Ariadne’s Thread – January 2021

Ariadne’s Thread – January 2021
janvier 21, 2021 Hannah Stevens

January 2021

Ariadne’s Thread is a monthly update of events, briefings and research for social change and human rights funders. 

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Ariadne News & Events

PODCAST SERIES: GENDER LENS INVESTING: After our webinar series hosted by Jo Andrews in the Autumn, Ariadne’s Learning Series on Gender Lens Investing is back with a podcast series (and a blog: Gender Lens Investing works. It may just be the future of capitalism!). The podcasts will be released fortnightly and will look at what Gender Lens Investing means, why data is vital and how to extend the same principles to racial justice and LGBTQI communities. The first episode is available now: Gender Lens Investing: What Does It Mean and Why Does It Matter? You can listen to it via iTunesSoundcloudSpotifyStitcher or TuneIn. Make sure you subscribe, so you don’t miss out on future episodes!

REGISTER NOW! 2021 ARIADNE FORECAST (ONLINE) ROUNDTABLE MEETINGS: It’s that time of year again, and what a year it has been. We’re creating the seventh (!) Ariadne Forecast for European Social Change and Human Rights Funders, and we need your help. We’ll be holding online roundtables, focusing on Italy (26th January, 16:00-18:00 CET); The Netherlands (2nd February, 16:00-17:30 CET); France (5th February, 15:00-18:00 CET); United Kingdom (8th February, 15:00-16:30 GMT); and Germany (24th February, time and registration link forthcoming), which will focus on relevant trends in the field of social change and human rights at national, European and global levels and in the philanthropic field itself. We’ll open each meeting with the results of a short survey of pivotal grant-makers in their region. Two to three senior forecasters in each location will then offer expert input and there will be an open discussion between funders. The results of the survey and roundtables will be collated into a 2021 Ariadne Forecast for publication by the end of March. For more details and to register for the location of your choice, please click on the country. Please note these are funder-only events.

BLOG: TOXIC MASCULINITY AND CULTURAL PARADIGM SHIFTS NEEDED IN ITALY (AND BEYOND) – CAROLA CARAZZONE: To mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Ariadne Advisory Board member Carola Carazzone wrote a blog in which she reflects on the long path towards gender justice.

WRITE-UP: PHILANTHROPY, POWER AND RADICAL CHANGE – IN COLLABORATION WITH ARIADNE: On 3rd November, Ariadne and SIX invited 23 philanthropic organisations from Europe, North America, Africa and Asia to exchange practical examples, lessons and tensions in their work funding radical, structural and deep change, and to uncover practical, concrete examples that benchmark the possibilities to increase this work within philanthropy and civil society in local and global contexts going forwards. The conversation was a rich and substantive one, which you can take a look at in this write-up.

WE’VE MOVED! Well, kind of. We’re still working from our kitchens, perched at our dining room tables or set up in the cupboard under the stairs. But we’ve given up our office space, so we’re 100% virtual. If you’d like to use ‘snail mail’ you can reach us at: Ariadne, c/o Global Dialogue, First Floor, 10 Queen Street Place, London EC4R 1BE.

*To register for Ariadne events, your institution must be a member organisation of Ariadne. For questions regarding your membership status, please contact Hannah Stevens.

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New Research, Articles and Judgements

Activism across division: Peacebuilding strategies and insights from Northern Ireland research: Deeply divided societies around the world can draw on the lessons captured in this report, compiled by SCI Fellows with decades of experience in peacebuilding. The publication features the reflections of activists working within, and between, communities in Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland – a contested society that even disagrees on its name. Its authors focus on the contribution of inclusive dialogue and community activism in ending large scale conflict and sustaining an uneasy peace process.

From climate change awareness to climate crisis action: This report charts attitudes on the existence, causes, and impact of climate change in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It also examines public attitudes to a series of policies that the EU and national governments could harness to reduce the damage inflicted by human-made emissions. Although a clear majority of European and United States respondents are aware that the climate is warming, and that it is likely to have negative impacts for humankind, this report finds there is confusion about the scientific consensus on climate change. This, the report argues, has created a gap between public awareness and climate science, leaving the public underestimating the urgency of the crisis, and failing to appreciate the scale of the action required. 

