The Feminifesto Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Gender Security Project
The Feminifesto Podcast: A podcast that chronicles women's voices and narratives in the domains of International Relations, Peacebuilding, Law, Development, and Politics.
Jacqui True, FASSA, FAIIA is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW). She is also a Global Fellow, Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo and received her PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada, and an honorary doctorate from Lund University Sweden in 2018. Previously she was Founding Director of Monash University’s Centre for Gender, Peace and Security. She has held academic positions at Michigan State University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Auckland as well as visiting fellowships at the Australian National University and Gothenburg University, Sweden.
Dr Jacqui True is also editing a Women, Peace and Security book series with Sara Davies and published by De Gruyter Press.
In this episode, Kirthi speaks to Laura Shepherd and Paul Kirby. Laura is professor of international relations at the University of Sydney and a visiting senior fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security. Paul is senior lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London and a codirector of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub.
Listen in to learn about their newest book, "Governing the Feminist Peace: The Vitality and Failure of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda." Buy the book here.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Dr. Eleanor Ann Nwadinobi. Dr Eleanor is a medical doctor, gender ,human rights expert and public speaker with a European Union Masters in Human rights and Democratisation (EMA) from Venice, Italy. She is a Fellow of the African Arts and Culture (FAAC). Dr Eleanor Nwadinobi is founding Co- Chair, Steering Committee of Every Woman Treaty, a coalition calling for a Global treaty to end Violence Against Women and Girls. Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi is also the International President of the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA), the first Nigerian to rise to this position in its one hundred year history.
Mary Kaldor is a Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit in the LSE Department of International Development. Professor Kaldor also directs the unit’s largest research project, the Conflict Research Programme (CRP), an international DFID-funded partnership investigating public authority, through a theoretical lens of the political marketplace and the concept of civicness, across a range of countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Meenakshi Gopinath is currently Founder and Director of WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace), an initiative that seeks to promote the leadership of South Asian women in the areas of peace, security and regional cooperation. She is also Chair, Board of Governors, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Principal Emerita of Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi where she served as Principal for 26 years from 1988-2014. She has been a member of the University Grants Commission (UGC), India. Dr. Gopinath was the first woman to serve as member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) of India. She is a member of multi-track peace initiatives and people-to-people dialogues in South Asia. She has authored among others Pakistan in Transition, and co-authored Conflict Resolution – Trends and Prospects, Transcending Conflict: A Resource book on Conflict Transformation and Dialogic Engagement and has contributed chapters and articles in several books and journals on Gandhi, the politics of Pakistan, the arts Conflict Resolution, Gender and Peace Building et al. Her interests include issues of human rights and gender, conflict transformation and Buddhist and Gandhian philosophy. She also headed the Task Force of the SAKSHAM Report of the University Grants Commission that initiated several policy reforms on Gender Equity on Higher Education Institutes in India
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Dr Toni Haastrup. She is a Senior Lecturer in International Security at the University of Kent and is interested in the gender dynamics and processes of change within regional security institutions. Dr Toni's current research examines the practices and implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the African and European Unions. In addition to teaching on international security issues, she is also Editor in Chief of the Journal of Common Market Studies and co-convener of UACES Research Network, Gendering EU Studies. Dr Toni is a graduate of University of California, Davis (BA), University of Cape Town (MA), and the University of Edinburgh (PhD).
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Soon-Young Yoon, the Chair of the Board at the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), UN Representative for the International Alliance of Women, Immediate Past Chair of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women in New York and first Vice-President of the Conference of NGOs in consultative relationship with the UN. In those capacities, she helps to organize the world’s women in support of CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action. In 1995, she served as the UN Liaison for the NGO Forum held in parallel with the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, an event that hosted more than 30,000 NGO participants. Ms. Yoon is a Board Member of the Global Advisory Council at the Harvard AIDS Initiative and the International Foundation for Ewha Womans University. A former columnist for the EarthTimes newspaper, she works as a senior advisor/consultant for the World Health Organization. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan and earned a certificate in computer graphics from the Pratt Institute of Art.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Lisa Shannon, the Cofounder and CEO of Every Woman Treaty. She is an American author, human rights activist and scholar known for initiating campaigns in the international women’s movement, including founding Run for Congo Women and cofounding the first sexual violence crisis center in Mogadishu—Sister Somalia—in partnership with Fartun Adan Abdisalan, as well as the successful 45,000 Penny Congo Conflict Minerals Campaign against technology giants Intel, Apple, and Hewlett Packard. Lisa was an Associate and former Fellow of the Carr Center for Human Rights, and a former Gleitsman Fellow with the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Georgetown University. She is author of the award-winning book A Thousand Sisters: My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman (Seal Press, 2010) and Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen: An Ordinary Family’s Extraordinary Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in Congo (Public Affairs, 2015).
