The Global Solidarity Summit brings together individuals and organisations from Wales working on solidarity projects across the world. From small community groups to Wales-based branches of international NGOs, we’re raising the profile of the sector in Wales.
In 2021, the onset of a global pandemic moved our annual summit online for the first time. This brought with it challenges and opportunities. While we weren’t able to meet, greet, network and catch up in person, we were able to reach more partners across the world, in a format that allowed for flexible viewing.
Coinciding with taking our summit online, we also renamed it from the International Development Summit to the Global Solidarity Summit. As an organisation, a sector and a society, we’ve been on a journey of self-discovery about how we speak, act and interact with partners and minoritised communities. A key part of this journey is Hub Cymru Africa’s #ReframingTheNarrative project which aims to challenge and change the established way we speak and think about the aid sector from one steeped in problematic post-colonial assumptions to one of solidarity, respect and healing.
Catch up on 2022’s Global Solidarity Summit on-demand via our Youtube channel.
The Global Solidarity Summit brings together individuals and organisations from Wales working on solidarity projects across the world. From small community groups to Wales-based branches of international NGOs, we’re raising the profile of the sector in Wales.
Last year, the onset of a global pandemic moved our annual summit online for the first time. This brought with it challenges and opportunities. While we weren’t able to meet, greet, network and catch up in person, we were able to reach more partners across the world, in a format that allowed for flexible viewing.
Coinciding with taking our summit online, we also renamed it from the International Development Summit to the Global Solidarity Summit. As an organisation, a sector and a society, we’ve been on a journey of self-discovery about how we speak, act and interact with partners and minoritised communities. A key part of this journey is Hub Cymru Africa’s #ReframingTheNarrative project which aims to challenge and change the established way we speak and think about the aid sector from one steeped in problematic post-colonial assumptions to one of solidarity, respect and healing.
So join us for this year’s Global Solidarity Summit. Join the online conversation by using the hashtag #GlobalUndod2022 on social media. Register once and get access to all our sessions across both days.
Keynote Address | Karimi Kinoti
Karimi Kinoti is Interim Director of Policy, Public Affairs and Campaigns at Christian Aid having previously been head of Africa Division. Karimi’s keynote address discusses how we move forward in solidarity, harnessing the seismic changes brought about by COVID-19 and the climate crisis, and how we can harness anti-racist practice to ensure a sustainable future.
Understanding and Enacting Global Solidarity: Building a movement in Wales
What does Global Solidarity mean to you? In this session, Claire O’Shea, head of Hub Cymru Africa, set the scene before welcoming Barbara Davies-Quy from Size of Wales and George Sikoyo from Mount Elgon Tree Growing Enterprise to share their experiences and best practice in building a movement for global solidarity from Wales. This session was then followed by an unrecorded participative session with summit attendees.
Keynote Address | Jane Hutt MS, Minister for Social Justice
Jane Hutt MS is the Minister for Social Justice in the Welsh Government. A progressive brief that places the Wales and Africa programme as one of justice and equality. In her role, she has centred the programme on gender equality, climate change and responding to COVID-19. The Minister spoke to the summit about Wales role in global social justice.
How to tell an African Story | Moky Makura
Moky Makura is the Executive Director of Africa No Filter. Born in Nigeria, she serves on the advisory boards of the Junior Achievement Africa, the Houtbay Partnership and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
The proverb “Until lions learn to write, hunters will tell their stories for them” guides her leadership of Africa No Filter, an organisation shifting perceptions about and within Africa away from simplified and harmful narratives.
In this session, we hear about Moky’s work with Africa No Filter and explore understandings in Reframing the Narrative as we work to challenge harmful stereotypes about Africa, Africans and Aid.
Arts & Culture Keynote Address | Jean Samuel Mfikela
Jean Samuel, opens the second and final day of #GlobalUndod2022 where he discusses the intersection of arts and solidarity, presenting his perspective as a contemporary African artist based in Wales. His talk explored how arts and culture can foster solidarity across Wales and Africa.
Food, Connection and Culture | Food Adventure
How can food create connections between people? In this session from #GlobalUndod2022, we welcomed Carol Adams from Food Adventure, a Welsh company with social objectives aiming to connect communities and help them prosper through food. Their work in Cameroon has helped people gain sustainable livelihoods from food by transforming primary food ingredients into a secondary commodity and therefore reduce food waste, hunger and food poverty.
Tell Your Story | Disability in Wales and Africa (DWA)
Disability in Wales and Africa (DWA) host a discussion on their 2021 pilot initiative – Tell Your Story (TYS). Conceived to complement the “development debate”, TYS’s primary focus is about the sharing of ideas, experiences, and expertise across communities, countries, and cultures.
In the DWA context, TYS discusses the lives of deaf and disabled people in both Wales and Africa? bringing them together under an umbrella of Global Solidarity. However:
- How does encouraging people to tell (or share) their stories, develop our understanding of development?
- Particularly when working with socially marginalised groups what is there to be learnt from cross-cultural experiences?
- What might Development and Global Solidarity look like within the context of simply sharing our human experiences?
Meet the ‘Arts and Culture’ Funders
This session has two parts. Firstly, Natasha Nicholls, Interim Head of Arts Wales at British Council, and Jenny Stoves, Development Officer at Arts Council Wales joined us as they introduced the grants available for international solidarity projects in the arts. We ask them how we can develop the project proposals they want to fund. If you are seeking funding for your international arts projects and work, this is the video for you!
In the second half of the session, Eluned Haf, Head of Wales Arts International, and Andrew Ogun, Agent for Change at the Arts Council of Wales will discuss ‘Global responsibility, solidarity and the Arts in Wales: towards an equitable and sustainable way of working internationally in the arts in and from Wales’. This was followed-up by an interactive and unrecorded session which hosted a discussion on re-imagining the arts funding sector’s international work.
Learning from Art Partnerships
In the final session of the 2022 Global Solidarity Summit, we were pleased to welcome NoFit State Circus in Cardiff and Ngoma Nshaya in Rwanda to share their experiences of meeting with their third partner – Circus Zambia – for an intensive week of co-learning and how this has shaped their performances.
In the second half of the session, we welcome JukeBox Collective to share their views on the opportunities and obstacles for arts partnerships between Wales and Ghana and how they work to make cultural cross-pollination possible.
Catch up on last year’s Global Solidarity Summit here!