The struggle for the COVID vaccine: Social human rights have priority over intellectual property: The global human right to health must trump intellectual property protection. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called potential COVID-19 vaccines a global common good. But the German government still disregards its international human rights obligations. In its new statement, ECCHR argues that globally applicable human rights standards must inform German politics – not pharmaceutical companies’ profit interests or a selfish “first come first serve” mentality that only benefits one’s own population. This statement undoubtedly applies beyond Germany to other industrialised countries.

The impact of Covid-19 on black LGBTQ people: Between April and May 2020, Global Black Gay Men Connect, in collaboration with UHAI EASHRI, launched a snapshot survey to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black LGBTQ people around the world. The inquiry was based on the premise that Black LGBTQ people are often disproportionately affected during crises. The report is especially relevant now, as the global community endures the second wave of COVID-19. 

Hyperlocal giving to black-led non-profits cannot simply be a trend: In this article for Stanford Social Innovation Review, Liz Dozier and Candice C. Jones argue that not only do Black-led non-profits need lasting and long-term support, but that philanthropy needs to wrestle with its past failures to invest in the very communities it claims to be working for. 

How to channel the anger of 2020 into sustainable activism in 2021: In this article for gal-dem, Eshe Kiama Zuri writes how carrying our anger into next year without burning out means moving from the reactive into the sustainable. This looks like building, as well as fighting and finding the balance that holds ourselves accountable to our own need to rest too. Eshe shares some pointers to hold in mind for the year ahead.

Anti-Black racism and police brutality: defenders’ expectations from the Human Rights Council: This is an ISHR recording of a conversation with human rights defenders working on police violence and/or systemic racism. Along with discussing the specific country-contexts, including how patterns of systemic racism affect women and LGBTI+ persons, they discuss the implementation of the Human Rights Council resolution 43/1 that mandated the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with preparing a report on systemic racism and police violence against Africans and people of African descent.

Feminist Realities: This magazine from AWID is an inspiring, curated collection of powerful stories and images of transformation and resistance created by feminist activists, writers and artists from all over the world.

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Blogs and Other Sites of Interest

SHORT STORIES: Environmental philanthropy: Stories to inspire: ‘Stories to Inspire’ is a collection of 27 real short stories of donors making a difference. Some gave a few thousand pounds to support local action. Others gave seven-figure gifts and created whole new organisations and ways of working. All had a transformative effect on the environment. We can all change the world for the better. What issues are close to your heart, and how will you make a difference? 

ONLINE GAME: ‘Orwell’s Animal Farm’ – The Game! Seventy-five years after George Orwell’s classic literary novel Animal Farm was first published in 1945, his influential story can now be experienced in a new form with the launch of an online game. The Orwell Foundation and the ‘Animal Farm’ game’s project founder Imre Jele have worked together on a new ‘Game Design’ category for the Orwell Youth Prize.

RESOURCES: Digital care for young feminists: As digital tools and platforms become essential to young feminist organisers amongst lockdowns and restrictions to congregate, digital security and literacy become ever more pressing. While the internet is currently giving us new spaces of connection, it still remains an aggressive place where our information is often not safe from attacks and corporate and government interests. To support and prepare activists on the ground with useful tools, FRIDA is developing a series of resources that focus on digital care practices and tools that can support young feminist organisers during this period. These resources cover topics such as the basic internet infrastructure, safe messaging applications, digital care for your devices, safe sexting and eye care.

ONLINE EXHIBITION: The gaze that subverts: In celebration of International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, ‘The Gaze that Subverts’ is an online exhibition of pieces by the painter Z. Each painting tells a story of a woman or women who, in defiance of patriarchal structures and authoritarian repression, occupy public space in China in their fight for justice. Z’s paintings are both prompted by, and provide – in their embodiment, the bent torso, the flexed muscle – a response to, a central question of rights defence: ‘How do we change unjust power relationships with the all-too-scarce resources we have at our disposal?’

