#WIMBELFAST #IWD2021 CONFERENCE PANEL THREE ANNOUNCEMENT
IWD 2021 Panel Three, left to right: Fatima Halawa, Eileen Flynn, and Claire McKeegan
Hello everyone.
The third panel at the Women in Media Belfast IWD Zoom conference on March 8th is on the theme: 'Social media campaigns - grassroots activism or grand scale virtue signalling?'
We are delighted to be joined by another three inspiring women.
1) Fatima Halawa is a filmmaker from Dublin.
A social justice activist and campaigner, she was falsely imprisoned in Egypt, later returning home to help run a family campaign, lasting over four years, that secured her brother Ibrahim's freedom.
Fatima has worked with a variety of non-government organisations in Ireland and across Europe helping to train and advocate for the right of minorities.
She is also a youth facilitator and a trainer helping young people from a minority background feel empowered and in charge of their own narratives.
Fatima holds an MA in Contemporary Screen Industry with DCU and has a Digital Creative Media qualification from BIT.
"I enjoy tackling issues of intersectionality and diversity with the aim of changing individual’s mindsets and allowing them to perceive narratives differently through a creative lens."
She is on Instagram @halawatii
2) Senator Eileen Flynn made history in 2020 when she became the first Irish Traveller to become a member of the Oireachtas. Active in the Irish Traveller Movement, the National Traveller Women’s Forum and Ballyfermot Traveller Action Programme, she has campaigned and lobbied Government for many years on rights issues including accommodation, health, suicide and infant mortality in the Traveller community.
Eileen was a leading activist in the civic society campaign to Repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, securing legislation which protected a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices. She also campaigned for a “yes” vote in the marriage equality referendum. Since becoming a Senator, she has focussed her efforts on bringing forward effective Hate Crime Legislation, noting in her maiden speech that no-one has ever been prosecuted in Ireland for perpetrating a hate crime.
In a newspaper interview in August, Senator Flynn revealed how a male politician had walked up to her in Leinster House on one of her first few days in the role and told her she had got the job as a “token seat.”
Her response was to say “I will not put up with any bullshit from any man.”
Eileen attended Trinity College Dublin and Ballyfermot College before graduating with a degree in Community Development from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
She has a twin sister, Sally, is married to Liam and is Mammy to Billie. She tweets at @love1solidarity
3) Claire McKeegan is a solicitor and co-founder of Phoenix Law in Belfast.
The firm has been involved in a number of high profile and significant legal challenges including successfully securing compensation payments for hundreds of survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, legacy inquests, extending protection of transgender and religious rights and helping secure same-sex marriage legislation.
The firm also represents the families of the 48 people killed in the Stardust fire in 1981 in fresh inquest proceedings which are due to begin in Dublin in the coming months.
She successfully acted in the lead collusion case of John Flynn through High Court and Court of Appeal, forced an admission of liability by the PSNI and established the guidelines for disclosure in troubles-related collusion cases in Northern Ireland. She was the first solicitor in Northern Ireland to be instructed in the controversial closed material procedure cases involving closed court hearings arising out of the Justice and Security Act 2013.
Through her abuse litigation Claire has exposed prolific paedophile priest Fr Malachy Finegan, president of St Colman’s College in Newry in an unprecedented civil settlement which resulted in the resignation of former bishop of Dromore, Bishop McAreavey and lead to a further 35 survivors coming forward.
Claire has represented the families of patients at Muckamore Abbey Hospital in their successful campaign for a public inquiry into allegations of abuse, she represented the Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse in their campaign for redress and represents survivors of Northern Ireland’s mother and baby homes in their campaign for a public inquiry. She tweets at @mckeeganclaire
#WIMBelfast co-founder Patricia MacBride will be chairing panel three.
The panel will discuss whether people who engage with rights campaigns on social media then become engaged in further activism and support, or whether they tend to like and share posts and not get any further involved.
It will also explore the backlash and abuse that rights campaigners, particularly women, face on social media.
We have one further panel announcement shortly...
Please join us on Zoom on March 8th.
Individual, group and solidarity tickets are live now: Click here
Thank you.
