‘New Voices, New Leaders’ by Crea is a creative learning initiative between organisations and individuals from South and Southeast Asia to strengthen inter-generational leadership capacities and establish a vibrant network of activists and organisations.
On the 7th of November 2019, our founder and executive director Nidhi Goyal was invited to engage with young queer rights and women's rights activists from Myanmar and Nepal.
The aim was to build capacities of organisations, networks, and coalitions in South and Southeast Asia to better integrate issues related to gender equality and violence against women (VAW) and to provide learning opportunities for women leaders, including young women leaders.
The day started with a brief discussion on the history of the disability rights movement. The participants were asked to come up with words they would typically associate with disability and place them within different columns signifying the medical, charity, and social models of disability. The phrases they came up with and the assumptions behind them were then discussed in quite some detail, as myths and stereotypes commonly surrounding the subject were broken. The young activists were then divided into groups to discuss specific issues of women with disabilities (including violence, education, health etc) in the specific context of their countries/ regions. The session ended with a viewing and discussion of Rising Flame's Ending the Silence, and Maysoon Zayid's Ted Talk, followed by a few minutes for questions and comments by the participants.