PODCAST SERIES: New Women: New Women is a fictionalised podcast series from Disability Arts Online which interweaves the stories of disabled first-wave feminists Rosa May Billinghurst, Helen Keller and Mabel Normand. Throughout each 10-minute episode, the women narrate their lives in the early twentieth century. 

ARTICLE: Parler, the “free speech” social network, explained: The largely unmoderated, conservative-friendly website is back in the news following the insurrection at the US Capitol. This Vox article breaks it down.

PODCAST: Bulgaria and the spread of European anti-LGBTI populism: ‘Attitudes towards LGBTI people are changing and changing fast,’ says activist, Lilly Dragoeva from the Sofia-based Billitis Foundation, in this episode of ILGA-Europe’s The Frontline podcast, which delves into the current situation in Bulgaria, a country we don’t often hear about as Poland and Hungary’s governmental persecution of LGBTI people grabs the headlines. There may not be LGBT-free zones in Bulgaria, but it’s a country with almost no protections for LGBTI people, a growing, so-called ‘anti-gender’ movement, the spreading of demonising fake news stories, and an alarming advance in societal rejection of LGBTI people. During the podcast, hosts also speak with Simeon Vasilev of GLAS Foundation, Dimithar Dimitrov from the Bulgarian city of Plovidiv, and attorney Denitsa Lyubenova, from LGBTI youth organisation, Deystvie.

OPPORTUNITY: The 2027 Programme: The 2027 Programme places brilliant frontline workers from diverse working-class communities into grants officer type roles in trusts and foundations. It has had huge success in the UK’s ‘social’ grantmaking sector as trusts and foundations seek to recruit greater community expertise and lived experience into their teams as well as improve their diversity, equity and inclusion. The programme involves taking on a brilliant 2027 Associate on a paid 12-month placement (£23k outside London, £25k inside) where they get external leadership, professional and grantmaking support from the 2027 team. The placements start on October 1st, 2021 and foundations are being asked to get in touch now with the team via angela@tenyearstime.com or dean@tenyearstime.com to discuss placements and confirm their place on the programme in the Spring. See www.2027.org.uk for more.

Do you have a great blog post, case study or podcast you’d like to contribute? We would love to feature it. Email Hannah Stevens at hannah.stevens@ariadne-network.eu.

Grant-Making

The impact of Covid-19 on BAME led community and voluntary organisations – a follow up: The Ubele Initiative undertook a follow up ‘deep dive’ interview and survey process with 31 micro and small Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) led community and voluntary organisations in the UK. The aim was to ascertain what had changed since their initial survey in March and whether there were any new possibilities, challenges and opportunities that need to be taken into account. The report revealed the BAME community and voluntary sector is embracing new digital opportunities and benefiting from ‘COVID-19 Emergency Funding’ and there is a need for a ‘national infrastructure supporting’ voice. Part of the fear of respondents is that they could “find themselves at the ‘back of the queue’ as they may not have the voice or influence to help shape discussion and action.”

Networks collaborate to address climate challenges: launch of the climate philanthropy mapping: We have 10 years to implement the transition towards a global system which limits climate change to an increase of 1.5°C. However, the mobilisation of the philanthropic sector remains low, with no more than 3-5% of global donations directly allocated for environmental causes. As an initial step of the Philanthropy Coalition for Climate (funded by Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso), Dafne has performed a mapping exercise to identify the networks and platforms already engaged in climate issues. Membership organisations such as Ariadne and EDGE Funders have put the climate crisis high on their agenda, and other networks or dedicated organisations have a specific focus on climate change. The authors argue that individual foundations need the expertise and the support of such platforms and networks: foundations will not be able to embark on this new journey alone and no one organisation can or should tackle the greatest risk of our times on its own.

Unprecedented times call for foundations to take unprecedented actions: In this article for Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker argues that, during this historic disruption, foundations should not put their own survival above the survival of the civil society and non-profits that they serve.

Philanthropy Impact Magazine: The fourth issue of the Philanthropy Impact Magazine explores the role of philanthropy, social investment and impact investing in addressing the issues related to COVID-19 recovery, rebuild, and beyond stages. How can entrepreneurs, philanthropists, social investors, and impact investors address these issues and develop solutions that are transformative, innovative, and entrepreneurial?

