For Sama: discussion with Afraa Hashem

 

EL Laskar writes:

On 10 December the 19th Oxford Human Rights Festival in collaboration with the Oxford Brookes Documentary club screened the award winning documentary 'For Sama' which was followed by a Q & A with Afraa Hashem. FOR SAMA is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab's life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. FOR SAMA is the winner of many awards including the BAFTA for Best Documentary in 2020.

Recently settled in London with her family, Afraa Hashem is a teacher, human rights activist and is featured throughout the documentary.The Director of the Centre of Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP), Professor Cathrine Brun talks to Afraa about her experiences as an educator, wife, mother and friend in a war zone. 

Find out more about the 19th Oxford Human Rights Festival 2021 here.

Oxford Human Rights Festival events this week

The 19th annual Oxford Human Rights festival is upon us, with the theme of Disruption. The main festival will be next March, but please check out these three important and interesting events happening this week.

Quiz & Discussion 
Tuesday 8 DEC 2020
5pm - 6.30pm 
Orange The World -  Elimination of Violence against Women

As part of the UN Women International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2020, Basma El Doukhi will lead an interactive session to challenge assumptions and raise awareness around the facts of gender based violence.Click here for more info and booking >>

ONLINE SCREENING + Q&A 
Thursday 10 DEC 2020
7PM - 10PM
​'FOR SAMA' & Q&A 
​with Afraa Hashem

FOR SAMA is the winner of many awards including the BAFTA for Best Documentary 2020. Q&A with Afraa Hashem. 18 cert. In collaboration with Oxford Brookes Documentary Club and OxHRF.  Click here for more info and booking>>

ONLINE DISCUSSION
Friday 11 DEC 2020
5.30PM - 6.30PM (UK)
'Can the UK lead on climate change?
The CEE Bill and our future'

Join the CEE Bill Alliance Oxfordshire as we celebrate our climate change achievements locally and in the UK and discuss how we can continue to have strong climate leadership into the future. In collaboration with CEE Bill Alliance Oxfordshire. Click here for more info and booking>>

Celebrating Syria

Angela Hatherell writes:

It has been my pleasure and honour to be involved in Celebrating Syria: a festival of art and culture since its inception in 2017. The festival, organised by Manchester based charity Rethink Rebuild Society, is completely free and all online this year because of the pandemic, which means that both audience and performers can take part from wherever they are in the world. Rethink Rebuild's mission, as well as to improve the lives of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, is to keep Syria alive in the public consciousness, especially at this time when the pandemic has distracted the global community and media from the issues surrounding conflict zones around the world. The Celebrating Syria festival showcases Syrian talent and brings people together to experience Syrian arts and culture, and hopefully changes people's perception of Syria as being merely another war torn region of the Middle East. 

Hamdi Lecture: Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni

The annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture is in the honour of Emeritus Professor Nabeel Hamdi, who is the founder of the DEP Masters programme, past director of CENDEP, and one of the most distinguished academics in our field. He has a long career of inspiring people to bring out their potential in making changes. The annual lecture celebrates this spirit with discussions around humanitarian and development issues that are relevant to CENDEP.

Marwa Al-Sabouni will be talking on “Reflections from Syria: The role of architecture in conflict” at the annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture that will take place on 30 October. The lecture will be followed by book signing and reception. The event is free and booking is essential.

Where: The Main Lecture Theatre, John Henry Brookes Building, Headington campus, Oxford Brookes University

When: 30 October (Tuesday) 18.30

Further details:

http://cendep.blogspot.com/2018/10/meet-our-speaker-for-this-years-annual.html

https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/ols-18-19---reflections-from-syria--the-role-of-architecture-in-conflict/

Booking details:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/marwa-al-sabouni-role-of-architecture-in-conflict-reflections-from-syria-tickets-47942957677

Meet our speaker for this year’s annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture: Marwa al-Sabouni

Aparna Maladkar writes:

The annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture this year will feature the Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni,  the author of the famous book The Battle for Home: The Memoir of a Syrian Architect. The book has been widely covered by the international media, and in 2016, was selected by the Guardian as one of the best architectural books.