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Sharanya Sekaram, who identifies as a feminist writer, researcher, and activist. Based in Sri Lanka, she works primarily as an independent consultant in the gender space. She is passionate about the democratization of information and resources, as well as access to networks and spaces. In 2018 she co-founded a feminist collective called Everystory Sri Lanka. Sharanya holds an LLB (Hons) and a Masters in Conflict and Peace Studies, and she is also currently reading for a Post-Graduate Diploma in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colombo.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Japleen Pasricha. Japleen smashes the patriarchy for a living! She is the founder-CEO & editor-in-chief of Feminism in India (FII), an award-winning digital intersectional feminist and bilingual media platform. She is also a TEDx speaker and was recognised as a Young Innovator in 2018 by World Summit Awards. Japleen has Masters and M.Phil degrees in German Studies and used to be a German language lecturer at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Amity University, Noida. Prior to starting FII, she worked with multiple women’s rights NGOs in India like Breakthrough India and Point of View. She has also worked with Freedom House, a non-profit based in the USA, on a research report and advocacy campaign on gender-based violence online. She has represented FII at various international platforms like UN CSW, Rights Con, IGF, Amnesty Int, UN HRC, Stockholm Internet Forum, to name a few. She was featured by The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in a book on ‘Women in Tech’ for her work at FII and facilitated by Maneka Gandhi and Ministry of Women & Child Development, GoI as Web Wonder Woman. She has also been recognised by the Swedish Foreign Minister for her work on the gender gap on Wikipedia. Currently, Japleen oversees the strategic vision and growth at FII. She likes to garden, travel, hike, swim and cycle and is slowly moving towards a sustainable lifestyle.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls, a second-generation Fiji Island feminist working on the intersection of gender, media, communications, and peace by supporting the development and production of appropriate and accessible media.
Currently she is the Chairperson and Gender Liaison of the Board of Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), the co-chair of Global Fund for Women Board of Directors, and a member of the Feminist Alliance on Rights, coordinated by the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL).
Sharon was a member of the UN Women-convened Civil Society Advisory Group (CSAG) on UNSCR1325+10 (2009-2010), the first UN Women Global Civil Society Advisory Group (2012-2014) and the High Level Advisory Group for the Global Study on UNSCR1325+15 (2014-2015). Between 2010 and 2012 she coordinated civil society input into the development of the Pacific Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security (2012-2015) as well as the GEAR campaign.
She is a co-founder of FemLINKpacific, which emerged from the women-led Blue Ribbon Peace Vigil initiative in Fiji in 2000. Through her leadership FemLINK has developed a program infrastructure applying peacebuilding practice and a people’s communications for development approach to a regional women’s community media network. This has included supporting women’s participation and leadership at all levels of decision-making, including disaster risk reduction and humanitarian crises. The media network now supports the development and management of a range of media initiatives including the Pacific’s first women-led community radio network FemTALK 89FM as well as the innovative inter-operable Women’s Weather Watch information-communication system.
Eliza Garnsey is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge. Her research focuses on art and visual culture in international relations and world politics, particularly in relation to human rights, transitional justice and conflict. Eliza’s current project focuses on visual jurisprudence; developing a new theory of art and justice.
Eliza’s book, entitled The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. The book demonstrates that there are aesthetic and creative ways to pursue transitional justice — ways which have the capacity to address identity divisions and exclusions in nations emerging from conflict.
Eliza completed her PhD in International Relations at the University of Cambridge, where she was awarded the 2017 Lisa Smirl PhD Prizefor best doctoral thesis in Politics and International Studies. She holds a Masters of International Affairs from the Australian National University, a Master of Studies in Art History and Visual Culture from the University of Oxford, and a Bachelor of Art Theory (Honours) from the University of New South Wales.
During our conversation, Eliza also mentions the following:
Remain by Hoda Afshar: https://theartsjournal.net/2020/03/03/garnsey/
The Blue Dress by Judith Mason: https://16daysblogathon.blog/2020/12/02/day-ten-south-africas-blue-dress-art-as-an-alternative-record-of-sexual-and-gender-based-violence/
Freemuse: https://freemuse.org/about-us/
Phka Sla Dance ECCC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-6yTphGDuI
Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Nikita Jain, a journalist covering conflict, politics, women and civic issues among other things. She has pursued her undergraduate degree from Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), Delhi, and has a post-graduate diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. This episode was recorded on January 14, 2021.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Dominique Vidale-Plaza. Dominique worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2011 to 2019 in different capacities, focused on women and child protection and holistic (medical, psychosocial, legal + socio-economic) response to SGBV. She has worked at Panzi Hospital and Foundation under 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate: Dr. Denis Mukwege and is currently based in the Hague, managing international holistic-care projects, with the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation. From 2012 – 2016 Dominique started a grassroots organisation focused on ensuring and advocating for access to quality health care for women and girls in rural communities. Though the organisation itself closed formally, she continues to engage and work with actors in rural DRC and elsewhere. She has worked with the UN peacekeeping mission and also UNICEF as a protection specialist and advisor and then later on as a freelance consultant with NGOs and international agencies, supporting project design, monitoring and evaluation. Dominique is passionate about working with local actors to strengthen their capacities to respond to the needs and priorities of their communities and working alongside women, girls, minority groups and survivors of sexual violence to seek justice for themselves and others.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Rosemary Kalapurakal, the Director a.i. of the Sustainable Development Cluster (Inclusive Growth) of UNDP's Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, and is the Lead Advisor on 2030 Agenda. Previously, she was the Deputy Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Manuela Lavinas Picq, a Loewenstein Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor in Political Science at Amherst College. She is a professor of International Relations at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), Ecuador. Her research tackles Indigenous politics and sexuality in world politics and Latin America. She is the author of Vernacular Sovereignties: Indigenous Women Challenging World Politics (University of Arizona Press, 2018), Sexualities in World Politics(with Markus Thiel, Routledge 2015) and Queering Narratives of Modernity(with Maria Amelia Viteri, Peter Lang 2016). She has held research positions at Freie Universität (2015), the Institute for Advanced Study (2013), and the Woodrow Wilson Center (2005). Her publications appear in scholarly journals like Latin American Politics and Society, Cahiers du Genre and International Political Science Review. She contributes to international media outlets.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Dr J Ann Tickner, Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American University. She is also a Professor Emerita at the University of Southern California where she taught for fifteen years before moving to American University. Her principle areas of teaching and research include international theory, peace and security, and feminist approaches to international relations. She served as President of the International Studies Association from 2006-2007. Her books include, A Feminist Voyage Through International Relations, Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era, and Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving International Security.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Laura Sjoberg, an American feminist scholar of international relations and international security. Her work specializes in gendered interpretations of just war theory, feminist security studies, and women's violence in global politics. She served as the Homebase Editor for the International Feminist Journal of Politics (with Cynthia Weber and Heidi Hudson), from 2011 until 2017. She also held an editorial position at the International Studies Review, from 2015 until 2017, and an associate editorial position with the International Studies Review, from 2013 until 2015.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Aditi Mukund, the founder and creator of Women in International Relations, a platform that seeks to amplify the voices of women in international relations, security, peace & conflict, and foreign policy; with a focus on India and the developing world. At present, she works at COVINTS, an Indian defense company, where her current roles include geopolitical risk analysis and the administration of the company’s academic and research center. She has a Master’s degree in International Studies, a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Media with a major in Journalism, and a BA in English Literature and Psychology. Her areas of interest are interdisciplinary, and encompass non-traditional security, geopolitics of the global south, gender in international relations and development, and climate change & sustainability.