Grassroots grantmaking: Embedding participatory approaches in funding: Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow, Hannah Paterson, developed this report to try and provide some answers and insights into some of the common questions or challenges those who are wanting to use participatory grantmaking face. The report covers topics such as: the models of participatory grantmaking; the drivers of participatory grantmaking; systematic change through participatory grantmaking; evaluating participatory grantmaking; case studies of participatory grantmakers; operationalising participatory grantmaking and getting your board on board. Accompanying the launch is a series of online learning events, which you can watch the recordings of or sign up to here.

Interview with Dr Tedros of the WHO: In the Covid-19 response, why are some high-income countries being outperformed by countries with fewer resources? What are the merits of a multilateralist approach in a crisis like Covid-19? What is it like being in the eye of the storm as head of the World Health Organization through a global health crisis? These are some of the questions Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO discusses in an  interview with Professor Senait Fisseha, Director of Global Programmes at the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. See also, ‘Foundations should answer Dr Tedros’s call’ article by Alliance Magazine’s Charles Keiden.

Beyond us and them: Social movements are increasingly important to the process of change, but their relationship with institutional philanthropy has often proven a difficult one. What are these difficulties and how can they be resolved? In this blog, drawing on a recent paper by Halima Mahomed, ‘Institutional philanthropy and popular organising in Africa: some initial reflections from social movement activists,’ Hope Chigudu considers these questions and both she and Mahomed suggest some answers.

Where are the European philanthropists? In this article for Dafne, Isabelle Schwarz, Head of Public Policy at the European Cultural Foundation shares the findings from the recent study, Imagine Philanthropy for Europe, and discusses the lack of philanthropy with a European purpose.

The next Thread will go out on Thursday 18th February. We would love to hear from you! Please contact Hannah Stevens by 16th February if you would like to share announcements, events, or resources for the next issue.

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Jobs and Tenders

Programme Officers – Sigrid Rausing Trust: The Sigrid Rausing Trust is seeking two Programme Officers to advise its Trustees on human rights grantmaking. One Programme Officer will support the Trust’s Defending Civic Space programme, and the other the newly revised programme on Strengthening the Human Rights Field. Each programme has an annual grant-making budget of approximately £6 million. The successful candidates may also support one of the Trust’s other human rights programmes, depending on organisational needs and individual experience. Location: London, UK. Deadline for applications is 7th February.

Funding Officer – The National Lottery Community Fund: The National Lottery Community Fund is recruiting a Funding Officer who will assess requests for funding and manage grants using local knowledge, best practice, thematic expertise, and the experience of customers and stakeholders to improve the Fund’s grant making and inform its decision making. By working closely with people and communities from a defined geographical area, the successful candidate will understand what matters to them and where the Fund’s funding can make the biggest difference. Location: Somerset, UK. Deadline for applications is 26th January.

Senior Grants Officer – Youth Futures Foundations: Young Futures Fund is recruiting a Senior Grants Officer; a key role within the grants team, supporting the Head of Grants and Director of Grants and Investment in the delivery of innovative and impactful grant-making. The post holder will lead on the delivery of key funding programmes, making recommendations on complex and strategically important requests for funding and building effective relationships with grant holders. They will also work closely with the Impact and Evidence team to ensure successful applicants are supported to deliver high-quality, impactful projects that will build the evidence base of “What Works” to support the most disadvantaged young people into good jobs. Location: Leeds or Birmingham, UK. Deadline for applications is 24th January.

Programme Officer – Ford Foundation: Ford Foundation is hiring a Programme Officer to join its BUILD team, which serves as a resource to programme officers and grantee partners alike and provides thought leadership on organisational and network development both within and outside the Foundation, with an emphasis on supporting and strengthening organisations led by women and people of colour. The successful candidate will shape the next phase of a philanthropic model that is influential in the field, including explorations about how to use BUILD to more effectively support networks and movements. Location: New York, United States. Deadline for applications is 1st February.

