South Asian Healing Spaces 💜
The Rights Collective, together with Alternative Justice and Expert By Experience, are holding two drop-in support spaces for our communities this month.
Hi folks, we hope you’re all keeping well and feeling positive about the easing of lockdown rules if that is the case for where you are. We know its been a difficult month, and we’ve been consumed in collective grief with everything happening in the world to our communities. That is why we’re holding two healing and support spaces this month for our South Asian siblings - more below.
We’re also sharing a round-up of the workshops our collective members have hosted in the past couple of weeks centred around unpacking anti-blackness in South Asian communities, body liberation and more.
If you’d like to get in touch with us about collaborating, volunteering or wish to simply say hello, drop us a message here.
In solidarity,
The Rights Collective
💜 Drop-in Healing Spaces
Following #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek this month, we at The Rights Collective, together with Alternative Justice and Expert By Experience, are holding two drop-in support spaces for our communities. We know it's been a challenging time for many - from dealing with ease in the lockdown rules to seeing our comrades in India suffer through their second wave and an oppressive government enacting full-on genocide on our siblings in Palestine. We hope these spaces can provide community and a space to be heard and connect.
Both circles will be facilitated by experienced community members and will hold space based on mutual respect and trust. Our facilitators aim to cultivate and foster a safe and open space for our community to come together to listen, speak to one another, and be heard without judgment.
📚 Anti-Caste Reading Circle: Caste and Race
Session 5 summary of our anti-caste reading circle is now up on our website! We had an insightful session looking at the intersections of caste and race with a number of interesting points being explored. We invite you to reflect using the summary in your own time if you weren’t able to join us.
Thanks, as always, to our facilitators Jyotsna Siddharth and Varun Khanna for putting together the session. We hope you find these summaries helpful and please let us know how you get on!
Brown Bodies Workshop
Sharing snippets of the first in a series of workshops with our brilliant facilitator Ameira Sikand of The UnMute Files. Participants explored concepts of body liberation, body privilege, and body positivity.
Recounts from our Anti-Blackness Workshop
Our collective members Inaya and Disha co-facilitated a workshop on Unpacking Anti-Blackness within South Asian Communities in the U.K. for our friends at WOC Azadi Collective last week. Participants were taken through:
the history of racism and systemic oppression
anti-Blackness before colonialism
exploring the intersections of class, caste, and ethnicity
and challenging narratives around model minorities.
We had a great response from attendees and we invite them to continue to deepen their journey into the understanding of how anti-blackness manifests itself in South Asian communities & why we must challenge it. We will be hosting a part 2 soon, so watch this space! If you want us to facilitate a workshop for your community, get in touch at therightscollective@gmail.com.
Mutual Aid for India
The Rights Collective team is pooling funds via our Solidarity Circle for mutual aid projects in India providing COVID relief during the unfolding crisis.
You can contribute too - the pool is open until May 31st, after which the funds will be distributed between several projects via Mutual Aid India. Contributors will be sent further details before distribution. Our rage and activism must extend beyond our immediate experiences. It must be global, intersectional, and guided by those doing the work on the ground. We invite you to contribute what you can 💛
Articles & Blogs
From Life To Death: تØریر // Tehreer participant Sivakami Prasanna writes about the tragic second wave engulfing India, and of helplessness and guilt that many in the diaspora feel.
Worldwide demonstrations are being held in support of Palestinian Liberation and against Israel’s 11-day onslaught of Gaza. Check out these images of global solidarity across London, Chicago, New York, Tripoli, and Tehran.
Hosnia had dreams: The minority Hazara community in Afghanistan already faces rampant discrimination in the country, last week’s targeted bombing of a girl’s school brings more devastation and heartache.
Support a free press: Investigative journalist Rozina Islam has been arrested in Bangladesh after uncovering government corruption in the COVID-19 crisis. Under a colonial-era law, she may face the death penalty.
Read 4 Palestine 🇵🇸
If you want to find out more information and expand on your existing knowledge of Palestine, you can check out Lets Talk Palestine, Adalah Justice Project, Decolonise Palestine, and this google folder for free resources and explainer posts.