We're two years old, and so much of our work has been possible because of our listeners and the amazing women we've been able to feature on the podcast. Listen to our special anniversary episode to know what three amazing women - Kamla Bhasin, Visaka Dharmadasa, and Laura Sjoberg - envision for a future of sustainable peace.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Sahar Zareen Bandial, an Advocate of the High Courts based in Lahore, Pakistan. Sahar practices in a different range of areas. She has a keen interest in gender and law, and legislative drafting. Sahar co-authored the Anti-Rape Bill, which was passed into law as the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Offences Relating to Rape) Act in 2016, and the Punjab Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Bill, introduced before the Punjab Assembly in 2019. She has consulted for different government departments on legislative work, and also regularly writes on the subject of women’s rights and legal reform in various daily publications. Sahar has been involved in legal education for several years and is currently teaching as Adjunct Faculty at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law, LUMS.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Mandy Sanghera, an award winning philanthropist, a community consultant and global campaigner, often referred to as a global catalyst. In addition to being an international human rights activist and motivational Tedx speaker from the UK, Mandy has traveled world over, empowering and motivating others. With over three decades of experience, Mandy is an expert in various development-related fields. She has been driving innovation, building strategic partnerships, promoting advocacy and programming in the areas of human rights, gender equality, accountability and social justice globally. Mandy has helped hundreds of individuals and now reaches thousands through social media and her generous amount of worldwide TV appearances and public speaking engagements.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Priyadharsini Palaniswamy. Priyadharsini (Founder, The Blue Club), a Chennai-based independent documentary filmmaker, is a journalist and an alumna of the Asian College of Journalism. After working with various media outlets, Priyadharsini decided that she would get into documentary filmmaking full-time. It’s this journey that led her towards setting up ‘The Blue Club’, an initiative to amplify the voices of women from marginalized caste and gender locations using media as a tool. Priyadharsini has multiple short films and documentaries to her credit, including Go, Get Education, a short film based on the life of Savitribai Phule, a revolutionary 19th century feminist social reformer, and #dalitwomenfightwhich is on the rape atrocities committed on Dalit women in Haryana.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Sabin Muzaffar, the Founder and Executive Editor of Ananke – a digital platform empowering women through awareness, advocacy and education. With over 20 years of experience in print and digital media, Sabin has successfully launched a digital internship program through the Ananke platform. She was selected as UN Women’s Empower Women Global Champion for Women’s Economic Empowerment in 2015-2016, and was later chosen as an Empower Women Mentor. In 2017, Sabin was also selected as a Cherie Blair Foundation Mentor. She has mentored as well as trained more than 40 girls globally focusing digital media, online advocacy and communication. Her focus lies in women’s empowerment, the SDGs and Leveraging Tech for Good.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Ayla Schlosser, the Portfolio Growth Specialist at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, where she provides strategic and operational support to social entrepreneurs to help them scale.
Most recently, Ayla was the Co-founder and CEO of Resonate, an organization that provides leadership and professional development training to women and youth in East Africa. She is a trained leadership coach, and a human centered design consultant specializing in organizational design, strategy, and business operations.
Prior to starting Resonate she was a Community Organizer and Program Manager at Groundswell in Washington, DC, where she led and managed the launch of a city-wide energy efficiency and financing program for low-income residents. She has also worked as a strategic communications consultant and specialized in stakeholder engagement and facilitation.
Ayla holds a Master of Science in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was awarded the Miller Social Change Leadership Award and the 2020 Stanford Impact Leadership Fellowship. She was a Mary Maples Dunn scholar at Smith College, where she graduated with honors with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Spanish Language. Ayla was awarded the 2014 Brimstone Award for Applied Storytelling for her work with Resonate and was named one of Conscious Company Magazine’s 17 Rising Social Entrepreneurs. She is a 2015 Unreasonable Institute Global Fellow, a 2016 recipient of the Cordes Fellowship, and represented Resonate as part of the 2017 GSBI Accelerator Program and the 2017 cohort of the SPRING Accelerator. She has written articles for Next Billion and Huffington Post, and was a speaker at TEDx Oakland in 2018. Ayla serves on the Board of Directors for Resonate, as an International Grant Advisor for The Pollination Project, and as a member of the Global Advisory Board for the Women’s Global Leadership Initiative.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Author and Foreign Correspondent Christina Lamb. Christina Lamb is one of Britain’s leading foreign correspondents and a bestselling author. She has reported from most of the world’s hotspots starting with Afghanistan after an unexpected wedding invitation led her to Karachi in 1987 when she was just 22. She moved to Peshawar to cover the mujaheddin fighting the Soviet Union and within two years she had been named Young Journalist of the Year. Since then she has won 14 major awards including five times being named Foreign Correspondent of the Year and Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. She was made an OBE by the Queen in 2013 and is an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Dr. Pragati Singh, an activist and leader towards the asexual cause, and founder of Indian Aces, who was featured in the BBC's list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019. Listeners can follow Dr Pragati's work on the following platforms:
Asexuality.in
Platonicity.org/beta
IndianAces.org
FB: facebook.com/IndianAces
t: twitter.com/IndianAces_
Insta: Instagram.com/IndianAces_
DrPragatiSingh.com
t: twitter.com/Dr_PragatiSingh
Insta: instagram.com/practivist
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Manira Alva, who brings over 25-years of multi-genre media experience, gendered-policy formulation and political strategizing to the Vital Voices Leadership Team. As the VP of Political and Civic Engagement, she oversees the VV Engage year-long fellowship in collaboration with the World Council of Women Leaders and professors from the Kennedy School. She is committed to changing the narrative and culture regarding women and public leadership.