Consultancy – SAGE Fund: SAGE Fund seeks to make breakthroughs in human rights accountability for economic actors by spurring innovation in approaches and building greater field capacity in the human rights movement (particularly in the Global South) to address critical gaps in protection created by the global economy. The Fund is building a team of 2-3 consultants to support its new ‘Resilient Women and Natural Resources Initiative’ aimed at addressing the ways that natural resource extraction creates and reinforces structural violence, including gender-based violence, and amplifying the strategies women are using in response. Location: The position is fully remote, but applicants must be able to accommodate meetings in the EST time zone. Deadline for applications is 1st February.

Communications Intern – Trust for London: Trust for London is seeking a Communications Intern to help deliver their new communications strategy, using communications as a tool to tackle poverty and inequality. This is a great opportunity for someone who is passionate about social change and communications to work on a broad range of issues to tackle poverty and inequality in the capital. The role will involve a wide range of activity including supporting communications planning, story-telling and research, assisting with channel management, grantee amplification, and administrative tasks. Location: Home-working, with option to work from Moorgate office when COVID-19 restrictions allow. Deadline for applications is 31st January.

*For more jobs, see the ‘Career Opportunities’ section on the landing page of the Ariadne portal.

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Public Meetings

ONLINE

January 25th
Let’s build peace, here & now: You’re invited to participate in a conversation between Martin Macwan and Stephen Pittam, two seasoned activists from two different countries but united in their commitment to social justice, human rights and peacebuilding work. This will be a candid conversation in which, drawing on his own extensive experience from UK and in particular Northern Ireland, Stephen will talk to Martin about his activism in India to end caste-based discrimination, violence and the historic social, economic, and political suppression of the Dalits. They will talk about what it takes, on the ground, to create transformative change and to build peace that lasts, and ask: what is the role of philanthropy in all this? The online event will take place on 25th January, 1pm CET. 

January 25th
COVID-19 and its impact on gender, justice and security: There is no shortage of exceptional responses to the pandemic. These have included the physical lockdown of millions of people, mandates to return millions from cities to rural communities, restrictions on expression, data tracking on the movement of persons, and a broad range of political and legal controls. Responses have also included remarkable initiatives at community level, often led by women. This event will take stock of changing social and political landscapes, locally and internationally, one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Speakers will discuss questions such as: How have responses to COVID-19 affected the fight for gender justice and inclusive security? Has the pandemic exacerbated the closing down of civil society space? Does the moment of crisis bought about by the pandemic offer opportunities for positive change? The online event will take place on 25th January, 2pm GMT.

January 26th
Mediocre: The dangerous legacy of white male power, with Ijeoma Oluo: At this Guardian Live event, American writer and journalist Ijeoma Oluo will discuss her latest book, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power. In it, she examines the last 150 years of American history – from the mythic stories of Western cowboys to the protests against police brutality – to offer a crucial argument that everything we thought we knew about American identity has been skewed by white male power. Join Oluo as she talks to Yomi Adegoke, journalist and author of Slay in Your Lane. The online event will take place on 26th January, 7pm GMT.

January 27th
The EU and Belarus in 2021: Belarus has entered its sixth month of unprecedented protests triggered by rigged election results. The protesters are demanding an end to the Belarus dictatorship, but the long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko has not shown any sign of giving in. Instead, he grips to power and responds with violence, police brutality and detention. Europe has reacted with sanctions, but its action is largely seen as insufficient in the eyes of the protesters and members of the opposition. What are the chances for a regime change in Belarus in 2021? How is Europe planning to keep Belarus in the agenda and will it provide more political support for the Belarusian civil society? What is Russia plotting for Belarus in 2021? The online event will take place on 27th January, 9.30am CET.

