Together We Thrive: Culture and Creativity in Advocacy Across the Commonwealth

Panellist

Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and environmental justice activist, who currently is the President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and a Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University. He is the former Secretary-General of Amnesty International (2018-2020) and also the first person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International (2009-2015). He is an advisor for the Community Arts Network. He serves as a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity. His family has started the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism to build on the positive legacies left by popular South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through his music and life’s work. Kumi is the author of award-winning Letters To My Mother: The Makings of a Troublemaker. Kumi is also the host of the podcast Power, People and Planet.

Panellist

Michael Lees is a filmmaker & photographer from Dominica. Michael graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2015 with a BA in Communications (Media Production). In 2020, Michael released his debut documentary, Uncivilized, which saw him survive a category five hurricane alone in the forest. The film premiered at the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, winning awards at festivals in Barbados, Guadeloupe, and Italy.  His photographic work has been exhibited at CAFA (2023) in Barbados, and at the OECS-held exhibition, “Climate Change: An Eastern Caribbean Journey” (2022). Michael has shot for clients including National Geographic, Project CETI, & UNICEF, and is currently the president of Dominica’s premiere visual arts group, The Waitukubuli Artist Association. His artistic practice focuses on themes of climate, circularity, and challenging traditional narratives. 

Panellist

Professor Selina Tusitala Marsh (ONZM, FRSNZ), also known as MOPHEAD, is a multifaceted talent: former New Zealand Poet Laureate, acclaimed author, and academic. She lectures at the University of Auckland and co-directs the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation, advocating for the power of arts in health and wellbeing. With bloodlines spanning Samoa, Tuvalu, England, Scotland, and France, her work is deeply influenced by her diverse heritage. Professor Marsh is an in-demand speaker, renowned for her captivating storytelling abilities and inspirational messages. Her name, Tusitala, means “storyteller” in Samoan – a role she embodies not just in her work, but in her very essence. She inspires others to find and share their own stories, fostering a culture of storytelling and self-expression. Author of three acclaimed poetry collections and the award-winning *Mophead* graphic memoir series, Professor Marsh was recently awarded the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship. She will spend six months writing in the French Riviera in 2025, further enriching her significant contributions to Pacific literature and cultural studies. 

Panellist

Riddhi Dastidar is a Delhi-based writer of Bengali origin. They write and report on themes of gender, disability, rights, climate and culture. They hold an MA in Gender Studies from Ambedkar University Delhi. Riddhi won a 2022 UNFPA Laadli Award and a 2021 SCARF Award for their reportage on persons with psychosocial disabilities and the government’s public health response during the Covid-19 pandemic. Their poetry won the 2020 TFA Award and their fiction was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and Wasafiri New Writing Prize in 2021. They were a 2022 South Asia Speaks fellow working on their debut novel under the mentorship of Deepa Anappara. Their fiction has been anthologised in ‘A Case of Indian Marvels’, Aleph’s anthology of India’s finest new writers. Their work has appeared in Foreign Policy Magazine, The Baffler, Autostraddle, Scroll, IndiaSpend, Khabar Lahariya, Vogue, adda magazine, Rattle, Bright Wall/Dark Room and elsewhere.