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Do you have a Thelma to your Louise? Friendships are some of the most important relationships in our lives. As best friends come and go, and the nature of friendship changes as we move through different phases of our lives, how do you get the most from – and give the most to - your friendships?
Join this workshop for a chance to think about the friendships in your life - what you want, what you need, and what you’re bringing. Hear from friends, activists and campaigners Gabby Edlin, Seyi Akiwowo and Becca Bunce, who'll talk about the joys and challenges of their friendship, how they maintain it - and what’s different in lockdown - and have a chance to reflect on your own.
This workshop is open to everyone and will take place on Zoom. You will be sent joining details before the event.
This event will be captioned.
For this workshop you’ll be part of a large group - but do book early to secure a place!
You’ll be part of a large group - but do book early to secure a place!
This event is part of WOW UK Festival 2021, our three week digital programme of groundbreaking In Conversations and interactive workshops. For this year’s festival, we are offering audiences the chance to pay what they can for tickets from £1 upwards. If you’re able to pay a higher ticket price, your contribution will include a donation to help WOW continue its work fighting for gender equality all year-round.
About the speakers:
Seyi Akiwowo is a multi-award winning founder and CEO of a newly formed charity, Glitch. Glitch’s mission is to awaken a generation of digital citizens equipped to create and demand for safe online spaces for all. Akiwowo founded the charity during her time as a local politician in East London (2014-2018), after she faced hideous online abuse and violence. Using her lived experience and expertise, Seyi co-designs practical solutions with Governments, NGOs, UN Human Rights Council and tech companies to protect public online public spaces from hate and abuse.
In 2020 George Washington University appointed Seyi a Knight Fellow of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics and also sits on the Guardian Council of Yoti. Seyi is an expert workshop and training designer and facilitator, delivering training for over 10 years on political leadership, democracy and inclusion in the UK, Kuwait, Uganda, Montenegro and the UAE. Before Glitch, Seyi was elected as the youngest Black female Councillor in East London at age 23 and now has over 10 years’ experience working in government and policy and the charity sectors both in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Seyi has delivered talks at TEDx London, European Parliament, The United Nations and has written several critical pieces for the Telegraph, Marie Claire and Huffington Post. She’s also London School of Economics Alumni and Gates Foundation Global Goalkeeper.
Gabby Edlin, 34, is an activist campaigning for menstrual equity, and the founder and CEO of charity, Bloody Good Period. Gabby was named as one of the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 Top Changemakers and Stylist’s Woman of the Week. She started Bloody Good Period in 2016 when she was volunteering at the New London Synagogue asylum-seekers’ drop-in centre, and discovered that period supplies were only provided for ‘in emergencies’. A whip around for donations of pads or tampons on Facebook turned into a full-blown operation to collect and distribute toiletries and period supplies for asylum seekers all around the UK. Gabby has a Masters in Applied Imagination from Central St Martins specialising in feminism and comedy. Before BGP, she worked in Arts Education for children and young people, and trained as an artist. She lives in North London.
Bloody Good Period now has a squad of over 700 volunteers who provide more than 10,000 menstrual and hygiene products a month to people experiencing ‘period poverty’ across the UK. Bloody Good Period provides menstrual products and toiletries to asylum seekers, refugees and those who can’t afford them. These products are currently distributed through over 100 drop-in services and groups in London and the UK.
Becca Bunce is a human rights advocate. Her work and research focuses people with lived experience of inequalities participate in and lead social change. Becca is undertaking a Phd Studentship in Public Policy and Design Thinking at King’s College London and UAL looking at the design of democracy. She is also a trustee at John Ellerman Foundation.
From October 2014 until September 2019, Becca co-directed the award-winning, law-creating IC Change campaign. The campaign calls on the UK government to ratify the Istanbul Convention on Violence Against Women. Despite IC Change being run entirely by volunteers it was able to create a coalition of over 50 organisations and mobilise thousands of people to support a law through UK parliament in 2016-17. This law created a new Human Rights accountability mechanism for gender-based violence in the UK. The campaign has also ensured the Domestic Abuse Bill extends extra-territorial jurisdiction to crimes such as rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse to prevent impunity for perpetrators of violence.
Becca was cited as an inspiration by President Obama for her work on violence against women and disabled people's rights. Becca was also named as one of the 150 leading women in the University of London's history.
Anna Hodgart is a theatre producer, programmer and event organiser and a yoga teacher who lives and works in Glasgow. In 2012 she was a founding member of TYCI, a DIY feminist collective founded by a group of friends who over the course of five years put on gigs, club nights and live events, ran a blog, radio show, podcast and published a monthly zine, dedicated to profiling women and feminist issues. With another TYCI member Amanda Stanley, in 2019 she co-hosted a radio show One More Hour on local station LP Radio again dedicated to profiling women, non-binary, femme-identifying artists.