Lab 6 – The age of global protest: how to get our voice heard?
7 November 2023 - 14.30-16.30 / Room 9 Palais de l'Europe
Interpretation FR/EN
Sponsored by the Conference of the INGOs
As global inequalities are widening, so is global discontent. In many societies, politicians pray on these, by scapegoating certain groups for their electoral gains.
Many once stable democracies suffer from decline of quality of public discourse, coupled with normalisation of the hate speech, thus paving the way for human rights abuses. Activists, countering attacks on very foundations of our democracies, human rights, and the rule of law, are usually among the prime targets of both new and old forms of repression. How to louden the voices which are currently not heard? Which mechanisms can best ensure protection of the activists? If inequalities are global, can globalisation of struggles for peace make them more effective?
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Interview with Aidan KOHN-MURPHY, Founder, Gen-Z for Change, USA
Ubuntu Hub Cities - African Defenders
UGANDA
African Defenders (also known as the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network) is dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights defenders (HRDs) across the African continent. Launched in 2019, the Ubuntu Hub Cities Initiative is an African-based temporary relocation mechanism for HRDs at risk, including writers, scholars, lawyers, journalists, trade union workers, artists and activists. The initiative enables HRDs who have been subject to threats, violence, and extreme pressure as a consequence of their human rights work to temporarily relocate. Relocation allows them to be safe while enabling them to continue their work. Through their diverse local partnerships, relocation also provides an opportunity for HRDs at risk to learn and share experiences, so that they can have a positive impact on the host community and return home with enhanced capacities to protect and promote human rights. The initiative tackles issues of cultural displacement, stigmatisation, language-barriers, and integration, providing a durable option that combines safety, rest and respite, and opportunities for continued activism.
Presenter(s)
Nandini Tanya LALLMON
Management Committee Member, Ubuntu Hub Cities
Uganda
Nandini Tanya Lallmon is a research scholar at the University of Malta, where she is developing methodologies to bridge the gap between policy and practice pertaining to minority rights. Appointed as African Youth Charter Hustler for Mauritius by the African Union Office of the Youth Envoy, she empowers marginalised groups to safeguard their fundamental freedoms by adopting a decolonial perspective on human rights. At SouthernDefenders, she strives to create learning, dialogue and development spaces that are diverse, inclusive and transformative.
Gen-Z for Change
USA
Gen-Z for Change (GZ4C) is a collective of Gen-Z activists that leverage the power of social media to educate their generation, encourage and mobilize civic participation, shift the political debate, and enact change. They’re the place where the creator economy and progressive politics intersect on social media. Since their launch in 2020, they have become the dominant force targeted towards young people for organizing online the progressive movement. With over 1.7+ million followers on their social media platforms, over 153 million+ views, and a coalition of creators with hundreds of millions of combined followers, they know that their content is reaching the widest audience possible AND driving young people to take action. They’ve supported a variety of progressive campaigns, from union solidarity and fighting abortion bans to holding social media companies accountable for their role in spreading disinformation. Their leaders have been on the forefront of digital organizing, raising over $2m+ for abortion funds around the country and discussing the future of democracy with President Obama. Through our 2022 electoral work, they launched effective creator activations that generated a total of over 26 million+ views and supported many crucial campaigns with various celebrities and lawmakers.
Presenter(s)
Aidan KOHN-MURPHY
Founder, Gen-Z for Change
USA
Aidan Kohn-Murphy is a 19-year-old political organizer, born and raised in Washington DC, and now a freshman at Harvard University. Dubbed “an unlikely leader of America’s largest and fastest-growing progressive media empire” by Politico, he is the Founder of Gen-Z for Change and served as Executive Director for almost two years before transitioning to his current role as Senior Advisor. Aidan has nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok and was selected as a member of the Forbes under 30 Class of 2023.
