Radical communications and social justice

dublin | arts and media | event notice Thursday January 17, 2013 09:52 by Laurence Cox - MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism

An evening of discussion with Firoze Manji and Margaret Gillan

Too often communication about social justice issues is left to commercial and state media, whose agendas are often very different from those 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 discuss how to broaden the spaces of possibility.

Irish Aid Volunteering and Information Centre
27 - 31 Upper O'Connell St., Dublin 1
Monday 28th January, 6 - 8.30 pm

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 1979-1993. 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 for 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)
African Students Association of Ireland (asaireland.blogspot.ie)
MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism (ceesa-ma.blogspot.ie)

Event poster - Firoze Manji and Margaret Gillan 0.25 Mb