Transnational Feminist Activist Voices from Berlin: Race, Gender, and Diaspora Margo Okazawa-Rey, Producer

 

 

Today I am broadcasting two prerecorded interviews with transnational feminist activists in Berlin. I met them during a workshop for feminists of color and their allies on 11 of September. There, I had the honor of listening to their personal stories and stories of struggle.  In the first segment, please listen to my living-room conversation with Makda Isak, Kochob Mihretaab, Oihane Roach, and Hana Sato, young feminists of color who share their experiences living in Berlin and their vision of a future world they are organizing to create.

 

In the second segment, Isidora Randjelovic, Estera Iordan, and Magdalena Lovric, converse with Vanessa Thompson about the Romani rights movement and connections to Black history and life.

 

Click here  To listen  45 minutes 

Guests

Part 1

Makda Isak grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, where she studied Sociology. In her master’s thesis she focused on African Feminist epistemologies. Makda is a Black Feminist who has been involved in antiracist and feminist grassroots organizing for the past seven years. Currently, she works for the Berlin based African, Afrodiasporic & Black empowerment community project Each One Teach One as a civic educator. 

Kochob Mihretaab (27) is a black feminist who lives in Berlin. Her political work focusses around the connection between African diasporic topics in Europe and the struggle in the Global South. In her work with youth at a community theater she connects aspects of hip hop culture with political topics. She enjoys dancing, good food and connecting with people of different ages and histories.

 

Oihane Roach is a 30 year old Berlin based singer, songwriter, composer, and former social worker interested in Black feminism and collective healing practises.

 

Hana Sato (31) works in care, studied Philosophy in Berlin and is now starting a BA in Physiotherapy. Currently involved in building a community space on the outskirts of Berlin for experimenting with utopian communitarian living, learning and creating. Feels strongly about questions of building feminist, loving comradeship and communal health (care). Loves rice, music, learning all kinds of new things and spending time around the kitchen table with her flat mates.

 

Part 2

Estera Iordan is 20 years old and a Romanian romani. She is working at the RomaniPhen Archive in Berlin and is an activist for Rom*nja Rights.
 

Magdalena Lovrić is an empowerment educator. She creates positive spaces for Romani youth, including the first self-organized romani youth theater group So keres? - What are you doing? which was founded in Berlin in 2014.

Isidora Randjelović is co-initiator of the romani feminist archive RomaniPhen in Berlin. She works, learns, and teaches on social justice and romani related history and movements.

Vanessa Thompson is an activist scholar engaged in critical race and racism studies, black studies (with a focus on Black Europe), gender and queer studies, post- and decolonial feminist theories and methodologies, critical security studies, and transformative justice.

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