Appointed to India’s High-Level Committee on the Status of Women by Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, she reviewed and recommended changes to laws, policies and programs affecting India’s 650+ million women and recommended a 33% quota for women at all levels of political representation. At the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, she worked on the re-launch of the 16 Days of Activism global campaign. As an activist, administrator and educator, she brings an intersectional understanding of global issues, sensitive to varying cultural contexts and geo-political alignments.
Born into a family with a tradition of women in politics, Manira has lived and worked on the periphery of politics. As chief strategist of a political consulting firm, she has organized election campaigns, specialized in personal/political narrative building and strategically positioned young and emerging politicians while crisis-managing their media coverage.
Manira has, in the past, identified, supervised and monitored donor- grantee organizations, led large multi-faceted creative teams, produced and scripted award-winning documentaries for international broadcasters and taught feminist studies at Rutgers University. Her script for the documentary “Silent Screams – India’s Activism Against Rape” in the aftermath of the 2012 “Nirbhaya’ rape case, received critical international acclaim, including a New York Film Academy Award.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to writer and gender-rights activist Paromita Bardoloi.
In this episode, Vaishnavi an Kirthi speak to Tena Pick, a gender equality activist, educator, and social impact assessment specialist, as well as the founder of Project Kal.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Norette Turimuci, the Executive Director of Resonate.
On the occasion of International Women's Day, Bhavana Akella, Rohitha Naraharisetty, Sri Indrasenan, Malavika Mani, Vaishnavi Pallapothu, and Kirthi Jayakumar share their rendition of The Rapist in You.
On the occasion of International Women's Day, Harini Ravi, Raakhee Suryaprakash, Suraksha Chandrasekar, Vasanthi Shweta, and Yashasvini Rajeshwar perform Maya Angelou's poem, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi spoke to Neesha Amrish, a designer who makes sustainable, non-violent, and environment-friendly clothing through her line of work with Ahimsa Silk.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi interview Mary Kate Costello, Senior Policy Analyst and UN Representative, The Hunger Project. Mary Kate joined The Hunger Project family as a Policy Analyst in August 2014. She had previously been a Fellow for the Alliance for International Youth Development – in partnership with InterAction – and the Executive Program Director for Youth Futures International (YFI) in Ghana. As Senior Policy Analyst, Mary Kate is responsible for The Hunger Project’s global advocacy, namely multilateral diplomacy with the UN and World Bank and participation in various civil society coalitions. This includes scaling up the Movement for Community-led Development, prioritizing women-centric programming, proving sustainable impact from partnerships with local government, and influencing policy environments that enable youth engagement and integrated development approaches. Mary Kate was co-chair of the Alliance to End Hunger’s International Working Group from 2017 – 2019. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Round Table in DC and co-leads the design and investment strategies for The Hunger Project’s Youth Engagement Strategy. Mary Kate holds a BA in Political Science and minors in Eastern European Studies and “Faith, Peace and Justice” from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. She also studied Third World politics and ethics in government at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and is currently a candidate for her Master of Arts in International Relations in the School of International Studies at American University.
V.T. Nayani is a director, producer, and writer dedicated to stories for the screen. Her first feature documentary SHADEISM: DIGGING DEEPER (2015) had its World Premiere at the 2015 Zanzibar International Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Recognition. Nayani is an alumni of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Workshop for Diverse Creators, the HotDocs’ Doc Accelerator Program, and the 2017 ReelWorld Film Festival's Emerging 20 Program. She is also a recipient of the 2017 UN Women Yvonne M. Hebert Award for filmmakers and media makers. In the spring of 2018, Nayani's first feature drama as a director and co-writer, THIS PLACE (2020), was selected as a recipient of Telefilm Canada's inaugural Talent to Watch Program. In late 2018, Nayani had the honour of shadowing and interning with her mentor, acclaimed cinematographer Bradford Young, on the set of Netflix's limited series WHEN THEY SEE US. She was most recently a recipient of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's 2019 MVP Project grant, presented by The Prism Prize and RBCxMusic. Her work and artistic development has also been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, ArtReach Toronto, AWID, and TIFF. Nayani feels blessed to work at the intersection of cinema and social justice, working collectively to create and share screen work that seeks to say something, and engage audiences both aesthetically and consciously.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Amy Oestriecher. Amy is an artist, writer, and influential speaker whose work is rooted in inspiration and built to be eclectic. From the visual arts to music to writing to education, click on any of the pictures above to explore her work and services offered. These include offerings such as a variety of hailed workshops and outreach programs, the sale of her visual art and fashion line, her original multimedia solo-musical PASSAGEWAYS, and her newly released book
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi talk to Sharada Balasubramanian, an independent environmental and development journalist. She has been reporting on water, climate change, conservation, agriculture, energy, for over fifteen years. Her stories hinge heavily on in-depth ground reporting. In the last many years, as a development and environmental journalist.
Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Sonal Kapoor, the Founder Director at Protsahan India Foundation. She has done her graduation in Microbiology from Delhi University and post graduation from SIIB and Indian School of Business. Sonal is a member, expert committee on anti-child trafficking (Delhi Commission of Women) and member of CSO Coalition to End Child Marriage in India. She is a Vital Voices fellow, World Bank Fellow & Blogger, Australia India Youth Dialog Fellow, Goldman Sachs ISB Woman Social Entrepreneur, FICCI and CII Awardee. She is a speaker of repute at Harvard School of Graduate Education, Boston and Chicago University and several IIMs and IITs. She often engages with students from colleges across the world on the issue of social entrepreneurship. She has received several national and international acclaims for her work with vulnerable children across the country.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Soraya Chemaly, an award-winning writer and media critic whose writing appears regularly in national and international media including The Atlantic, The Nation, Verge, Quartz, TIME, Salon, The Guardian and The New Statesman. She speaks frequently on topics related to inclusivity, free speech, sexualized violence, data and technology. She is the director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project an initiative dedicated to expanding women’s civic and political participation. She currently serves on the national boards of the Women's Media Center and Women, Action and the Media, as well as on the advisory councils of the Center for Democracy and Technology, VIDA, and Common Sense Media. As an activist, Ms. Chemaly has spear-headed multiple successful campaigns challenging corporations to address online harassment and abuse, restrictive content moderation and censorship, and institutional biases that affect free speech.
Prior to 2010, Ms. Chemaly spent more than fifteen years as a market development executive and consultant in the media and data technology industries. In the early 1990s, after several years at the Gannett Corporation, where she was involved in establishing the newspaper industry’s first subscriber and advertisers databases, she moved into the datatech sector with Claritas Inc. These work experiences give her unique insights into internet data development, leading her to fight vigorously again their abuses.
A group of women from a small village Paalaguttapalle in Chittoor District in Andhra Pradesh came together to create Paalaguttapalle bags. These women - Annapurna, Anita, Rani, Lakshmikantha, Annapurna(Buji), Roopa, Kala, Ramila, and Nirmala - continue to run their initiative today. After drought struck and agriculture slowed down, they began stitching bags to sustain their families. Today, they’ve supplied high quality products all over the world, and also make delicious pickles, free of preservatives, using traditional recipes. In this episode, Vaishnavi speaks to the women in Telugu.
Do follow this transcript if you don't understand Telugu.
Can you tell us how Paalaguttapalle bags began?
We began four years ago. Some of us had some experience stitching blouses earlier and some of us were manual labourers. Most of us helped with our husbands on the farm or did odd manual labor work on and off. We began stitching bags as three women. We are all neighbours, and this made it easy to coordinate. We used to help stitch bags together on a needs-basis, whenever we were asked. We had a massive drought and agriculture failed, so our means of livelihood took a beating.We met Aparna at around that time, and she asked us to consider making a business out of it. She recommended that we could make money and export the bags, as a lot of people would be able to buy them at reasonable prices. When the orders increased, we had three, and then four, more women join us.
How has your personal life changed/improved because of your involvement with this initiative? We run this business entirely on our own. It gives us economic independence and helps us earn our own money. We have been able to educate our children, too. We do not need to rely on agricultural work and any other source of income.How did you learn to make these bags and can you take us through the process?We use cotton, and follow the template of plastic bags to create our bags. We did not formally learn from anyone. We began stitching with the cotton that we had at home, and found that it was marketable. Once we realized that we could use it as a venture to make money, we began. Aparna invested in the first lot of materials for us, and bought our first lot of cotton. We customize the design, shape, and size to suit the needs of our customers. We come up with creative patterns and ideas, and some of our customers also give us ideas that we use.
Can you tell us about any memorable anecdotes with your customers that you remember?We have a frequent customer from the US, Aravinda, who placed our first order and continues to place multiple orders. She also sends us sarees and gifts, and takes care of us very well. She has also guided us on designs. We also have another customer from the UK who orders a lot from us. Each customer is important for us and we are very happy to deliver the products to them.
What are some of your challenges? How can our listeners help and support your work? The main problem we face are with postage. We have to commute to the nearest post office, which is quite a walk. Sometimes, they refuse to send the goods in bulk, so we split up the delivery among several post offices. We sometimes have to rely on courier services, which is quite expensive. The best way anyone can support is us by placing orders. Help us grow our business and make it as big as possible.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Ather Zia, a political anthropologist, poet, and short fiction writer. She teaches at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley. She is the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir (University of Washington Press, 2019) and co-editor of Resisting Occupation in Kashmir (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and A Desolation called Peace: Voices from Kashmir (HarperCollins, 2019). She has published a poetry collection “The Frame” (J&K Cultural Academy of Arts and Languages, 1999) and another collection is forthcoming. Her ethnographic poetry on Kashmir has won an award from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective, an interdisciplinary network of scholars working on the Kashmir region. An ex-journalist she continues to write for mainstream journals.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak with Dr Mary Elizabeth King, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University for Peace, affiliated with the United Nations, political scientist and author of five major books on non-violent struggle. She is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and has a doctorate in international politics from Aberystwyth University, Britain.
