Conversations from the Leading Edge AC4 - Columbia

We are excited to announce our first episode featuring student voices! Thu Thu May Oo and Erina Iwasaki are current graduate students of Teachers College, Columbia University. They discuss their perspectives on the current situation in Myanmar and their involvement with the Myanmar Association at Columbia University (MAC).

**This episode was recorded in May 2021. The producer of this episode acknowledges that the situation in Myanmar is continuously changing and there may have been some updates since the time of this recording. **

Bio(s):
Thu Thu May Oo is originally from Myanmar and she is a graduate student, pursuing MS in Nutrition Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Previously, she worked as a New Roots Food and Health Intern and a community liaison at International Rescue Committee for the Burmese refugee and immigrant communities in Seattle, Washington. She is also a freelance social and food justice writer. With her new career in nutrition education and dietetics, she hopes to work with community leaders to rebuild a healthcare system that is inclusive and more representative of Myanmar's existing diverse communities and individuals, and promote community empowerment, food and social justice, and ecological sustainability.

Erina Iwasaki is a PhD candidate in Comparative and International Education at Teachers College Columbia University, and a curriculum advisor to the Khayay International School in Yangon, Myanmar. Having lived in both the Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and France for an extensive period of her childhood, her research focuses on multilingual education in West African and Southeast Asian countries. Her dissertation examines bi-multilingual education advocacy in Senegal. She is also a peace education trainer and a regular consultant for multilingual education development in Myanmar, a place she calls home. Erina holds a Master’s in Political and Moral Philosophy from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and a Diploma in American Studies at Smith College. She speaks French, Japanese, English, Burmese, and Spanish.

Contacts:
Email - myanmarassociation@columbia.edu
Facebook Account - https://www.facebook.com/mac.columbiauni

For donations:
https://www.mutualaidmyanmar.org/

www.zigway.co/donate This is specifically for food donations

https://startsomegood.com/the-civil-disobedience-movement-cdm-in-myanmar?fbclid=IwAR1XW5A3z2LiDxaZifDbYw7DSq8xGOJ48n3kf8-uu2NVKkRr-ipH-Z70dsQ#updates

Music/Sound Credits：
Opening - Flashback by Monplaisir
Kabar Ma Kyay Bu by Naing Myanmar
Audio Clips of Protesters - Harry Tao

During the difficult times we’ve been living, facing the pandemic, racism, and socioeconomic distress, art rises as a breath of fresh air, at times translating what we have difficulty putting into words, at times, magnifying social and racial issues that can no longer remain overlooked, but always a powerful tool to process reality.

In this episode we talk to Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario, the Founder and Executive Director of Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE), an organization that helps young people amplify their voices and organize for human rights change in their communities through the arts. We explore the role of art as an educational process, as a social struggle tool, and we talk about how you can begin to explore the creation of art yourself.

Learn about their work at https://www.artejustice.org/
On Instagram and Twitter: @artejustice

In the international Covid coverage there’s a tendency for uplifting Global North countries in their efforts of control and solution creation while undermining Global South countries, as places bound to be the scenario of the worst calamities, incapable of responding efficiently to the crisis or where good covid response numbers are something surprising. Narratives are yet another aspect of the Covid-19 crisis that has been shaped by colonialism.

In the final episode of this series, we talk about the harm that hegemonic distorted narratives present and dive into the stories that do not get to be in the headlines. Our guests are Bianca Santana, a journalist and writer from Brazil, a participant of Uneafro and the Black Coalition for Rights; and Alpha Daffae Senkpeni, a multimedia journalist from Liberia and the Executive Director and Editor of the Local Voices Liberia Media network.

****** GREAT NEWS ******

Why Rwanda Is Doing Better Than Ohio When It Comes To Controlling COVID-19: NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/15/889802561/a-covid-19-success-story-in-rwanda-free-testing-robot-caregivers

How Mongolia has kept the coronavirus at bay: MIT Technology Review
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/18/1007135/mongolia-coronavirus/

Not waiting for a savior: The African response to the coronavirus pandemic displays innovation and ingenuity: Africa is A Country
https://africasacountry.com/2020/10/not-waiting-for-a-savior

****** LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GUESTS’ INITIATIVES ******

Video explaining Uneafro’s initiative of Public Health Agents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6H1CNJbgf8

The Black Coalition for Rights Manifest “As long as there is Racism there will be no democracy”:
https://comracismonaohademocracia.org.br/as-long-as-there-is-racism-there-will-be-no-democracy/

The Local Voices Liberia Media network website: https://localvoicesliberia.com/

Links to some of their stories:

https://localvoicesliberia.com/2020/09/01/man-who-refused-health-facility-recounts-near-death-experience/

https://localvoicesliberia.com/2020/08/02/three-covid-19-survivors-recount-experience-in-gbarpolu-county/

https://localvoicesliberia.com/2020/07/29/new-developments-allay-covid-19-fears-among-residents-of-bomi-county/

Music for this episode: Lumber Down and Raskt Landsby by Blue Dot Sessions

Humanitarian efforts were and still are dominated by donors and organizations based in the United States and Europe. However, these efforts are frequently targeted at low and middle-income countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, often without taking into account the perspectives and expertise of affected persons. This system replicates colonial structures and power dynamics and is reflected in the Covid-19 response as well.

