We have recently witnessed how the weight of history, and the current cascade of environmental and global health crises has systematically eroded the conditions in which collective hope – for equality and a better future – can thrive and flourish. These latest events will have deep and long-lasting implications for young people, causing individual and social suffering, both of which compromise wellbeing and stifle agency. However, social suffering can also give way to radical reimaginings of the future and transformative action. Through a range of research and action endeavours over the few years we have witnessed young people who care deeply about their futures and have been carving spaces and ways to voice their concerns, resist racialised and other forms of violence and make lives under the weight of these crises.
This speaker series will centre the voices and experiences of young people and those who work alongside them to create spaces, connections, moments and resources that can work through the tensions and the rage and isolation that arises for those caught in the crosshairs of structural oppression. We seek to create an inclusive and democratic space in which different knowledges can come together in ways that can inspire, heal and help us work in deeper ways for change.
This series will feature formats (i.e., panel discussions, short talks, creative modalities) that can facilitate connection and dialogue across powerlines drawn between institutions, organisations and grassroots collectives.
Through this series we will discuss the synergies and possibilities to consider how these small-scale efforts of activism can inform systemic resilience that can restore hope and forge solidarities in our current context of uncertainty.
