From now on, the festival’s human rights program has its own name. RIGHTS NOW! is a wordplay, which in English could mean “give us our rights now” “or “give them to us immediately”. This year, we have prepared events that will be interesting to civic rights experts and environmental activists, as well as to everyone who is dealing with “invisible wounds” of the environment day to day.
This year, human rights events will expand beyond one cinema hall – now we can be found both in White and Green halls of the Cinema House, and we will also ride the streets of Kyiv by bicycles!
The activists of Kyiv Cyclists’ Association have prepared a couple of events for this year’s program. On 25th of March, during the Earth Hour, a KCA trainer will tell about safe travels by bicycle around the city. On the same day, during the event “#KyivMoveYourPedals: Do Cyclists Have Right on The City?”, there will be a discussion of the advantages of environmentally friendly two-wheelers and of the ways cyclists can protect their rights.
This year’s program includes a bunch of urbanistic events. One of them is the panel discussion on inclusive cities “City for All” from CEDOS expert center and the civic rights campaign “Fight for Right”, which will discuss how a contemporary city should look like to make it comfortable, safe, and convenient to all its inhabitants. Visual environment of the city and art in public space will be discussed at the event “Emptiness in public spaces” from self-organized initiative De Ne De. We will also talk about green transformation in the cities at the round table “Greenroots activism”, where participants from different parts of the country will share their experience.
The issue of climate change is widely associated with environmental pollution and disappearance of plants and animal species. However, social aspect of this process is somewhat overlooked. Discussion “Human rights and climate change” by International Charity Organization “Ecology-Law-Human” will be dedicated to the dangers for people and risks of human rights abuse людей related to climate change. This linkage is not evident, which leads to difficulties in its fixation at national and international levels, in official bills and laws. Recognition of this linkage would open new opportunities to human rights protection through climate regulations and agreements and vice versa – for environmental protection through instruments and mechanisms of human rights protection at different levels.
Continuing the topic of current Instagram competition #Ecooko, we invite our viewers to discussion with environmental activists, an Instagram blogger, and curator of the photo exhibition about the ways we can actually influence the environment and about usage of social networks for activism.
GENERATION C. film program and subsequent discussion with environmentalists will help to understand the functioning of consumption sphere and its impact on the environment. We are inviting on the open event “Consumer society and climate change”, organized in cooperation with Heinrich Boll Foundation’s Office in Ukraine.
Human rights are evidently in the focus of all the events at RIGHTS NOW! This year, we present discussion “Thinking Maidan-2017: Let us gather under the roof of Understanding”. This project is aimed on finding out the reasons of misunderstandings between people from various ethnic groups and with different cultural background in Ukrainian society and searching the ways of their reconciliation. We will discuss xenophobia and challenges encountered by Roma community with the community members, curators of Dumaidan, and representatives of authorities.
We are also pleased to invite you to the meeting with journalist Jean-Paul Marie. His workshop “Invisible wounds: war and mental trauma” will be especially interesting to the volunteers working for humanitarian missions of the ATO and to the people whose close ones suffer from PTSD. In addition, Farhana Jawid, psychologist of the International Red Cross Committee working in the Ukrainian frontline, will also join the meeting.
For detailed information about the events, please follow the link. Admission to all the events of human rights program is free or by registration, which is mentioned in the description of each event.
Prepared by Mariam Agamyan