CERITA Caravan
UNITED KINGDOM
The organisation works on a project-to-project basis in the field of social cohesion, peacebuilding, and conflict transformation and prevention. CERITA Caravan is a social cohesion and anti-polarization project powered through social media to amplify citizen voices through storytelling. Its main goal is to inspire influencers, stakeholders, and community members with a passion for building positive intercultural and intercommunity relations and equip them with storytelling and dialogue skills to do so. The CERITA Caravan method engages and empowers political, civic, social, religious, and cultural spheres by creating opportunities to engage and explore the ways in which different cultures, religious beliefs, worldviews, and identities interact. Their participants are mostly 18-40 year old urban influencers, but they have also worked with youth, CSOs and foundations, as well as the public and private sectors.
Presenter(s)
Abdul REHMAN MALIK
Co-Director, CERITA Caravan
Abdul-Rehman Malik is an award-winning journalist, educator, cultural organizer. His work at the intersection of faith, culture and social change has spanned the globe – Pakistan, Sudan, Indonesia, Tunisia, Mali, The Netherlands, the UK and beyond. Abdul-Rehman is a Lecturer at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Jackson School for Global Affairs. He is a founder of the Caravanserai Collective whose Cerita Caravan program has provided narrative strategies and training to storytellers and civil society actors to support vital interfaith and inter-cultural peacebuilding work in conflict and post-conflict contexts around the world. A veteran contributor to BBC Radio and other international media, he is also host of the Aga Khan Museum’s popular podcast This Being Human.
Advocating for inclusive governance of refugees and asylum seekers in the greater Durban metropolitan, Kwazulu natal province, South Africa - DEMOCRACY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (DDP)
SOUTH AFRICA
The organization supports the meaningful participation of all citizens, civil society, marginalized populations (asylum seekers, refugees, women, people living with disabilities, and youth, etc), and political parties in consolidating democracy in South Africa. The project seeks to advocate for inclusive governance where refugees and asylum seekers are recognized and included in the local governance structures in the various communities where they live in the greater Durban Metropolitan. The goal of the project is to facilitate African migrants' participation in local governance processes in the selected townships in the greater Durban Metropolitan, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The project targets refugees and asylum seekers living in the greater Durban metropolitan, where there are several local governance structures known as ward committees whose main objective is to provide community members to engage with their elected political representative about their challenges and aspirations.
Presenter(s)
Samuel Paul KINYUA KARIUKI
Executive Director of the Democracy Development Program (DDP)
South Africa
Dr. Paul Kariuki holds a Ph.D. in Administration from the University of KwaZulu Natal. He is the Executive Director of the Democracy Development Program (DDP), a national non-profit organization and think tank based in Durban, South Africa. Moreover, he is an honorary senior lecturer at the School of Management, IT, and Governance, UKZN. His research interests are in governance, digital transformation, public participation, elections, electronic governance, local government, migration, cybersecurity, emerging technologies as well as monitoring and evaluation in the public sector. He has published research articles in peer-reviewed journals and co-edited more than twelve books. Furthermore, he is a guest reviewer of several journals in Africa and abroad. Additionally, he is a regular contributor to various social and political issues in the mainstream electronic and print media in South Africa and abroad.
Discussants are invited to take part in the Labs in order to share their experience with the presented democratic initiatives and try to bring broader perspectives to the following discussions.
Jhih - Ping (Justin) HUANG
Youth delegate
Taiwan
Justin Huang is a democracy activist from Taiwan. He has organized rallies in support of the Hong Kong democracy movement on university campus and advocated for Hongkongers’ rights in Taiwan. In his previous role at the National Democratic Institute in Taiwan, he has collaborated closely with democracy activists from across Southeast Asia to discuss and act upon critical issues strengthening democratic governance in the region. He believes that the current trend of democratic backsliding can be countered by building solidarity between democracy activists from around the world. Justin holds a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is currently a master’s student at the London School of Economics studying Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics.
Marko LONČAR
Member of the Council of Europe Advisory Council on Youth
Marko Lončar was born in 1998 in Teslić, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). He graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Banja Luka, BiH, and has a master’s degree in European Studies from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Serbia. He founded Youth Club Teslić, a youth organization in his hometown, and served as its president for five years. He represents the Youth Council of Republika Srpska, one of youth umbrella organizations from BiH, in the Advisory Board on Youth of the Council of Europe. He is also a member of the municipal assembly's Committee for Youth and Population Policy in his hometown.
Gerhard ERMISCHER
President of the Conference of INGOs