Feminism in India in collaboration with the Swedish Institute is bringing to you ‘Advocacy, Passion & Beyond: Voices from the SI Leader Lab’, a podcast that explores various ways in which activists across the world have taken on the challenge and have used digital tools to continue doing the work they do.
In this four-episode podcast, we speak with leaders and activists across Eastern Europe, South Asia, and the MENA region who are alumni of the SI Leader Lab leadership programme, to understand the challenges they have faced in the past years and how they have worked around the Covid limitations to continue the fight for social justice. The podcast aims to engage with the stories and ideas of leaders and activists from across the world and get inspiration for creating effective advocacy.
The podcast was conceptualised by Ulrika Engström, programme manager for SI Leader Lab.
We have so many brilliant people in our network. With this podcast, we wanted to deep dive into important topics like how powerful stories and campaigns can mobilise and create change and how we can counter gender-based disinformation and create resilience. We hope that this platform will be an opportunity to share knowledge and experiences to also inspire other change makers working for sustainable development around the globe.
Ulrika Engström
The podcast will be hosted by Japleen Pasricha. Japleen is the founder-CEO of Feminism in India, a digital bilingual feminist media platform based in India. She is also a Swedish Institute alumni.
It was an absolute pleasure to work on this podcast with Ulrika and the Swedish Institute alumni from across regions. I got to learn so much about their work and the challenges they face in their countries. I hope that we can continue such important conversations in the future as well.
Japleen Pasricha
Our guests include Swedish institute alumni across several batches. For the first episode, we have Anna Susarenco from Moldova and Srishti Bakshi from India. Anna is a consultant on Global Citizenship Education and advocacy at UNESCO while Srishti is the founder of WOMB Women of my Billion and the co-founder of MOWO fleet. In this episode, we talk about how powerful stories can mobilise and create change.
For the second episode, we have Noura Aljizawi from Syria and Hira Amjad from Pakistan. Noura is a researcher at the Citizen Lab at Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and also the Chairwoman of Start Point, a nonprofit organization that works on human rights and gender in the course of the conflict in Syria. While Hira is the co-founder and Executive Director of ‘DASTAK Foundation’, which works to eradicate gender-based violence and promote women’s rights in Pakistan. In this episode, we talk about how to counter gender-based disinformation – and why it’s important for a functioning democracy.
For the third episode, we have Sonal Dhanani from Pakistan and Nesmah Mansoor from Yemen. Sonal is an award-winning woman peacebuilder, mental health advocate, and creative professional and Nesmah works as a communication and advocacy officer at Peace Track Initiative. In this episode, we will be talking about why it is important to create resilience and healthy sustainability within activist circles.
For the fourth and final episode, we have Sara El Outa from Lebanon and Ahmed Ben Nejma from Tunisia. Sara is a feminist, civil activist, and human rights defender from Lebanon, currently working as a Gender and Inclusion Technical Advisor at ASMAE and Ahmed is a Tunisian civil society expert. In this episode, we talk about how systemic changes take place bit by bit.
The podcast will be available on Spotify, Google, Apple Podcast, and all major podcast streaming platforms.
SI Leader Lab is a leadership programme arranged by the Swedish Institute for civil society leaders working for Sustainable Development Goal 16 (peaceful and inclusive societies) in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. It’s designed to give participants an opportunity to explore their leadership skills and learn effective advocacy methods. The next call for applications will open in mid-October 2022, more information here. The Swedish Institute (SI) is a public agency that builds interest and trust in Sweden around the world. SI works with Sweden promotion, cooperation in the Baltic Sea region and global development.
Feminism in India is an award-winning digital, bilingual intersectional feminist media organisation to learn, educate and develop a feminist sensibility among the youth. FII was created with a vision of increasing the representation of Indian women and marginalized communities on the internet – their stories and their histories. We amplify these usually unheard stories using digital storytelling techniques on new media, in formats that have the maximum reach and impact on social media. Through our platform, we aim to create a generation of young people that are aware and educated about feminism and social justice. Learn more here.
