Photo-essay Camp in Uganda on Climate Change and Gender Equity

We were delighted to learn from Cyrus Konstantinakos of the BU Humphrey Fellowship Program (our newest UNESCO/UNITWIN Network Affiliate) about a pathbreaking photo-essay camp that he led with Humphrey Alumna Agnes Igoye in December, 2015. 

Each of five production teams consisted of one Ugandan woman, one Ugandan youth who had previously participated in Peace Corps programs, one Peace Corps Volunteer,​ and one Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) Fellow. A four-day orientation, hosted by the Peace Corps in Kampala, included a photography workshop and sessions on climate change and gender equity. Then the teams fanned out into Uganda's five regions for a week of photojournalism in the field.  

Following their fieldwork, the teams returned to Peace Corps, Kampala and began producing photo essays introducing topics in Ugandan culture through a female lens that also highlight local resilience in the face of climate change. The essays will be presented in a ​book and photo exhibition entitled Reclaiming the Pearl​.  This project was made possible through the generous support of the U.S. Embassy in Kampala. 

  

Agnes Igoye is Deputy National Coordinator of Uganda’s Anti-Human Trafficking Taskforce, Training Manager in the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control, and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and Women in Public Service Project (WPSP), a State Department initiative launched under Secretary Hillary Clinton in 2011. 

Cyrus Konstantinakos is Assistant Director of the Humphrey Fellowship Program at Boston University and ​Director of the Our Global Communities project.  In December, he ran the first Our Global Communities photo-essay camp in Nicaragua with support from the U.S. Embassy, the University of Nicaragua, and Peace Corps Nicaragua.

Dr. Jean Chapman, Simone de Beauvoir Institute: Recent Publications

We are so pleased to announce that Dr. Jean Chapman, feminist scholar at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Montreal and UNESCO/UNITWIN Network Affiliate, recently shared with us several of her papers published over the past year. This scholarship is hosted on the website of Concordia University with which the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, dedicated to studying feminisms and questions of social justice, is affiliated.

One of Jean's papers, entitled "Gendered climate change: impacts and regulatory oversight," was the basis of her Guest Lecture at an Environmental Impact Assessment course in November 2015.

An abridged version of a second article on "State Repression and the Indian Feminist Movement in the 1970s - 1980s" was presented in the session on "Memory, forgetting and neoliberalism in Asia: histories of repression 1970-1990" at the Conference of the Society for Socialist Studies, University of Ottawa in June 2015.

Both of these papers may be viewed at:
https://concordia.academia.edu/JeanChapman

Brava, Jean!

Special Volume on Indian Feminism just launched: Editor, Asha Mukherjee

Delighted to announce that a special issue on Indian Feminism (July-December 2015) from Brazil's LABRYS series has been released! Our UNESCO/UNITWIN Founding Member Dr. Asha Mukherjee from Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal is both the Editor and a contributing author. Asha wrote the Introduction as well as a chapter entitled "Indian Feminism: Dynamics and Challenges". Dr. Arvinder Ansari, another UNESCO/UNITWIN Network Founding Member from Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, also contributed: her feature is titled "Muslim Women’s Activism in India: Negotiating the Customary Laws and Feminism".

Congratulations Asha and Arvinder!

These articles and others in the volume can be found at: 

http://www.labrys.net.br/labrys28/sumarios/sumario%20india.htm

Photo: Cover courtesy LABRYS, Feminist Studies (July-December 2015 volume)

You are Invited: UVA's Mardi Gras Celebration!

Our UNESCO/UNITWIN Affiliate, Unbound Visual Arts (UVA) – a local non-profit art organization that enriches the community with educational and inspiring exhibitions and programs – invites you to its Annual Celebration!

From UVA: "Mardi Gras and Carnival Arts Celebration

Fat TUESDAY FEBRUARY 9th, 2016

4th ANNUAL MARDI GRAS & CARNIVAL ARTS CELEBRATION

  THE SOCIAL RESTAURANT & BAR

Crowne Plaza Hotel, just off Exit 17 on the Mass. Turnpike

320 Washington St., Newton Corner, MA

FREE Garage Parking

 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

We've started a new tradition in Boston and we want you to be a part of it.  It's an evening of fun and celebration for all Unbound Visual Arts members, guests and friends at the very contemporary Social Restaurant and Bar. We'll have a live Mardi Gras band, Josiah Reibstein Trio,  light hors d'oeuvres appropriate for Mardi Gras & Carnival, a full cash bar, an art show of UVA member's work, dancing, and a raffle to win some great prizes. Come and be part of the excitement. Share a good time with artists and other art supporters from throughout the area. We'll provide the beads and masks too! Free garage parking and it's on the 57, 504 and 554 bus lines.

Don't know what Mardi Gras and Carnival is all about? No problem, it's basically a huge worldwide celebration that happens every year to start the Spring. It's really a big deal in New Orleans and most Latin American and many European countries. It's also called "Fat Tuesday" because theoretically it's the last day to indulge before Lent sets in for Christians. But everyone gets to celebrate the approaching Spring!"

For updates, visit: http://www.unboundvisualarts.org/