January 27th
Webinar on Human Rights Implications of Carbon Removal: The Climate Funders Group, CS Fund and Heinrich Böll Foundation invite you to a webinar on the human rights implications of carbon removal technologies. The speakers will discuss carbon removal in the context of the IPCC 1.5 and 2°C scenarios, remaining carbon budgets, and the Paris Agreement ‘net zero’ framing. They will elaborate on different implications of carbon dioxide removal, offsets, and ‘nature-based solutions,’ and the need for conceptual clarity across those terms to accurately describe implications of policy choices and climate action. Participants will further explore physical and economic challenges to large scale carbon dioxide removal and the growing risks of carbon dioxide removal technologies for human livelihoods and rights, particularly among poor and marginalised communities. Finally, they will hear how funders are collaborating to engage with these conversations. The online event will take place on 27th January, 6pm CET.

January 28th
Where are the global Covid-19 resources for LGBTI communities? Join this call to hear the results of Global Philanthropy Project’s second-phase survey of the leading government, multilateral, and philanthropic funders of global LGBTI issues. This new report draws on the responses of 24 funders who account for just under half of all global LGBTI funding, and an additional review of COVID-19 global humanitarian response funding. It reveals how LGBTI organisations and their funders have shifted their activities in 2020 to respond to the pandemic, the challenge of LGBTI-inclusiveness in the global humanitarian response and outlines the possible long-term implications of COVID-19 resourcing for the global LGBTI movement. The online event will take place on 28th January, 3pm CET.

January 28th
Constitutions and peace processes: Constitutional issues lie at the heart of many intra-state conflicts. In widely differing circumstances, constitutional issues played a dominant role in peace processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, the Central African Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nepal and South Africa, among others. And yet, mediators and constitution makers seldomly acknowledge the obvious link between peace processes and ‘constitution making.’ The Berghof Foundation and the UN Mediation Support Unit invite you to this event, which includes a panel discussion with renowned mediation and constitution experts. The online event will take place on 28th January, 4pm CET.

January 28th
Security and the pandemic – Global perspectives: Between COVID-19 and social mobilisations, the year 2020 witnessed unprecedented shifts in security discourses, practices and configurations on local, national and global levels. This online workshop series ‘Anthropologies and Securities in the Pandemic’ will draw on various anthropologies, civil society and practitioners around the topic of security amidst these sanitary, social, political, economic and other crises. The outcome will be the creation of an interactive online platform that seeks to cultivate a systematic and long-term dialogue between the different anthropology networks. The online event will take place on 28th January for the whole day.

February 1st
2021 Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP): The 2021 Fundamental Rights Platform, hosted by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, will bring together civil society organisations and experts from EU and international organisations to discuss: ‘Human rights work in challenging times – ways forward’. This meeting will provide an opportunity to exchange ideas, experiences and good practices around the most pressing human rights challenges faced, and solutions developed, by civil society, in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The FRA Director and experts will be participating, as well as partners from EU institutions, international organisations and donors. European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli, UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor and FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty will exchange with participants on how human rights challenges can be addressed. The meeting will be conducted in English, with French and sign language interpretation and live captioning in English provided for plenary sessions. The online event will take place on 1st February, 2–6pm CET.

ONLINE

February 1st
Europe’s refugee ‘crisis’ – where are we now? Six years after the beginning of Europe’s so-called refugee ‘crisis,’ this event will ask whether Europe has changed since, and what happened to the people who arrived and the policies that governed their arrival. Speakers: Heaven Crawley, Professor of International Migration at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University and Director of the UKRI GCRF South-South Migration, Inequality and Development Hub; Sarah Mardini, Syrian refugee, competitive swimmer and activist; Dr Lucy Mayblin, political sociologist; and Catherine Woollard, Director of the European Council of Refugees and Exiles. The online event will take place on 1st February, 5pm GMT.

February 3rd
Breaking the news: In conversation with Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins: Join Eliot Higgins, founder of investigative website Bellingcat, for this Guardian Live event. Before founding Bellingcat, Higgins carved a new path in investigative journalism when he published his research into the Syrian Civil War, using hundreds of video clips from the internet to identify the weapons being used. Since its establishment in 2014, Bellingcat has exposed the truth and secrets behind some of the world’s biggest news stories, including the Salisbury novichok perpetrators and the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine. Join him as he reveals how he galvanised a small team of mostly volunteers, without external funding, to hold power to account. He will be in conversation with Guardian and Observer senior foreign correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, and will also be answering your questions. The online event will take place on 3rd February, 3pm CET.

February 17th – 18th
Data on Purpose 2021: Democracy, civil society, and digital technology: Stanford Social Innovation Review’s 6th ‘Data on Purpose’ conference is designed to help non-profit leaders and their teams (technical or not) identify and operationalise digital solutions to critical issues related to democracy and civil society. With a focus on issues of equity, privacy & security, polarisation, and the curtailing of misinformation, Data on Purpose will address the latest research- and practice-based insights from data scientists and researchers, non-profit, foundation and for-profit leaders, policymakers, and other experts. The goal is to help identify digital technologies that can strengthen democracy and civil society, reduce inequities, improve the operation of non-profit organisations, and empower the kind of informed, democratic participation which is a vital underpinning of civil society. The online event will take place between 17th and 18th February.

February 19th
The human right to health and the law: Unequal access to the legal mechanism of the right to health. The people we want to use the right to health are those who are least able to access it. The principle of equality before the law vs the unequal human beings underneath the general principle. There has been very little discussion of the right to access to health care during the pandemic. Stay at home – but then you can’t earn. Can’t have basic living if you stay at home. This event is part of the King’s College London’s Transnational Law Institute’s 2021/21 Seminar Series, focusing on Pandemics & Inequality. The online event will take place on 19th February, 3pm GMT.

March – June 2021
Shimmering Solidarity: Global Rights Summit: Global Philanthropy Project with Elevate Children’s Funders Group, Funders’ Initiative for Civil Society, Peace and Security Funders Group, and Philanthropy Advancing Women’s Human Rights invite you to register (and submit a session proposal!) for the Shimmering Solidarity: Global Rights Summit. This four-month virtual series will focus on grantmaker responses to the “anti-gender” movement and related global anti-rights agendas. The summit is an opportunity for grantmakers, philanthropic networks, and aligned colleagues to build shared analysis around anti-rights attacks and strategise towards multi-sectoral progressive philanthropic responses. Please note: this summit is open to grantmakers, philanthropic networks, and invited content experts. The online event will take place March-June 2021. Deadline for the submission of session proposals is 24th January.

From March 8th, for two weeks
MozFest: The Mozilla Festival, affectionately known as MozFest and hosted by the Mozilla Foundation, harnesses the collective power of unexpected partnerships — from analogue artists and public interest technologists to policymakers and queer activists — to creatively disrupt the status quo and reframe and reimagine our online world. We write code. We create art. We brainstorm products and policies that put the user first. And we do it as one collective movement. Together we are stronger and can accomplish more towards our common goal: a healthy internet and trustworthy AI. The online event will take place from 8th March and continue for two weeks.

Spring 2021
The Society and Protest Workshop (CUNY Graduate Center): Precarity: Being on the knife’s edge between wellbeing and disaster. 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic may have generalised the feelings of uncertainty that underpin precarity, but the material conditions of precarity – poverty, famine, warfare – did not become generalised so much as spread and unmasked. The response in civil society to precarity has itself become more uncertain, not only as organisations struggle for resources, but also as organisations struggle to identify what their position is vis-à-vis the political upheaval that may accompany widespread precarity. This is neither the first nor last time civil society organisations have faced or will face precarious conditions for themselves or for their constituents. Indeed, for some, precarity is not an exceptional condition, and may even be an indispensable part of what motivates or sustains their activity. At the same time, the unmasking of structural precarity has also enabled the emergence of new forms of organising and solidarities, and a (renewed) examination of uncomfortable questions around democracy, equality, and privilege. The Society and Protest Workshop at the CUNY Graduate Center is focusing on precarity for the spring semester of 2021. The Center welcomes submissions (no later than 29th January) particularly that deal with collective response to precarity, with no preference for any particular historical time or place. The Society and Protest Workshop meets virtually on selected Thursdays from 12:00 to 1:30 pm EST.

Ariadne is supported by the American Jewish World Service, Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Oak Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Sigrid Rausing Trust and Zennström Philanthropies.

Ariadne is also supported by voluntary contributions from its participants.

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