Panelists:

• Nayuka Gorrie
• Diana Sayed
• Navanita Bhattacharya
• Alex Bhathal

Dr Nilmini Fernando will moderate the panel.

WIRE is on a journey towards embedding intersectional feminist practice in all areas of our work. We are currently undertaking an Intersectionality Action Plan project, led by the moderator of this panel, Nilmini. We hope this discussion will inspire others to continue applying an intersectional lens to their work.

WIRE support workers will be available to listen during and directly after the event if anyone feels they need support.

ABOUT THE PANELLISTS

Nayuka (they/them) is a Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta freelance and comedy television writer. Their writing centres on black, feminist and queer politics. They co-wrote and performed in the third and fourth seasons of Black Comedy and provided additional writing on the second season of Get Krack!n. More recently, Nayuka was a writer for the sbs/Matchbox series, The Heights (season 2) and the NITV children’s series, Thalu. Nayuka’s writing can be found in The Guardian, Saturday Paper, Vice, Junkee, Archer Magazine, The Lifted Brow and NITV among others. Nayuka contributed to the anthologies Growing Up Queer in Australia and Animals Make Us Human and is currently writing a book of essays as a recipient of The Wheeler Centres Next Chapter initiative to support their writing.

Diana (she/her) is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights. She joined the organisation in October 2019 as an international human rights lawyer with experience working in both Australia and the United States. She is the former Campaigns Manager at Fair Agenda and Senior Crisis Response Campaigner at Amnesty International Australia. Diana has appeared as a regular panellist on The Drum, ABC The World, SBS, Al Jazeera, MSNBC and ABC Q&A. With a Master in International Human Rights Law she is an expert on issues pertaining to gender equality, social justice, and human rights. She has worked as a lawyer, advocate, and campaigner for over a decade, and has the lived experience of being a visible Muslim woman of colour in Australia, as a former refugee from Afghanistan.

Navanita (she/her) calls herself an ‘unapologetic feminist’ and unapologetically loud on social justice issues. Born in India to feminist parents and having lived and worked in many different countries, Navanita considers herself a global citizen. She has been working in the social justice domain for more than 20 years. Her work has taken her to live in several countries in Asia, Africa and Oceania, with many different organisations. In every workplace she has been part of, Navanita’s strategies include questioning, listening to understand, reimagining, and redesigning policies, processes, and practices to make them enabling and inclusive for all people. Facilitating difficult conversations by creating a safe, non-judgmental and uplifting environment is what she enjoys most. She is raising a feminist human, who at 9 years old continues to question and challenge stereotypes and biases in her school, playgrounds and at home.

Alex (she/her) is a social worker (qualified) and social researcher, human rights advocate and environmentalist. Alex has conducted extensive research on the social impacts of climate change and is active in the global climate justice movement and environmental social work. She was involved in Greens politics for two decades and served as inaugural Convenor of the Global Greens Women's Network. Through her experiences in politics, Alex has developed a keen interest in critical race theory

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Nilmini (she/her) is a WIRE team member, practice-based scholar and educator. Her work focusses on inspiring us as individuals to work collectively in solidarity across the differences and barriers that divide us. She was the lead WIRE Purse Project workshops - an award winning project and one of the very few financial capability programs taking a trauma informed lens and designed explicitly for victim-survivors of family violence. Nilmini recently published an article in Journal of Intercultural Studies to celebrate the anniversary of Sara Ahmed's groundbreaking book, Postcolonial Encounters (2000). She is currently an Adjunct Fellow at the Griffith University Centre for Social and Cultural Research and is the consultant leading WIRE's Intersectionality Action Plan project.