An evening of discussion with
Firoze Manji (founder of Pambazuka News)
Margaret Gillan (coordinator for Community Media Network)
Irish Aid Volunteering and Information Centre
27 - 31 Upper O'Connell St., Dublin 1
Monday 28th January, 6 - 8.30 pm
Poster here
Facebook event here
Too often communication about social justice issues is left to
commercial and state media, whose agendas are often very different from
those of the people affected. Social movements often struggle to create
appropriate forms of communication which build links between people and
communities, enable alternative voices to be heard and do not simply
imitate official media. This evening brings together two leading
figures in radical communications to share their experiences in Africa,
Ireland and globally and to discuss how to broaden the spaces of
possibility.
Firoze Manji, a Kenyan, is the founder and former
editor-in-chief of Pambazuka (www.pambazuka.org), a pan-African
website, newsletter and network committed to the struggle for freedom
and justice. With a million readers and some 3500 writers, activists,
bloggers, public intellectuals, artists and social movements writing
for Pambazuka News, it has grown to be recognised as the platform for
debate, discussions and organising in Africa. Firoze will shortly be
joining the Council for the Development of Social Science Research
(www.codesria.org)
as head of their documentation and information
centre in Dakar, Senegal. Amongst other positions, he is a visiting
fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford.
Margaret Gillan, community activist, studied fine art in Belfast
from 1975-8, which raised questions for her around class, oppression
and voice. She then taught and worked on independent media in England
from 1979-93. After returning to Ireland she worked as Coordinator of
Community Media Network (www.cmn.ie) for 16 years. CMN aims to
increase
visibility for community media activity, supporting initiatives to
build a network of community-based media activists working for social
justice. She represents CMN on the Committee of Management of Dublin
Community Television (www.dctv.ie), a community media co-op
and
platform founded by CMN. In 2010 she completed a participatory action
research PhD project developing community television in Ireland. CMN's
funding was cut in March 2012. The core group continues on a voluntary
basis to organise for community access to media.
The facilitator Laurence Cox is co-editor of the open-access
social movements journal Interface (interfacejournal.net) and
co-director of the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social
Activism at NUI Maynooth (ceesa-ma.blogspot.ie). He is currently
co-editing the last letters of executed Nigerian author and campaigner
Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Admission is free but places are limited - please RSVP to
laurence.cox@nuim.ie
Event co-hosted by
Dublin Multicultural Resource Centre (www.dmrc.ie)
Association of African Students in Ireland (asaireland.blogspot.ie)
MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism (ceesa-ma.blogspot.ie)
