The Rights Collective presents Break the Silence Zine Launch

Please note, we are now sold out but we strongly encourage you to sign up for the waitlist as tickets are likely to become available closer to the date.

Tackling Gender Inequality in the South Asian Diaspora Community

The Rights Collective is excited to host the launch of our Break the Silence Zine, featuring stories from the South Asian Diaspora on the nuanced, diverse and often complicated relationships with our community.

Break The Silence

This is the inaugural event for The Rights Collective and the launch for our Break the Silence Zine. Our #BreakTheSilence campaign launched during women’s history month in 2019. We invited womxn and other marginalised individuals from the South Asian Diaspora to submit stories about their experiences of living as a part of this community. This project aimed to shine a light on the inequalities, violence and disempowerment we can often feel within our communities. The Zine is an effort to centre South Asian womxn and non-heteronormative voices, providing a space for us to share our stories more widely in the hope that this will spark conversations in spaces where we may otherwise be silent. Copies of the Zine will be available on the day.

Panellists

We are looking forward to hearing from our panellists on the topic of how we can tackle gender stereotypes, bias and inequality within the South Asian Diaspora community. Our panellists include:

Simran Chawla, Gender & Sexual Health Expert

Simran has worked for over 15 years on gender, sexual health and women’s rights and is a contributor to the Zine. She grew up in India and currently lives in the UK. She’s worked in local government and the charity sector and has a special interest in health promotion, training and community mobilisation in black, minority ethnic and refugee communities. She works with women who are survivors of gender based violence and is passionate about scaling up this work with boys and men. Simran is a member of the World Health Organisation’s global roster of consultants on the Prevention of Violence against Women and Girls. She loves singing with her local choir and generally prefers the company of most animals to most humans.

Dee Jas, Colourfull

Dee created colourfull 🌈(www.wearecolourfull.co.uk) to support the inclusion of queer people of colour in the workplace and in everyday life. Examining gender norms and challenging them forms part and parcel of the work he does, and has informed his contribution to the zine. Prior to colourfull, he held HR leadership roles the BBC, Net-A-Porter and most recently at Girl Effect (a charity that aims to empower girls through the use of media and technology). In addition, he is also a Trustee at Sour Lemons. Follow colourfull on Insta and Twitter @wearecolourfull.

Sheetal Mistry, South Asian Sisters Speak

Sheetal is the co-founder of South Asian Sisters Speak (SASS) - a platform and safe space created for South Asian women in the UK to share and connect. One of their flagship projects is the #BrownGirlsBookClub, which uses South Asian literature by female authors to open up conversations about issues within the South Asian community. In her day job she works in community development and corporate responsibility in East London. She is passionate about gender equality, education and politics.

Benaifer Bhandari, Hopscotch Asian Women's Centre

Benaifer Bhandari is CEO of Hopscotch Asian Women's Centre in Camden. In over 17 years in the third sector her vision has remained the same - to ensure that there is parity in the quality of support available to every woman who needs help. Whereas this may seem obvious in some parts of the country, it is still not the case everywhere. Her passion is to ensure that each one of the c1000 service users helped by Hopscotch each year finds support embedded with understanding of common barriers BAME women face and yet is approached in a person-centred manner.

The panel will be chaired by:

Nishma Jethwa, The Rights Collective

Nishma is a gender rights activist and human rights lawyer. Her expertise in gender rights, access to justice and racial equality stems from over 10 years working in the field in the U.K. and in India. She is currently the Project Director for Feminist Justice at One Future Collective, a Mumbai-based non-profit as well as Chief Purpose Officer at Shiva Hotels. She is a Co-Founder of The Rights Collective as well as a founder of a number of other exciting rights-based initiatives globally. Nishma holds a BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Warwick and is a qualified lawyer in the Senior Courts of England and Wales.

RSVP

Join us on Tuesday 17th September 2019, 6.30pm at Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, 40 Holborn Viaduct, Holborn, London EC1N 2PZ, UK

Drinks and canapés will be provided, thanks to our event sponsor, Irwin Mitchell. We look forward to welcoming you.

About The Rights Collective

The Rights Collective is a group of South Asian womxn who are looking to tackle the distinct, and often insidious, ways in which gender inequality manifests within the Hindu community in the UK. Since this type of inequality is often justified by our community itself, on the basis of historical socio-cultural and religious norms, we believe it is our duty to dismantle and subvert some of these norms within our own spaces.

We identify as a collective as we aim to be an inclusive space for communities in dismantling systemic factors that uphold womxn's oppression within South Asian Diaspora communities. Accordingly, our Zine features stories from the wider South Asian Diaspora across the globe. To find out more or get involved, email us at [email protected].