Towards a More Decolonial, Anti-racist and Feminist Public Engagement: ICN Research Recommendations

MJ Torres was born in Colombia. She moved to Canada in 2017 as an international student and got a degree in environmental management. Currently, she works as an analyst at Upswing Solutions and as a youth advisor for the Canadian Council for Youth Prosperity and Vibrant Healthcare Alliance helping people with disabilities. In the past MJ has worked with several non-profits too. At the beginning of 2022, she was accepted in the Youth Champions Program by Spur Change where she learned how social and environmental issues intersect. Thanks to the program she was able to develop her own climate justice project to illustrate the disproportional effects of climate change in certain regions and communities. MJ is happy to be part of conversations that focus on building a better world!

Bienvenida Mendoza Benitez holds a bachelor’s degree in social communication sciences from Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) and has completed their postgraduate studies in Spanish language and Hispanic Cultures from the Central Connecticut State University and Universidad de Salamanca. They are the founder and facilitator at Escuela de Formación Feminista Antirracista y Decolonial, which focuses on youth and adolescents from marginalized communities and neighbourhoods, and have facilitated courses on Dominican identity and culture for international students, and in the international program of the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña. Bienvenida has also been the Director, Women’s Program of the Unión de Juventud Ecuménica (UJEDO); director, Young Women’s Program for Latin America, World Council of Churches (WCC), and has worked towards producing a guide for training sessions on anti-racist perspectives, focusing on anti-colonial struggles on the island, origin and history of racism, gender, representation and identity.

Paola Sanchez Argandoña is a dancer and member of Jasy Renyhê, an ecofeminist organization based in La Paz, Bolivia, whose work is focused on indigenous women and girls in the Bolivian Amazon and the acts of violence that affect their bodies, lives, and territories. Lately, she’s been interested in combining art and research to connect lives and heal together in horizontal ways of communication, care, and support between women.

Sonia Audi is a Kenyan queer, nonbinary feminist, activist and creative. They channel their skills and passion for advocacy and storytelling towards advocating for an all-inclusive world where LGBTQ+ persons are free to exist as their most authentic selves. This is evident in their work as a program coordinator at Jinsiangu, an organization that works to enhance the lives and wellbeing of intersex, transgender and gender non-conforming (ITGNC) persons in Kenya; and as a community organizer at Queerhive Kenya, a youth-centered, creative and social support organization for lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) womxn and gender non-conforming persons. They have also been involved in a number of collaborative creative projects such as “Meanwhile” by the Qintu Collab, “Rainbow Childhoods” by GALCK, “New Rain” by Minority Womyn in Action, and “Emergence” by Holaafrica.

Kimy/Leticia Rojas Miranda holds a doctorate in sociology and anthropology, and has experience with trans/feminist and migration studies, as well as gender and sexual identity studies. They are a researcher and a diaspora activist/artist in both Spain and Abya Yala, and have been part of the Ecuadorian feminist movement since 1999. Starting in 2008, they have divided their time between Madrid (Spain), Quito and Guayaquil (Ecuador). Alongside other activists in Spain, they have participated in the Migrantes Transgresorxs collective since 2009 and the Ayllu collective since 2017. Kimy’s skills include research and activist/artistic creation, which they have practiced for 12 years. Recent projects include the research project “Mapeo de Feminismos Negros en Abya Yala” (“Mapping Black Feminisms in Abya Yala“); “Re-existencia transfronterizas ‘entre aquí y allá‘” (“Transborder Re-existence ‘Between Here and There'”), Ecuador chapter, 2020; group exhibition, “Don’t blame us for what happened / No nos culpen de lo que pasó” (Migrantes Transgresorxs collective/Ayllu collective), Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN-2020, at Artspace. They also work with POPS (Programa Orientado a Prácticas Subalternas), a research and training project that began in 2018 at the Centro de Residencias Artísticas, Matadero-Madrid. The fourth edition of POPS, held in collaboration with GLEFAS (Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista) is now coming to a close.