[Image Copyright Martine Sprangers Fotografie ©]
Vaishnavi and Kirthi reflect on the past year at Feminifesto and share their favourite moments from their journey so far.
Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Deborah Dauda, mother, an educator, dancer, and activist from Nigeria with keen interest and passion for the progress of African and African-Diaspora communities on matters relating to education, social inclusion, maternal/child health, peace-building, youth development, and the creative arts. She has a knack for finding common grounds in unfamiliar places/situations and uses this unique skill to bring people together and to create safe spaces for networking, collaboration, and ideation. Deborah has worked and volunteered with organizations in West/East Africa, South America, South Asia, and the United States, as a consultant, coordinator, writer, and choreographer.
Her educational background includes graduate degrees in Public Health (MPH) and African Studies (MA) and an undergraduate degree in International Development Studies (BA) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She begins her Ph.D. program in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development (SGISD) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston in Fall 2019 with a thematic focus on Gender, Security Sector Reform (SSR) and policies of exclusion.
Deborah loves Fela Kuti and Angelique Kidjo’s music and volunteers for the Red Elephant Foundation on civilian peace-building activities. When she is not working, she is keeping up with her awesome son, designing costumes, and brainstorming/ mapping out ideas on how to make Africa’s social, political, and economic sovereignty a reality.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi speak to Urmila Chanam, a menstrual hygiene and women’s rights activist and Founder & CEO of Breaking the Silence Worldwide Foundation, an NGO working on ending myths and taboos around menstruation that act as barriers for adolescent girls and women preventing them to achieve good health, education, aspirations and dignity with special emphasis on villages. Functional in across India including north- eastern states affected by armed conflict, Manipur and Assam and expanding to Africa and Asia, the biggest impact of her work is the transition of girls and women from ‘shame to pride’, training 12,000 individuals since 2014 on menstrual hygiene management in geographies hard to reach or isolated, developing menstruation champions among women and men , working with men to change social norms around menstruation through an annual bullet bike rally called Men Take Lead Ride on 28 th May, the International Menstrual Hygiene Day, shifting the paradigm for a variety of stakeholders within the community, Government of India , civil society and media, and positioning menstrual hygiene management as a cause needing attention in policy and practice globally.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi talk to Dorine Llanta, who is currently the Coordinator of the Call it what it is campaign at Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. She is also finalizing her PhD on the prevention and accountability for sexual violence in international and national systems. Before joining Women’s Initiatives team, Dorine worked as a legal researcher at Amnesty International’s Center for International Justice and conducted research for the Office of the Prosecutor of the Extraordinary African Chambers. She also worked as a legal adviser for Asylum Access Ecuador and interned at the Office of the Prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Celine Osukwu, a leader for disability rights and women’s rights in Nigeria. Developing Kyphosis as a child, and a survivor of civil war, Celine has surmounted enormous lifelong challenges to establish the Divine Foundation for Disabled persons. Through her foundation she works tirelessly to eradicate the stigma of disabilities community mobilization, advocacy campaigns, radio programs, and political organizing that has reached millions. Her foundation also provides direct support to thousands of vulnerable persons in Nigeria with disabilities, with a particular focus on women to strengthen their self-worth and self-sufficiency. Her vision is a world that stops treating persons with disabilities as objects of charity – a world where persons with disabilities are no longer begging in the streets, and women with disabilities know their self-worth and organize others for social change.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi talk to Apoorva Mahendru, Malavika Mani, and Sandra Jose. Focusing on the three young women and their work in the development sector, this episode presents interesting perspectives from the field.
Kirthi and Vaishnavi interview Lea Gabay, a French-American English as a Second Language instructor who is based in San Francisco, California. She taught in various countries such as Senegal, Vietnam, Germany, and Spain. She is passionate about social justice, healthy literacy, peace building, and intercultural communication.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi talk to Ruby Hembrom, the founder and director of adivaani (first voices), a platform for indigenous expression started in July 2012 as a non-profit organization in Kolkata, West Bengal. Ruby is a Santal from Jharkhand, who's now made Kolkata her home. She is the writer of adivaani’s Santal Creation Stories for children, a recast of the Santal Creation myths in English and the prize-winning Disaibon Hul, on the Santal Rebellion of 1855–57. Her archiving, publishing and documentation initiative grew out of a need to claim Adivasi stake in historical and contemporary social, cultural and literary spaces and as peoples.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Aparna Nagesh. Aparna Nagesh is a versatile dance professional with over 21 years of training, teaching and performance experience. After a 12 year stint with a commercial dance company, during which time she trained extensively in numerous dance styles such as Jazz, Ballet technique, Street, Latin & Contemporary forms, she pursued higher studies in dance and vocal technique at Broadway Dance Centre, New York and graduated with a Certificate of Excellence. Currently, she runs a performing arts institute in Chennai, Madras Dance Arts, a one of its kind, all inclusive training, teaching and performance venue in dance, theatre, vocal technique and related courses of study. She is also the artistic director of High Kicks – all girls ensemble, a unique contemporary dance theatre performance group, comprised entirely of young women, who perform globally with their repertoire of work. Aparna also acts and choreographs for film and digital mediums, is a motivational speaker and hopes to become a published author soon. She believes in utilising the arts to enrich quality of life, sensitivity and a better world around her. She also teaches movement for people with special needs and has been the recipient of numerous awards.
Dr Nicola Streeten is the UK author of award winning graphic memoir “Billy, Me & You” (Myriad Editions, 2011) and illustrated history of women’s comics in Britain “The Inking Woman” (Myriad Editions, 2018). She is director of international forum Laydeez do Comics. Nicola draws, teaches, writes and speaks about comics .
