About First Wednesdays Autumn 2022 Series

THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY:
Exploring Commonalities in Global Citizenship and Activism 

Join us this Autumn for the new First Wednesdays series, a set of three interlinked conversations with those currently involved in real-world struggles in Ireland and beyond. We will take a closer look at commonalities ‘in struggle’ across campaigning and activism movements, and explore what it would mean to consider these struggles as part of a process of ‘acts of global citizenship’ and ‘democratising democracy’.

We are grateful to the Maynooth University Department of International Development for their partnership in hosting the series, and to Concern Worldwide for their ongoing financial support, which enables us to offer this series to the public.

Join the conversation and register below.

Robbie Lawlor became active within the HIV community since his diagnosis in 2012. Robbie is a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group, co-host of the PozVibe Podcast, and co-founder of Access to Medicines Ireland. Robbie is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Dublin City University and has a particular interest in grassroots activism and the access to medicines movement in Eastern Europe. His research is exploring HIV/HEP C treatment activism in Ukraine.

Nessa Ní Chasaide is a lecturer in the Centre for the Study of Politics in the Department of Sociology, Maynooth University. She is currently undertaking her PhD studies on the evolution of corporate tax policy in Ireland. Previous to her academic work, Nessa was engaged in public policy work in the global development NGO sector.

Attracta Uí Bhroin is the Environmental Law Officer of the Irish Environmental Network and is also a Vice President of the European Environmental Bureau, EEB and it’s Irish Board Member. While her IEN role means she is involved across multiple areas of environmental law, in both her IEN and EEB role Attracta highlights the importance of the Rule of Law, Public Accountability, Environmental Democracy and Environmental Human Rights and the legal architecture for this, and she is actively engaged in opposing threats and challenges to such rights and obligations. So for example her focus includes poor implementation of the #Aarhus Convention a Human Rights Convention concerned with information, participation and access to justice rights in environmental matters.  She has also been highlighting the negative impact of investor state dispute elements of EU Trade deals which she has been working actively on since 2015, including with seminar she organised back in 2016 highlighting the compromise to our Constitutional democracy from the CETA EU Canada trade agreement.

This session will be moderated by Dr Paul O’Keeffe  of the Maynooth University Department of International Development.

You can find out more about the series and book your place for its two other parts here.

For any questions and to find out more, please contact Aga at aga@comhlamh.org.