We are living in a time of unprecedented challenge – the pandemic, political polarisation, growing tribalism and nationalism, long delayed racial reckoning in parts of the world, exacerbation of gender inequities, rising poverty, gaping inequality, and the imminent climate catastrophe. As agents of change, there is much frustration that our efforts are falling short, so that we feel we can only make gains in small ways.
In PSJP’s next learning circle, we will ask how to address this frustration and discuss what opportunity do we have to change this?
The COVID crisis has brought home a universal truth about the human condition – that we are all fragile and we all have underlying fears. We have all grieved and suffered in the past year and we are each in need of care.
How do we begin from here and build a care-based society? Martin Luther King popularised the notion of the ‘beloved community’ as the goal as we seek justice. Building the ‘beloved community’ requires an approach that starts from our ‘individual souls’.
How do we understand and alleviate individual and collective suffering? How do we build such understanding into relationships, into our community, into our planet? How do we build the ‘beloved community’ as the ultimate expression of the systemic transformations we seek in the world today?
In the session we will be joined by three people who work at the intersection of care and justice. They are:
- Dr Afsan Bhadelia PhD, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA
- Leah Odle-Benson, The Stephen Lewis Foundation, Canada
- Dr Stephen Connor PhD, Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA), USA
We will talk about what the ‘beloved community’ means to us and how can we build it together. Our provocateurs will get us started by sharing what they have learned through their day-to-day work about understanding and alleviating suffering, building compassionate communities, about decent care values, dignity, solidarity, hope and about justice. The session will be moderated by Barry Knight. It will run twice to ensure participation from different time-zones. Register for either one:
16:00 PM UTC on Thursday, July 8 2021: Register here
10:30 AM UTC on Thursday, July 22 2021: Register here
The sessions will last for 90 minutes. You can use this link to confirm your local time corresponding to UTC.
About Afsan
Afsan is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas. She applies and translates systems theory and metrics science to three core areas to advance health justice: 1) barriers to value-based healthcare and their relevance to social, structural, and systemic determinants of health inequities; 2) chronicity and its implications for health systems strengthening across the care continuum and life course (using cancer and palliative care as tracers); and 3) gender responsiveness of healthcare. Afsan is a Commissioner on the Lancet Commissions on the Value of Death and on Cancer and Health Systems. She co-chairs the Taskforce on Women and Non-Communicable Diseases. She was previously a lead co- author of the report of the Lancet Commission on Global Access
to Palliative Care and Pain Relief and co-chaired the Commission’s Scientific Advisory Committee, coordinated the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control, and has been published in leading medical and health policy journals such as The Lancet and Health Affairs and co-authored and co-edited the book, “Closing the Cancer Divide: An Equity Imperative.”
About Leah
Leah actions her deep commitment to gender equality, supporting social justice initiatives, and building strong and healthy communities, in every area of her work. Committed to continuous learning, meaningful engagement, and advocacy, Leah joined the Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) in 2016. As Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager and Programs Officer, she has worked closely and directly with SLF field representatives and community- based partner organizations. Leah, who is originally from Barbados, spent many years working in the Caribbean on gender and
development issues, including violence against women, transformational leadership, and HIV and AIDS, through the UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean. Leah was also a board member of the Redwood Shelter, a safe haven for women and children based in Toronto, Canada, and served on its Social Justice Committee for five years. Leah’s approach is human- centred and acknowledges the inherent power imbalance that occurs for all organizations working with a funder. She names and addresses that imbalance by prioritizing relationship building, mutual trust, solidarity, heart-centredness—resiliency, courage, integrity, authenticity and truth—meaningful collaboration, and capacity building.
About Stephen
Stephen is the Executive Director of the London, UK based Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA), an alliance of over 350 national and regional hospice and palliative care organizations in 102 countries. Dr. Connor has worked continuously in the hospice/palliative care movement since 1975 including as vice- president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (US), he is now focusing on palliative care development internationally with the WHPCA and has worked on palliative care globally in over 25 countries. In addition to being a hospice and
association executive, he is a researcher, educator, advocate, and psychotherapist, licensed as a clinical psychologist. Stephen has published over 145 peer reviewed journal articles, reviews, & book chapters on issues related to palliative care for patients and their families and is the author/editor of six books on palliative care including of new Global Atlas of Palliative Care (2020), in partnership with the WHO.