This year the rabble podcast network talked to world-changers across Canada and the globe. From activists remembering Nelson Mandela to taking an audio journey through Vancouver’s Chinatown nightmarket, to marking the 10th anniversary of the Insite safe injection site our podcasters were on the scene, talking to the folks making the news and making change.
For your holiday listening pleasure, here are a few podcasts for you to catch up on over the break. There are plenty more where that came from, these are just a few:
1. Remembering Nelson Mandela: As 2013 was coming to an end, the world saw the passing of South African revolutionary and president Nelson Mandela. During this, our last show of the year, we dedicate the show to reflections on the life and work of Mandela. We are airing excerpts from a special episode of Amandla – a weekly African current affairs program produced in English and French on CKUT 90.3 in Montreal. The folks at Amandla gathered a wonderful crowd of former anti-apartheid activists from Montreal and across Canada who played an integral role in the struggle to shared their inspired stories, and they generously provided their audio to rabble radio.
2. Vancouver’s safe injection site marks its 10th anniversary: In 2003, Insite opened its doors to provide harm reduction services to people who inject drugs. In that time, there have been 1.8 million visits and no overdose deaths. Pivot Legal Society has advocated for Insite for over a decade. Scott Bernstein is a lawyer at Pivot and co-counsel for Insite at the Supreme Court of Canada. He’s also a member of the Redeye collective. He speaks with Redeye host Lorraine Chisholm.
3. Making childcare integral to our movements: The Montreal Childcare Collective: The Montreal Childcare Collective is committed to recognizing caring for children as an inherent part of our movements, as a collective responsibility, and as work that must be shared in order to make our movements fair, fully participatory, sustainable, and genuinely radical. Eidelman talks about the group, its work, and some of the politics of carework as they pertain to radical social movements in Montreal and beyond.To learn more about the Montreal Childcare Collective, click here.
4. Angela Davis on social change: Ariana Barer airs the first half of a keynote address by Angela Davis at the University of California’s 2006 conference hosted by the Women’s Resources and Research Centre on the question “How Does Change Happen?” Angela Davis reflects on strategies that have made and will make social change. Please tune in next time for part two of this keynote address.
5. Rad Voices: Lori Kufner, harm reduction activist: Lori Kufner is the project coordinator at the TRIPP project, a Toronto based peer-driven harm reduction group. Started in 1995 by partiers for partiers, TRIPP empowers youth to support and educate their peers in a non-judgemental way. Lori is a co-founder of NewMindSpace a group that reclaims often privatized or corportatized space through wacky free events. She has organized annual events involving thousands of people, practiced around the world.
6. Art emphasizing migrant voices and organizing for a more just world: Leila Pourtavaf and Agata Mrozowsk, artists-in-residence with the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) University’s Public Action Thematic Residency, talk about their current art project which focuses on recent immigration policies in Canada and migrant justice organizing.
7. Watching the cops in Winnipeg: Organizer Teddy Zegeye-Gebrehiwot talks about Winnipeg Copwatch and their work against the more oppressive aspects of policing as it currently exists.
8. Capitalism, mental health, and the NBA: The story of Royce White: Nathan Kalman-Lamb, academic and co-author of Out of Left Field: Social Inequality and Sports, speaks to the controversy around NBA player Royce White and his request for accommodations for his generalized anxiety disorder.
White recently participated in an interview with ESPN’s Chuck Klosterman, in which he identified how capitalism and social inequality contribute to mental illness, citing the “subtle war – in America and in the world – between business and health.”
9. Human trafficking is a global issue: A talk by Lila Shahani: On January 14, Lila Shahani, of the National Anti-Poverty Commission and the Human Development & Poverty Reduction Cabinet Cluster of the Philippine Government, spoke about human trafficking in a Philippine, Canadian and Global Context.
10. Tribute to Henry Morgentaler: Dr. Henry Morgentaler died peacefully at his home on May 29. Carolyn Egan worked closely with him in the campaign for choice on abortion. She is a founding member of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics. Carolyn Egan speaks with Redeye host Mordecai Briemberg.
Photo: flickr/MatthewKeefe
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