In this session, we reflected on decolonial approaches in public engagement. We collaboratively reflected on key challenges and tensions associated with doing public engagement in decolonial ways. Drawing on insights from ICN’s research project on Feminist, Anti-racist and Decolonial Approaches in Public Engagement, we focused on practical strategies that actors can adopt in their efforts to adopt decolonial practices in public engagement work.
Sydney Piggott (she/her) is a civil society leader and advocate for equity, inclusion and social justice on a global scale. She is the Director of Community Engagement at Elevate–an organization connecting thought leaders, innovators and policymakers to solve complex social problems and the Canadian Headquarters of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Sydney has been a subject matter expert in several international forums including the Commission on the Status of Women, Women Deliver Conference, Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference for Young Parliamentarians and RightsCon. Prior to her role at Elevate, Sydney was the Director of Programs & Projects at YWCA Canada. Passionate about supporting young changemakers, Sydney has worked as a mentor with several youth organizations including the Ontario Council for International Cooperation’s Youth Policy-Maker’s Hub, Apathy is Boring’s RISE program, Community Knowledge Exchange’s Cohort X and the Online Thinkathon Challenge in partnership with the European Union. She is also a contributor at Btchcoin News, a Fulbright Canada fellow and an emerging policy leader in the British Council’s Future Leaders Connect program. Sydney holds a Master of Global Affairs from the University of Toronto where she co-founded the Intersectional Feminist Collective, was a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee scholar, and a researcher with the Reach Alliance. Sydney also holds a bachelor’s in International Development Studies from McGill University. She brings an intersectional feminist lens to all of her work informed by her proud Afro-Caribbean heritage.
My name is Alicia Méndez Medina, and I was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on June 6, 1986. I’m from Herrera, a neighbourhood on the west side of Santo Domingo. Drawing on the environment, social movements, and stories of the border where my mother is from, I was able to construct and reconstruct trans-national stories that centre the marginalization of a lovely, diverse, impoverished neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city. I studied theatre with a concentration in dramaturgy at the Escuela Nacional de Arte Dramático (ENAD). Prior to that I was in social communications, completing a portion of the requirements for a degree in journalism at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD). As part of the university’s chanted poetry scene, a form of activism in performance, I had the opportunity to travel all over the country. In 2020, one of my pieces was included in Fanzine Pandémico, a publication by the Catalina Clandestina collective in Argentina. A poem of mine was included in the anthology Te Quiero Mi Cielo, published in Chile by La Fonola Cartonera in 2018. I worked as a reporter for the online newspaper El Grillo, which offers a platform for social movements to speak in their own words. I also wrote a series of articles for various civil society institutions on economic hardships, lack of services, and impoverishment of neighbourhoods in the Ozama-Isabela basin in Santo Domingo. I write about social inequity, alienation, borders, love and heartbreak from a place of marginalization and from my African heritage. I am a feminist and antiracist activist, and my literary work is informed by this way of seeing the world. I am currently part of the Junta de Prietas collective. We are a feminist, antiracist and decolonial collective, a space for possibility and encounters, and a springboard to liberatory political action that identifies and works to dismantle racist practices.
Priscilla (25 – they/she) is a queer anthropologist who obtained a MA degree in 2019 on the topic of anthropology and sustainable citizenship. They are currently co-coordinating Navegando Libres, a program from Taller de Comunicación Mujer, where they provide feminist accompaniment to survivors of digital gender violence. Their interests include: anti-racism, sex-education, digital rights, interesctional feminism, and how their mutual imbrication may contribute to the imagination and construction of sustainable futures.
I was born in the commune Les Cayes in the Sud department of Haiti. I’m 26 years old and currently live in the commune of Arniquet. Completing my studies in legal sciences, Regional Coordinator of the Croix-Rouge Jeunesse du Sud. Founder and coordinator of the organization FEMMES VOLONTAIRES POUR UNE NOUVELLE HAITI (FVNH), a civil society organization operating in Arniquet. Member of FAC-SUD, a civil society organization operating in the Sud department with headquarters in Les Cayes. Member of GCER-HAITI, a civil society organization operating in the Sud department with headquarters in Les Cayes. I am an exceptionally dynamic, discreet, intelligent woman and a feminist who works towards women’s causes.