In this episode, we will tackle the intersection of colonialism, COVID-19, and the need for greater support for localized responses, with an example from the city of Mogadishu in Somalia. We talk to Dr. Hodan Ali, Director of the Durable Solutions Unit, a local government body that responds to humanitarian needs. She is also the co-founder of the Refuge Hamilton Centre for Newcomer Health in Ontario Canada.

For more information on the DSU:

- This is their website: https://dsu.so/

- Follow them on twitter: https://twitter.com/DSUBenadir

- Take a look at their strategical plan: "Moving forward: Finding lasting
solutions for urban displacement" - https://dsu.so/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DSU_strategy_report_2020_v11.pdf

- Take a look at their Forced Evictions Committee report -https://dsu.so/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/idp_report-1.pdf

The song you hear in this episode is "Uur Hooyo", by Hudeidi, featuring Aar Maanta, that you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxbh6a3o8bA&ab_channel=AarMaanta

The so-called “discovery” of the world by European navigators in the XV century is the event that defines the beginning of the historical process known as colonialism, a system marked by the exploitation of labor and expropriation of land that is still present in different forms in the international geopolitical arena. In this episode, the first of a small series, we will discuss how these colonial structures are present in modern times and how they are reflected in the Covid-19 crisis we currently live. Our attention will focus on the Navajo Nation and the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Our guests today are Dr. Farina King, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and an Assistant Professor of History as well as an affiliated faculty of Cherokee and Indigenous Studies at Northeastern State University and author of The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century; and Tinashe Goronga, a physician from Zimbabwe who is focused on social medicine, public health, and health equity. Tinashe is also member of the Global Campaign Against Racism’s, Zimbabwe chapter.

** This episode was recorded on July 10th, the data presented refers back to that moment and might have changed by now.

Here are links to further the discussion, based on the conversation:

NAVAJO INITIATIVES

Dr. Farina King’s website - https://farinaking.com/dinedoctorhistorysyllabus/

Healing Songs sung by the Navajo and the Sioux – https://youtu.be/x1uJidwo77s

The Official Navajo Nation COVID-19 Relief Fund - https://www.nndoh.org/donate.html

Utah Navajo Health System - https://www.unhsinc.org/

NDN Collective COVID-19 Project – https://ndncollective.org/covid-19/

Pueblo Relief Fund - https://pueblorelieffund.org/

Far East Navajo COVID-19 Response Fund - https://www.gofundme.com/f/far-east-navajo-covid19-relief

Utah Diné Bikéyah - https://utahdinebikeyah.org/contribute-2/

K'é Infoshop - http://keinfoshop.org/donate

The National Council of Urban Indian Health - https://www.ncuih.org/index

ZIMBABWE INITIATIVES

CHEZ- health education – https://twitter.com/CHEZimbabwe

Zim Citizens COVID Response - https://www.instagram.com/zimccr/

Rare Diseases & Disabilities Africa Foundation – https://www.facebook.com/RaDDA.Foundation/

Kufema - https://kufemazimbabwe.org/

Kufunda Village Community – https://www.kufunda.org/

National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe - http://www.nationalgallery.co.zw/

Institute of afrikology - https://instituteofafrikology.wordpress.com/

Women for the Environment Africa - https://www.womenforenvironment.org/

Feministing while African - https://twitter.com/FeministingWAF

BRAZILIAN INITIATIVES

UNEAFRO Brazil - https://uneafrobrasil.org/

Popular health agents project - https://agentespopularesdesaude.org.br/

In this episode, we explore the work of the Community of Sant'Egidio, a religious group connected to the catholic church that has been an important stakeholder in peace processes around the world. Andrea Bartoli, an international conflict resolution expert for over three decades and president of the Community of Sant'Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, tells us more about Sant'Egidio's work.

In this episode, Bartoli talks about how the Community started, its values and challenges and he presents its more recent intervention, in South Sudan, a country that has been struggling to find its ways towards sustainable peace.