Marwa has a PhD in Islamic Architecture and co-runs a private architectural studio in her hometown, Homs in Syria. When the civil war broke out in 2011 in Syria, Marwa made the difficult choice of staying in her city, Homs, which saw some of the most ferocious fighting. Despite danger, Marwa with her husband and two children stayed in Homs throughout the three-year siege of the city in which she was born and raised.

In 2014, Marwa opened a bookshop and co-founded world’s first and only Arabic-speaking architectural news website, Arch-News.net. Arch-News is dedicated to the empowerment of the Arabic speaking people by encouraging architectural dialogue. Arch-News was the winner in 2010 of the Royal Kuwaiti award for best media project in the Arab World. Marwa believes that the architecture in Homs has helped facilitate conflict and the role of architecture in creating peace and identity, stating, “…architecture…can either create the conditions to help end a conflict or enhance it. It’s the arena and the channel for such social dynamics.”

Marwa Al-Sabouni has been invited and has participated in number of United Nations organised conferences and workshops, and has also done a TED Talk for the TED Summit 2016, which has been viewed online over 900K times since its release. In 2014, Marwa won the first place at national level for the UN-Habitat Competition for her design proposal to rebuild Baba Amr, Homs, that encourages rehabilitation of mass housing. Marwa also teaches architectural design in a private university in Hama, Syria.

The annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture is in the honour of Emeritus Professor Nabeel Hamdi, who is the founder of the DEP Masters programme, past director of CENDEP, and one of the most distinguished academics in our field. He has a long career of inspiring people to bring out their potential in making changes. The annual lecture celebrates this spirit with discussions around humanitarian and development issues that are relevant to CENDEP.

Marwa Al-Sabouni will be talking on “Reflections from Syria: The role of architecture in Conflict” at the annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture that will take place on 30 October. The lecture will be followed by book signing and reception. The event is free and booking is essential.

Where: The Main Lecture Theatre, John Henry Brookes Building, Headington campus, Oxford Brookes University

When: 30 October (Tuesday) 18.30

Further details:
https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/ols-18-19---reflections-from-syria--the-role-of-architecture-in-conflict/

Booking details:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/marwa-al-sabouni-role-of-architecture-in-conflict-reflections-from-syria-tickets-47942957677

References:
www.arch-news.net

http://skoll.org/contributor/marwa-al-sabouni/

https://www.archdaily.com/500053/un-habitat-announces-winners-of-mass-housing-competition

https://architectureau.com/articles/architecture-is-the-arena-and-the-channel-for-social-dynamic-says-syrian-architect-marwa-al-sabouni/

https://www.australiandesignreview.com/architecture/syrian-architect-marwa-al-sabouni-architectures-role-preserving-peace/

https://thamesandhudson.com/authors/marwa-al-sabouni-63009

Civilian protection in urban sieges

Chas Morrison from Coventry University is presenting this week's Work in Progress seminar on Civilian Protection in Urban Sieges: capacities and practices of first responders.

Urban conflict in Syria has had devastating impacts on besieged civilians targeted by deliberate bombing and human rights abuses. Local actors, some with an overt humanitarian mandate, engage in first response activities, but often lack sufficient training, equipment and operationalisation. This mixed-methods research from four besieged urban areas finds a range of capabilities, understandings and mandates within six different sets of organisations involved in first response. This points to a strong evidence-base of the needs and strengths of organisations undertaking first response, and how external actors could better support them.

The seminar is on Thursday 1 March, 16.30-18.00, in the Student Hub, White Space, on the 3rd floor of the Abercrombie building. All welcome. This is the last in this semester's seminar series. Thank you for your support and we hope to welcome you to a new series in September.

Peter Tatchell on Syria and the failure of the international community

Angela Hatherell writes:

In December we welcomed human rights campaigner and activist Peter Tatchell to the university to give the second Nabeel Hamdi lecture: The international community has failed Syria. In it he discussed the flaws and limits of international human rights law in relation to the conflict in Syria and looked at some of the options that could have been used to defuse the war and save lives, but were not actioned by the UN or any countries.

The Nabeel Hamdi Lecture series is presented jointly by the Oxford Human Rights Festival and CENDEP, the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice. Emeritus Professor Nabeel Hamdi was the founder of the MA in Development and Emergency Practice and long term director of CENDEP and one of the most distinguished academics in our field. On his retirement from Oxford Brookes, this lecture series was initiated in his honour.