This seminar will share insights from researchers and activists from the Global North and South who are working together in the Trans-Atlantic ‘Building Back Better from Below’ and ‘Panex-Youth’ action research projects to document innovative responses to pandemic and post-pandemic challenges.
Both projects are focusing on initiatives led by marginalised and racialised communities and front-line service providers in a range of fields including food provision, health care, access to education and play and leisure space, as well as accompanying the struggles for voice and representation of young people and minoritised groups in the wake of Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests.
The seminar will conclude with reflections from the coordinator of the T20 policy research stream of Brazil’s Presidency of the G20 on how documenting grassroots innovations from the pandemic response in G20 member countries in both Global North and South can generate evidence to inform the global struggle against hunger, poverty and inequality.
The specific themes this seminar will cover include:
- Challenges and opportunities for building on the innovations in community response and cross-sector collaboration which emerged during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in racialised and minoritised people’s access to food justice, education and equitable health services.
- How these innovations can contribute to addressing longstanding inequities undermining health, food systems and governance processes more broadly.
- Children and young people’s access and adaptation to education, food, play and leisure during and after the pandemic.
- The role of the voluntary sector in supporting more equitable access to food, health, education and service delivery, as well as supporting the representation of marginalised and racialised communities’ voices in different spaces.
- The speakers will draw on research carried out in cities in Brazil, Canada, South Africa and the UK.
Building Back Better from Below (B4) is a collaboration between IDS, Cebrap in Brazil, and the University of Toronto in Canada. Panex-Youth is a collaboration between UCL, University of Birmingham, University of the Free State, University of Fort Hare, and the Universidade de São Paulo (USP).
B4 and Panex-Youth are funded by the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) Recovery, Renewal and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic World (RRR) Call, co-funded by the ESRC, SSHRC, NRF and FAPESP.
Speakers
- Suzanne Sicchia, University of Toronto (B4 Co-PI)
- Vera Schattan Coelho, Cebrap (B4 Co-PI)
- Alex Shankland, IDS (B4 Co-PI)
- Lauren Andres, UCL (Panex-Youth Co-PI) with Panex-Youth colleagues
- Discussant: Fábio Veras Soares, IPEA, Brazil
Chair
- Jennifer Constantine, King’s College London (B4 Researcher and Engagement Lead)
Key contacts