In this episode, Vaishnavi speaks to Adrija Bose has worked as a digital journalist for eight years and has written extensively on issues relating to gender, culture, and human rights. She started her career at Firstpost and has worked at NDTV, Huffington Post India. She is currently working with News18.com as an Associate Editor. She is the recipient of South Asia Laadli Award (2017) for her stories on Kashmiri women's battle against mental health, India's first female Islamic clerics, and Haryana's girls who play football. She has also received the PoleStar Awards for journalism in 2018.
Asha Kowtal is the President of the All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch. She speaks to Vaishnavi and Kirthi about her work, activism, and journey.
Visaka Dharmadasa, is a peace activist from Sri Lanka.In recognition of her work for peace, Visaka was nominated for a collective Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 as part of the 1000 Peace Women Across the Globe and was awarded the prestigious Humanitarian Award in 2006 by Inter Action of Washington. She is a member of the South Asia Small Arms network, Women Waging Peace, and sits on the global advisory council of Women Thrive World Wide.She also work on disseminating the content of UN resolution 1325 on women peace and security, calling for the inclusion of women at all levels of peace building and decision making., She trains women to run to political office and also on power sharing. She was awarded the prestigious Humanitarian award for 2006 by the Inter Action of Washington DC an NGO consortium comprises of 160 non governmental organizations. In coordination with the “1000 Peace women across the globe” movement, she was nominated for a collective Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She is a network member of Inclusive Security Women Waging Peace, and a member of the expert pool of Resolution to Act, as well of the global advisory council of Women thrive World Wide, a member of Global Network of Women Peace builders and governing council of National Peace Council of Sri Lanka. Visaka Dharmadasa holds a degree in negotiations and mediation skills from the United States Institute for Peace, Washington, and in women and security from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi talk to Katelyn Burns, who is the federal policy reporter for Rewire.News, where she covers the U.S. Congress including legislation and federal policy issues. Previously, she was a freelance journalist covering breaking transgender news for them.us as well as bylines for the Washington Post, VICE, the Establishment, Allure, and many others. Katelyn was also a reporting fellow for Everyday Feminism, writing a series on toxic call-out culture in online activist spaces in addition to a series on the trials and tribulations faced by trans people in accessing employment. She is a parent and is based in Washington, D.C.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi talk to Sutapa Sanyal, a Speaker, Independent Advisor and Expert on Women Empowerment, Women in Leadership, Diversity & Inclusion, Gender & Child Rights. She served for 33 years in the Indian Police Service (IPS) and was the first woman Director General of Police in Uttar Pradesh. For her service, she was awarded the President's Police Medal.
Ms. Sanyal has delivered talks and lectures at various institutions including London School of Economics, INTERPOL, India Today Forum, FICCI, PHDCC, IIM and TISS. She has been awarded the Hindustan Times International Women's Day Award, the FICCI-FLO Outstanding Police Women Award and Women Economic Forum's Iconic Woman Award. She has been recognized by the British High Commission as a gender expert and an “Indian women leader.” She was also the only Indian invited to address the INTERPOL Specialists Group on the Protection of Children in France. Her work for women and child empowerment has won commendation from the Govt. of India, the Govt. of UK, INTERPOL, the US Department of State and has been featured in international as well as national media.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Kamla Bhasin, an Indian developmental feminist activist, poet, author and social scientist. Bhasin's work, that began in 1970, focuses on gender, education, human development and the media. She is best known for her work with Sangat - A Feminist Network and for her poem Kyunki main ladki hoon, mujhe padhna hai. In 1995, she recited a refurbished, feminist version of the popular poem Azadi (Freedom) in a conference. She is also the South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising.
She resigned from her job at the U.N. in 2002, to work with Sangat, of which she is a founder member and Adviser. She believes in a form of advocacy that combines feminist theory and community action. She has worked with underprivileged women from tribal and working communities, often using posters, plays and other non literary methods to get through to communities with low literacy rates. She has always maintained that in order to usher effective change, sloganeering must be accompanied by community mobilization.
In this episode, Kirthi and Vaishnavi chat with Angellica Aribam. Angellica is a political activist and a fourth wave feminist. For more than half a decade, Angellica has been working on issues of race, gender, student welfare and the democratization of politics. Hailing from Manipur, in the ethnically and economically marginalized northeastern region of India, she was motivated to get involved in politics by experiencing injustice and discrimination firsthand, realizing that politics was the best way to change this status quo. She was the first student from the northeastern region of India to be elected in the Delhi University Executive Committee, India's prominent student body, and she was named one of Forbes India's “30 Under 30” in 2017. She is also a former National General Secretary of the National Students’ Union of India, the students' wing of the Indian National Congress.
With a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from University of Delhi and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Peking University, China, Angellica is on a quest for learning. As a staunch advocate for gender and racial rights, she regularly writes for various Indian publications including The Indian Express, The Wire, DailyO amongst others. In her spare time, she loves to read, cook, and model.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi talk to Anam Zakaria. Anam is a researcher, development professional and educationist with a special interest in oral histories and identity politics. She has also studied psychotherapy and has a particular interest in trauma and healing in conflict zones. Her first book, The Footprints of Partition: Narratives of Four Generations of Pakistanis and Indians (HarperCollins Publishers 2015), won the KLF-German Peace Prize 2017. Between the Great Divide: A Journey into Pakistan-administered Kashmir (HarperCollinsPublishers 2018) is her second book. Anam grew up in Lahore and is currently based in Islamabad.
