Leicester to host talk by UK activist who joined Kurdish force against ISIS in Northern Syria
UK activist Kimberley Taylor, who has joined Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in Syria, will be one of the speakers at an event being held on International Women’s Day at the University and chaired by Dr Omer Tekdemir from our School of History, Politics and International Relations.
The panel event ‘Resistance and Living Utopia: Women’s Liberation and Demographic Autonomy in Syrian Kurdistan’ on Wednesday 8 March will examine the Rojava revolution taking place in Northern Syria. The revolution has been characterised by the prominent role played by women both on the battlefield and within the newly formed democratic political system.
Women are involved at all levels and in all areas of the democratic project: in the cooperative economy, in the direct participatory democratic councils and at the front-line of the military campaign against ISIS. Kimberley, who is originally from Blackburn, is currently working with the Kurdish Women Protection Units (YPJ) media team. She will be speaking via Skype.
Also speaking at the event will be Isabel Käser, a PhD student at SOAS in London where she is writing her thesis on the Kurdish women’s movement, and Elif Sarican, a member of the Kurdistan Students’ Union UK.
The event will take place on Wednesday 8 March from 5.30pm to 7.30pm in the Attenborough Tower Lecture Theatre 1. To register please email KISU@le.ac.uk