Strength & Solidarity

Amid constant pressure to raise funds for short term objectives, and to achieve promised impact, human rights organisations can lose sight of the bigger picture and focus inward.   Yet they are part of a community of actors seeking to secure “all rights for all people” and that holistic goal requires long term strategy and commitments. Veteran human rights worker Mona Younis and Kate Newman, chief...

For ten years between 2003 and 2013, Chinese organizer Lu Jun worked to build a movement of advocacy and litigation to secure human rights.  He first joined the fight against stigma attached to people with Hepatitis B that limited their access to education and work, and later founded what was to become the main human rights organization in China, the Yirenping Center.  But that was under then Pres...

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes. Back in December we featured an episode about North Korea – but with a twist. Beyond the ritual condemnations of egregious practices under Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, it’s rare to get a close-up view of what the people who escape from North Korea think and feel about their lives and the future the...

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes. Coda #24 featured criminal justice and human rights expert Chris Stone reading and reflecting on a poem by Seamus Heaney, called Casualty . This famous poem of the Northern Ireland Troubles tells the story of an event that followed Bloody Sunday, the day in 1972 when British soldiers shot dead 13...

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes. Last April, in Episode 51, I talked with Negin Shiraghaei , founder of Azadi Network , about her work to build a network for Iranians in the diaspora – as a common space for advancing human rights and democracy at home. She talked about the complexity of the task, and the value of embracing lesson...

Strength&Solidarity is taking a break and that gives us a chance to re-up some favourite episodes. Here’s Coda #3 in which US civil rights veteran  Charles Cobb Jr looks back to 1963 and a chance meeting between some young black activists in the segregated south and a future Kenyan Vice President.  That event went on to be celebrated in a song that became a favourite in the civil rights moveme...

It can sometimes seem as though fighting for queer rights in a hostile society is an unwinnable project.  All too often, punitive laws, state violence, economic exclusion and social hostility are stacked against a community that is isolated and excluded. That’s certainly true in Tunisia and other North African countries. But in this episode, queer Tunisian activist Assala Mdawkhy tells host Akwe A...

If you are one of the people feeling that things are not going to be all right, this one’s for you.  Coda #46 comes from Bill McKibben , veteran climate change activist and founder of multiple campaigns and organisations – check out Strength&Solidarity Ep. 57 .  He told us how hard it can be to stay optimistic, when the odds against success seem high.  The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun is one of...

What’s your image of an activist? Someone in a bandanna facing down a line of cops? Or chaining themselves to a tree? You may well have imagined someone young because that’s the stereotype: the student ready to take on the world - until they get bogged down in work obligations and childcare. But veteran climate justice organizer Bill McKibben thinks that cliché is due for retirement. Four years ag...

A young boy growing up in South Bend, Indiana, goes to the library every week with his mother and comes back with a brown grocery bag full of books. He doesn’t know it then, but it’s the start of a lifelong journey of involvement in the human rights movement. Listen to Chris Grove, executive director of ESCR-Net explain how books showed him a lineage of struggle he could join, and how they are sti...

The levels of stress and – at worst – burn-out in the human rights field are, anecdotally at least, at remarkably high levels.   That may not be surprising in an era of rising authoritarianism, shrinking funds and expanding abuse of rights.  But is the impact on those who organize and work in human rights sufficiently understood and recognized? If the rights movements and organizations are to meet...

These are stressful times for human rights activists where every day, a new development may cause despondency or rage. Feminist activist and campaigner Francoise Girard explains why you really need some seventeenth century music in your life. Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org   We are now publishing our newsletter on Substack, if youwould like to subscribe: ⁠https://substack.com/@strengt...

The United States has gone, in less than six months, from being seen by many as a defender of democracy and human rights, to being the latest – and most powerful - administration to embrace authoritarianism.  Amid a head-spinning flood of presidential orders and harsh policies - towards women, immigrants, the poor, the disabled and the sick, it’s hard to know where to focus. In this episode, veter...

What are the big takeaways from five years of conversation between 200 human rights leaders from nearly 70 countries?  How did activism and solidarity get sidelined as vehicle for human rights work, in favour of the multilateral review bodies and government advocacy? Why do many younger leaders avoid creating organisations? And what do activists from the US civil rights movement or South Africa’s...

Fleeing your country to avoid persecution is a deeply disruptive experience, whether it is the loss of contact with loved ones, being marginalized from the work or activism that gave you purpose, reckoning with the danger you escaped, or simply feeling isolated in a new place. With repression increasing in the Central American region, many more people are being forced into exile and where they mos...

When Venezuelan human rights lawyer Mario D’Andrea Canas, escaped from Venezuela last year, he could no longer glance up every morning at the mountain that towers over his beloved home city of Caracas. Nature’s grandeur makes our problems feel more manageable, he reflects, as he learns to cherish Peruvian sunsets. Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org   We are now publishing our newsletter o...

Passionate political debate is a cherished pastime in Nigeria. There’s a rich tradition of active participation too, whether it is in support of a favoured electoral candidate, or protesting against oppressive practices by security forces and price hikes that hit a struggling population hard. On the face of it, that tradition is being upheld – there have been several big campaigns in recent years...

Farah Abou El Sel recalls the mornings in her Lebanese childhood, when the silken, plangent voice of Fairuz could be heard in every street, welcoming the day.  Farah grew up hearing and loving the songs without thinking much about the lyrics. But in hindsight she sees how profoundly Fairuz’s empathy and humanist message has shaped her life choices, including her decision to work in human rights. ...

In the quarter century since Iran’s Islamic revolution, thousands of Iranians have left their home to live in exile. Although they all have a country in common, that diaspora is hugely diverse – coming from different generations and with a wide range of origin stories, political allegiances and views about the change they would like to see in Iran. When in 2022 a young woman in Iran was beaten and...

When Burcu Meltem Arik first read Nazim Hikmet’s poem, The Walnut Tree, she exhaled with relief at its message. She reflects that nature has much to teach us - especially the value of community and connectedness for resilience – but we don’t always notice the lesson. Music Credit: Ben Sığmazam by Özge Arslan, 2023 https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity....

The Trump Administration’s freeze on US aid has caused a global outcry.  Poor and vulnerable communities in famine and war-afflicted locations are suddenly without food, and without the medications that keep people with chronic conditions alive.  That aid also helped to protect persecuted activists and human rights defenders who are now at greater risk from violence and authoritarian abuse.  But t...

  In 2011, nearly 50 years of military dictatorship came to an end in Myanmar,  allowing LGBTQ activists to organize publicly to repeal a homophobic law, and advocate more positive attitudes towards SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression) rights.  They were making big strides in their campaigns when a military coup returned the generals to power, making open activism impossible...

Indonesian human rights defender Fatia Maulidiyanti spent over two years fighting criminal defamation charges brought by a government minister, charges that could have landed her in jail.  But when life gets complicated, Fatia has her own private refuge to which she can retreat and recharge. https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

With North Korea becoming ever more repressive and closed to the outside world, what is the best path to change? For some, aggressive advocacy for human rights is needed; for others, especially an older generation of North Koreans who have found their way to the south, unification of the two Koreas should be the priority.  Still others, particularly the younger generation of South Koreans, doubt t...

Things can get tense between lawyers, police and judges when human rights cases are being litigated.  But veteran human rights lawyer Arnold Tsunga has a tried and tested strategy for keeping things cordial. Music by Oliver Mtukudzi. https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org