In this episode, Vaishnavi interviews Dr Joni Seager. Joni is a Professor of Global Studies at Bentley University. She is a feminist geographer and global policy expert. Her atlas on the status of women, just released in its fifth edition, is an award-winning classic. Using maps and graphics, The Women's Atlas reveals how women live their lives across cultures and countries. Professor Seager has achieved international acclaim for her work in feminist environmental policy analysis, the environmental costs of militaries and militarism, and gender and climate change. Seager is the author of many books, including five editions of the award-winning feminist classic The Women’s Atlas, two editions of The State of the Environment Atlas, and Earth Follies: Coming to Feminist Terms With the Global Environmental Crisis. She has been an active consultant with the United Nations on several gender and environmental policy projects, including consulting with the United Nations Environmental Programme on integrating gender perspectives into their work on disasters and early warning systems, and with UNESCO and the Division on Economic and Social Affairs on gender in water policy.
In this episode Kirthi and Vaishnavi talk to Sister Zeph, a Pakistani teacher, women's activist and philanthropist from Gujranwala, Pakistan. She was a leader at school and had plans of becoming a lawyer. When she was thirteen her first article on Women's Rights appeared in Pakistan's leading newspaper the Daily Jang. She left school when in grade seven and taught herself at home, finally passing the tenth grade Board examination. It was around this time that she started teaching other girls. She distributed flyers among her neighbours announcing free education for girls. The girls initially studied in rented, open roof houses with Sister Zeph's financial support. Using self study she completed a master's degree in Political science in 2010, and a master's degree History in 2013. By 2016, her organization had taught over 500 girls and empowered 100 more.
In this episode, Vaishnavi and Kirthi speak to Angela Gorman, the founder of Life for African Mothers. Angela worked for the NHS as a nurse for over 30yrs. The 22yrs prior to her retirement in 2010 were spent as a Senior Sister in the Welsh Regional Neonatal ICU in Cardiff. In 2005, Angela was instrumental in setting up the charity Life for African Mothers (LFAM) having responded to a BBC PANORAMA programme called “Dead Mums Don't Cry” set in Chad Central Africa. The dramatic programme showed that women were dying for the want of cheap available medications. Angela has made 34 visits to 12 countries in SubSaharan Africa since seeing the programme and now finds “normal” holidays boring! Married to Mike, a retired civil servant, Angela has 3 grown up children and 4 grandchildren who have difficulty keeping up with her travels as she undertakes what she regards as the best job in the world and a privilege to be a part of saving women's lives.
Donate to Life for African Mothers here: http://lifeforafricanmothers.org/getting-involved/donate/
On the International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women, Kirthi and Vaishnavi curate five powerful women's speeches: Esha Meher, Lea Gabay, Malavika Mani, Sharda Vishwanathan, and Srilakshmi Indrasenan, with a small clip from a herstoric speech by Hillary Clinton where she said "Women's Rights are Human Rights."
In this episode, Kirthi talks to Manasa Ram Raj and Sourya Banerjee, two young lawyers who talk about the law relating to workplace sexual harassment in India.
In this episode, Kirthi speaks to Rabia Nasimi. Rabia, now 24 years old, arrived in the UK in 1999, on the back of a refrigerated lorry, aged just five-years-old. Rabia's family were forced to flee Afghanistan after her father, an academic, had become a target under the Taliban's destructive rule. Now, Rabia is studying for a PhD at Cambridge University. Alongside this, she supports the education of other refugees in the UK through her award-winning work for the Afghanistan and Central Asian Association (ACAA). She recently won a We Are the City 'Rising Star' award.
In this episode, Vaishnavi speaks to Cynthia Enloe. Cynthia Enloe grew up outside New York City, studied in California and in Malaysia, and now teaches at Clark University in Massachusetts. Cynthia's teaching and writing explore diverse women's and girls' lives in wartime and recovering from war, but also inside globalized factories, doing paid domestic work and on agricultural plantations. Cynthia tries to shed a bright light on the unjust local and international workings of both patriarchy and militarism. Among her most recent books are "Seriously: Investigating Crashes and Crises as if Women Mattered" (2010), a new updated edition of "Bananas, Beaches and Bases" (2014), and "The Big Push: Exposing and Challenging Persistent Patriarchy" (2017).
In this episode, we speak to Vaishnavi Sundar. Vaishnavi is an independent filmmaker, speaker, writer and activist from Chennai who has worked in theatre and films for the past 7 years in various capacities. She is known for her work in the field of cinema and activism involving an interplay of feminism and filmmaking. Having written, directed, and produced all films under her production company, Lime Soda Films, she has completed India's first feature-length documentary on workplace sexual harassment titled, But what was she wearing? To help female filmmakers worldwide connect, collaborate and create works in the audio-visual medium, Vaishnavi founded Women Making Films, a global community known for its effort to break the glass ceiling within the realms of domestic and world cinema.
In our first episode, Vaishnavi speaks to Asma Masood, the Research Officer, Chennai Centre for China Studies (C3S). She is Founding Member and President of ‘Young Minds of C3S’. She has worked as an Independent Researcher on International Relations in the Asia-Pacific and interned at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. She has an M.A. in International Studies, Stella Maris College, Chennai. Her areas of interest are China’s foreign policy and Dynamics of Soft Power. Her article on the Rohingya crisis was republished as an essay in the edited volume Genocide & Persecution: Burma, Greenhaven Press, U.S.A, 2015. Her chapter on ‘People-people contacts: For peace, progress & harmony in the region’ was published in the book Indo-ASEAN Trade & Investment: Historical and Contemporary Perspective, Institute of Objective Studies, Delhi, 2017. Her articles have appeared in IPCS, Foreign Policy Journal, C3S, Red Elephant Foundation, The Hindu, Mizzima Weekly and Myanmar Business Today.