James Blake and Xiomara Rivas
Guatemala has witnessed increased levels of violence over recent years, particularly against human rights activists defending indigenous communities. In response, local communities are forming their own protection groups and owning up to the cartels and, in some instances, to elected officials.
Read MoreHayley Headley
In her latest piece on reproductive rights and the right to education in the context of increased rates of teen pregnancies, Hayley Headley explores why Belize is struggling to achieve a comprehensive sexual health curriculum.
Read MoreChristian Yeo
Following an internship in NGOs serving the red-light district and the homeless in Singapore, Christian Yeo began to learn about how vulnerable communities were disproportionately affected by Singapore’s circuit breaker measures. In his poem, ‘every unbroken thing’, Christian reckons with the faces behind the numbers, the people behind the arguments, and the lives whose evanescence and invisibility belie the strongest and most unbending of wills.
Read MoreJonathan Chan
‘crown’ was written in March 2020. At the time, the reality of a novel virus seemed distant in the minds of those living in Britain, but its justifiable potential for racist violence had begun to make its way into British cities. Reports of Chinatowns emptied of patronage, and harassment and violence of those of East Asian descent, whether British or international, began to proliferate.
Read MoreJulie Reintjes
“The Syrian nation is not one community anymore… Syrian refugees living in Germany have completely different challenges, lives, and futures from Syrian refugees living in Jordan, or Canada. Through the Syria Cultural Index, we aim to reconnect our cultural fabric, maintain its production, and prevent it from melting into the new countries that Syrians are living in."
Read MoreZainab Onuh-Yahaya
Covid-19 has highlighted how wealth and class transpire into aspects of everyday life and create significant risks. Zainab Onuh-Yahaya draws a picture of the everyday realities of these differences, as she lives through them in her neighborhood in urban Nigeria. Even fearing disease in the middle of a pandemic is a luxury for those who need to be concerned with hunger.
Read MoreJonathan Chan
This poem emerged from a solemn recognition that challenges faced by migrant workers are invisible to the general Singaporean populace: debts to agents, yearning for their families, physical injuries from laborious work, and poor quality food.
Read MoreSohaila Abdulali
Writing from the viewpoint of a survivor, writer, daughter, mother, counsellor and activist, Sohaila Abdulali not only looks at what we – women, men, trans people, politicians, teachers, writers, sex workers, feminists, sages, mansplainers, victims and families – think about rape but also questions common assumptions about victimhood.
Read MoreYuval Joyce Shalev
Israelis who believe in the most elementary human rights principles, who also live under the protective aegis of a government that continuously denudes our nearest neighbours of those very rights, are living lives that are increasingly ego-dystonic, so long as they remain silent. The very notion of a liberal, secular Israeli is a contradiction in terms, unless they - we - endeavour to make a change.
Read MoreThe Nude Abstract
This ideal, set in 1915, of female and femme presenting bodies, to have smooth, alabaster skin, was one of capitalistic opportunism. However, over the years, through perpetuation and amplifying media imagery, it has evolved into a defining characteristic of femininity itself.
Read MoreHayley Headley
Hayley Headley writes on the historical and contemporary consequences of the “angry black woman” stereotype and its role in silencing black women. Now, black women are at the forefront of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, angry for change and social justice, but definitely *not* a stereotype.
Read MoreTate Tsang
Using the album 4:44 by Jay-Z as a case study, Oxford University music student Tate Tsang writes about issues of commodification of hip-hop culture and its effects on the perception of rap music and the black members affiliated with it.
Read MoreHayley Headley
This poem unpacks the unique experience of being a black woman in the world today, as racism and gender discrimination are always inseparable issues. It illustrates the accumulated impact of micro and macro-aggressions that eventually lead into an explosion of (warranted) anger, an emotion that dominates the damaging stereotype that has been placed upon us for decades: the angry black woman.
Read MoreHannah Carbery
Prior to Covid-19, issues of overcrowding, lack of privacy, and the inability to live a normal family life already raised the alarm on conditions present in Ireland’s Direct Provision Centres. Now residents are forced to self-isolate in often overpopulated and poorly-managed centres during the Covid-19 pandemic, such systems suddenly present an imminent threat to lives.
Read MoreNishan Kafle
Women are deemed “impure” during their menstruation, consequentially banished to small huts and barred from participating in daily family activities such as cooking. Chhaupadi permeates nearly every socio-economic group of Nepal, with differences arising only in the extent of the implementation.
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