the English department, Delhi University. She is one of the founding co-editors of Manushi, India's first feminist journal.
Keywords: education, gender-based violence, LGBTQ rights, community activism, academia and women's studies
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Shirley Villela, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1964, began her professional work in gender issues while living for three years in the USA, volunteering at the International Gender and Trade Network. Since 2012, she has been the Coordinator of the Maré de Sabores project, a vocational training project for women in Rio.
Keywords: feminist conferences, community activism, education
Media: Transcript (English, Portuguese), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Giovana Xavier (interviewed with Elizabeth Viana) was born in 1979 in Irajá. She is a professor of History at The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. As a black intersectional feminist, Giovana situates her activism in the academy, especially through her work with black students at the university. At the last contact, she was involved in the project “Black Professors in the First Person: History Teaching and Activist Research.”
Keywords: community activism, racial identity, academia and women's studies
Media: Transcript (English, Portuguese), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio