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FundAction Talks

FundAction Talks

By FundAction

Podcast created by FundAction.
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FA14: Fighting Civic Apathy in Hungarian Schools

FundAction TalksMar 17, 2021

00:00
29:44
FA16: Who Is Afraid of Lesbians?

FA16: Who Is Afraid of Lesbians?

Silvia Casalino joined us for the Talk#16. Silvia is an activist and the EuroCentralAsian Lesbian* Community Executive Co-Director. EL*C  directs a specific effort to strengthening and (re)building the lesbian movement across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The organization, born in 2016, is developing a research and data collection on lesbian women in the region, to help advocacy locally and internationally for the human rights of lesbians. In the path of gathering the international community and therefore mapping existing lesbian grassroots organizations, EL*C reached Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but also Poland, Romania, Hungary, Balkan region and many more.

May 14, 202125:08
FA15: The School of Public Life

FA15: The School of Public Life

FundAction talk #15 goes to Hungary, to explore the collaboration of two organizations that use critical pedagogy to achieve systemic social change in the increasingly authoritarian Hungarian context. Our member Agi Fernengel introduces the civic educational program “Deviszont Community Space” and the community-based education center “The School of Public Life” .Together, they cooperate to provide trainings and educational projects to communities (respectively: working class youth, and people organizing for social justice) about systemic social inequalities and provide them with tools to organize for social change and strengthen their communities.

Apr 22, 202121:36
FA14: Fighting Civic Apathy in Hungarian Schools

FA14: Fighting Civic Apathy in Hungarian Schools

Agnes Molnar is part of the 20-years old Alternative Communities Association (AKE) in Hungary.

In our talk #13, Agnes told us more about the joint effort of AKE, the city of Debrecen and K-Monitor to introduce the Hungarian school system to the tool of participatory budgeting (PB) with the aim of overturning a hyper centralized system of economic management and resources distribution to the schools.

The project goes hands in hands with a powerful approach to civic engagement & pedagogy which will engages students, parents, teachers and school administrators in the process of dewhich improvements to fund through the development and implementation of community-oriented micro-projects within one school-term. 

Envisioning the PB process a a tool to foster civic participation and democratic communities, the project constitute the first mile stone of a long path.

Mar 17, 202129:44
FA13: Democracy From the Bottom Up

FA13: Democracy From the Bottom Up

Aleksandra Savanović (Belgrade) joined us for FA Talks #13. We talk about the ongoing research carried out by Zajedničko, a research and educational platform from Belgrade, dedicated to  studying, supporting and initiating models and practices within the  economic democracy framework - in partnership with Association for Culture and Art Crvena (Sarajevo) and Institute for Political Ecology (Zagreb).

Starting from Zajedničko’s previous work on commons, economic democracy and alternative economies and following up from their From Yugoslav self-management to contemporary commons project (supported through FA’s ReThink program which allowed to initiate the cooperation) – the new joint research aims  to critically assess the Yugoslav self-management system and by  examining its complex legacy in the context of the forthcoming economic  recession and social crisis, offer practical guidelines for  re-organizing (reclaimed) public services and democratizing management  and ownership models within the production sector.

Feb 22, 202116:49
FA12: Red de Transición

FA12: Red de Transición

With podcast #12 FundAction inaugurates a new Podcast season, dedicated to its members & organizations, daily achievements and struggles, beyond any grants. We begin with a conversation with Juan del Río, member of Red de Transición, a Spanish association dedicated to strengthening community resilience, ecological sustainability and local economy, since 2013. Red is part of the International Transition Movement and a founding member of ECOLISE. They are now gathering a large Spanish-speaking community in Europe and Latin America to launch a new collaborative Community of Practice for ecosocial just transition. Find out more here!

Feb 09, 202125:09
FA11: No Country for Refugees

FA11: No Country for Refugees

In the FA Talks #11 we invited our member Carmen Dupont from Lesvos Solidarity, to talk about the ongoing refugee situation on the island,  the evolution of the complex binding of  political trajectories in the aftermath of the fire in Moria Camp and the eviction of the Pikpa one: an independent refugee camp in Lesvos (Greece) that hosted around 200 residents among the most vulnerable in the island.

Jan 08, 202138:56
FA10: Special Edition - Annual Assembly Talk

FA10: Special Edition - Annual Assembly Talk

During the Annual Assembly 2020, FA Talks engaged in a live conversation with Zsuzsi Pósfai, Bea Varnai (urbaMonde) and Ana Dzokic about Cooperative housing (and trade unions) & the MOBA Housing International Network: an organization developed between different countries of South and Central East Europe, as a gathering of pioneering experiences and initiatives in Coop Housing. Beyond a similar socialist historical background, in the last 30 years, these countries are also sharing an increment of privatization and the progressive disappearing of social housing.

Their organizations focus on Common, collective ownership and no speculative financing which drove them toward the creation of MOBA, as a way to collectively overcome local concerns.

Nov 27, 202044:31
FA9: The Roof Above Our Heads

FA9: The Roof Above Our Heads

Talk#9 dives into the work of Habita! Organization from Portugal, through the words of our member Rita Silva.

Habita! is an independent collective established in 2014 in Lisbon, Portugal, that fights for the Right to Housing and to the City, understanding these two components as directly connected. The current pandemic crisis has made more visible the correlation between housing and public health problems. Habita! promoted a political campaign with other groups in order to pressured Lisbon municipality to respond to the needs of the homeless people left without food distribution, shelter or access to sanitation for the first weeks of the pandemic. 

Nov 20, 202027:28
FA8: The Battle For Awareness of Drugs Consumption

FA8: The Battle For Awareness of Drugs Consumption

In Talk#8 we discuss with Yuliya Georgieva has been struggling for years to make the problem of drug users known to the authorities and force them to act on it. The team from The Center for Humane Policy has been ensuring the existence of the Pink house at the moment the only drop-in center for PWUD (usually  homeless, living well below the poverty line, and in deteriorating  health) which survives only by individual donations and voluntary labor. Now they try to convince the authorities to act on this problem and help them. 

Oct 12, 202025:32
FA7: Our Health Is Not For Sale

FA7: Our Health Is Not For Sale

Talk#7  Besides being a FA member, Ana Vračar is part of OWID a civil society  organisation based in Zagreb, Croatia. It was formed in 2012, and it is  committed to the protection and promotion of workers' rights, democratic  decision-making processes among workers, and economic democracy. OWID  is a member of the Cooperative for Ethical Financing and is involved in  the regional network of People’s Health Movement in Europe. PH grant  supports the specific research on the privatisation of health and the  development of (re)municipalisation and participatory models in health  care and the “Our Health Is Not For Sale” international Campaign.

Sep 29, 202021:25
FA6: Block 22 or Civic Sparks in Novi Belgrade

FA6: Block 22 or Civic Sparks in Novi Belgrade

Talk#6 invited Dobrica Veselinović (Belgrade) - active in the civil sector, in the claim for public spaces and greater participation of citizens in decision-making processes related to urban development - to discuss the project Block 22, in Novi Belgrade.

Association Block 22 was created in 2017 with the desire to improve the living conditions and the immediate environment in Block, which today has a total of 1500 apartments and about 7000 inhabitants. Activities in the neighborhood extend from collective clean up and gardening of the common areas to child care and the organization of the New Year's celebration, including fireworks. The empowering essence of such local activities has made itself felt even more during the Pandemic. Resist grant has allowed Block 22 to organize and guarantee solidarity aids and activities such as disinfection of all buildings and the surrounding public spaces which are not under maintenance of the municipality; purchase of additional disinfectants; distribution of solidarity packages of food for about 30 families living in the neighborhood.

Sep 13, 202021:07
FA5: The Koko Slam Gang - Slam Poetry Done by Congolese Women

FA5: The Koko Slam Gang - Slam Poetry Done by Congolese Women

Joelle Sambi Nzeba is a congolese writer, poet, and lesbian activist based in Brussels. She’s a FA member, co-chair of EuroCentralAsian Lesbian Community and member of Mothers and Daughters, a Lesbian* and Trans* Bar*? with Café Congo & the initiator of the slam poetry project/group Koko Slam Gang, which has been awarded with the FA Resist Grant. During this FA Talk, Joelle tells us about her personal path as a poet and activist and the genesis of the Koko Slam Gang: an 12 elderly Congolese woman between 65 and 88 years old with whom she works on a slam poetry show for seniors. The show is being circulating in different theaters in Belgium since 2019. “I see and practice poetry as a tool for revolution and liberation. Poetry open to public to the unexpected because it allows you to express your point of view differently, in a less frontal way”.

Aug 23, 202023:56
FA4: Russian Speaking Lesbians Community

FA4: Russian Speaking Lesbians Community

In today's episode we talk with Vlada Thor, with insight on the effects of Covid19 in Russia on the Lesbians community.

Proposed by our member Silvia Casalino & the EuroCentralAsian Lesbian* Community (EL*C), we discussed with Vlada about the extension of the LLL (LOCKED-DOWN LESBIANS LISTENING) to Russian speaking women who identify as lesbians community and its profound need.

LLL was launched at the beginning of April as a specific response to the first calls for help received from the community in the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis as a safe space which twice a day, 7 days a week, gave a virtual collective room for lesbians from all countries to meet, but only in English.

Aug 10, 202022:01
FA3: Solidarity in Budapest and Thessaloniki

FA3: Solidarity in Budapest and Thessaloniki

A discussion about solidarity and communities with Gergő Birtalan, from Gólya  Szövetkezet in Budapest, and Filippos Polatsidis from Pervolarides, in  Thessaloniki. Their projects, even though with a different target  public, are complementary, because both focus on helping the  communities, creating solidarity among people and helping them build up  on this.

Pervolarides is a diverse community formed by volunteers since 2013  that supports an increasing number of people who are struggling to  survive and meet their basic needs, and who experience socioeconomic  exclusion because of loss of income, homelessness or because they are  classified as refugees and migrants. Gólya Community House and  Cooperative operates based on a social mission, building a community  around them, and recently they started a bike courier service in order  to help the crisis relief effort locally.

Jul 26, 202032:48
FA2: Culture During the Pandemic

FA2: Culture During the Pandemic

With Aleksandar and Vladimir we spoke respectively about the joint action of Station – Service for Contemporary Dance with Association of Independent Culture of Serbia, the Visual Arts Association (ULUS), the Vojvodina Visual Arts Association (SULUV), the Association of Art Critics (AICA) and the Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers of Serbia (ULUPUDS) to establish the Cultural Workers’ Solidarity Fund, available to all artists and cultural workers who had not any alternative sources of income, yet whose contribution to Serbia’s cultural life is significant.

Likewise, Vladimir for Oberlith Organization in Moldova told us about the Coalition of the Independent Culture Sector from the Republic of Moldova (CICS): an informal platform of around 20 culture organizations started in 2019 around the preexisting Zemstvei Culture Center in Chisinau, with the aim to improve the working conditions of independent artists, cultural organizations and initiatives in our region. Their aim is to act collectively and engage in a more direct dialogue with local and national public authorities.

Jul 18, 202026:28
FA1: Who we are

FA1: Who we are

An introduction to FundAction.

Jul 17, 202036:57