View MGA Emerging Leaders Fellows Research Presentations, 16-18 February 2021

Mercy Global Action Emerging Leaders Fellows (Group One 2019-2021) have prepared extensive research presentations on various Mercy justice issues. These research presentations will be conducted via Zoom on 16-18 February, 2021

The program includes a schedule of the research presentations, names of the presenting Fellows and a description of each research project. 

We invite you to attend any/all of these presentations. Each presentation lasts 45 minutes.

Messages to: Colleen Swain - Leadership Development and Advocacy Associate MIA-MGA

Presenter: Theresia Tina rsm (Papua New Guinea)

Title:
Where have the Rivers and Forests Gone? Oamug: A Case Study

There are three main sources of environmental degradation in Papua New Guinea.
The first is the increase of logging by foreign companies causing deforestation. The second is through extractivism; mining companies have destroyed the land, forests, wildlife and polluted the rivers. The third, most important threat to Papua New Guinea, is agricultural expansion for commercial and everyday survival. This research focuses on how unsystematic expansion of agriculture and housing for survival purposes contribute to the degradation of earth and its resources. While it is an issue for the whole country, the research focuses on one small village called Oamug in the Western Highlands Province as a case study.
The research discusses the effects of cutting down trees, digging up the land and destroying of waterways every day for survival purposes, as well as possible strategies to help overcome this issue for the future.

Presenter: Jemima Walsh (Australia)

Title: 
Money as Mercy: A guide for the global Mercy community on participating meaningfully in the Impact Economy

This project explores the ways that money is, and can be, put to use in the spirit of Mercy. How do we, as the global Mercy community, use our capital to address some of the world’s biggest social and environmental injustices? How do we make sure that our capital isn’t aiding or abetting those activities that undermine human rights and those values we hold at the core of our Mercy tradition? And how do look beyond traditional capitalism to build a future that enables creativity, biodiversity and reciprocity to thrive?

This guide offers an introduction to the emerging ‘Impact Economy’, and puts forward a decision-making framework for members of the Mercy community to use when considering ways to invest, save and purchase intentionally within this new system.

Presenter: Tylia Barnes (United States of America)

Title:
Cultivating Consciousness: Are you Complicit or a Coconspirator?

Racism is a societal ill that has been around for centuries. Tylia’s Talk will take you on a journey through aspects of historical racism and personal experience. Participants will be challenged to transition from a place of complicity to a position of coconspirator. Becoming anti-racist is more than advocacy, it is a lifelong spiritual practice. Together we will identify and confront passive aggressive aspects of racial hatred, oppression, and systemic racism. Mercy and the wider community will be invited to cultivate consciousness through a lens of human rights and to become poised innovators of an anti racist culture within its community and institutions.

Presenter: Amy Keller (United States of America)

Title:
What is Home and How Do We Get There?

“Home is…” where I know I can eat rice. Over the last year, I have been searching for what home is and how we collectively get there.
By looking at the Omaha refugee experience through their responses to the prompt “Home is…” and contrasting those with others in our community, I have created a definition of home that follows a three tier model. By viewing this new definition, within the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, my aim is to show that the journey to find home is just as exciting as the destination itself.

Presenter: Siobhán Golden (Ireland)

Title:
“A Home is Dignity” – A Collection of Voices and Analysis of Women’s Mental and Emotional Experiences of Homelessness in Ireland

This research project seeks to present a detailed analysis of women’s homelessness, paying particular attention to women’s psychological wellbeing, during and after homelessness. The past decade has seen an alarming increase in the feminisation of homelessness in Ireland. Homelessness is not merely a loss of a physical home, but a loss of a sense of safety, security, dignity, community and belonging. These losses, along with the traumatic events of homelessness, exacerbate mental and emotional health difficulties. Women often lack gender sensitive responses to support them in their journeys to overcome conditions of homelessness.
By reviewing previous research and listening to the voices of women with lived experience, this study hopes to educate the reader on the gendered experiences of homelessness and share insights on the profound psychological outcomes of homelessness on women’s well-being.

Presenter: Anneke Kat (United States of America)

Title:
Displacement of the Heart: A Pocket Guide to Gentrification & Community Identity in Philadelphia, USA

The goal of this project is to challenge the understanding of displacement through the exploration of the root causes and impact of urban gentrification in the United States. I would like to utilize my hometown of Philadelphia to examine a setting where gentrification has had a deep impact on one of the most racially segregated cities in the USA and understand how this form of displacement impacts collective community identity. My research will also offer key learnings and new grassroots methodologies from Philadelphia institutions and community organizers to address gentrification and displacement. I will deliver my findings in an illustrated guide which seeks to make this complex issue accessible to my own wider community. 

This resource will offer self-reflection activities and a community discussion guide to encourage conversation and grassroots organizing and education on this issue.

Presenter: Anastasia Freeman (Australia)

Title:
Photosynthetic Visions

Photosynthetic Visions is a research project investigating the climate emergency, plant neurobiology and eco-art therapy techniques to encourage land and plant literacy among participants. A seven-day reflective process was created, using the premise of land as pedagogy and planthropocentric thinking. This process can be used and adapted by participants to deepen their relationship with their local eco-system and is for those wanting to fulfil their ecological function as human and conspire with the vegetal world. In this research project, planthropocenic philosophy and practices are proposed as an antidote to anthropocentric thinking and behaviour and an alternative to technological solutions to climate change. The practical component of Photosynthetic Visions involves skill-building in propagating plants, observational analysis of landscapes and creative techniques to root into the planthropocene.

Presenter: Julia Morisi (United States of America)

Title:
In Search of Our Stories: Retelling and Reclaiming Women's Leadership in
Religious Tradition

Stories matter. Stories inspire, reflect, and create. What is more, our spiritual stories give us hope and provide meaning. Quite often, men take center stage in these tales. However, there is always more than one perspective. In my project, I asked for participants identifying as women to creatively reimagine the often undervalued, misrepresented, or misunderstood stories of women from their own spiritual traditions. As women, we know that we and our spiritual mothers before us have always offered a depth and richness to our communities, but our status within these communities often falls short of reflecting this.
This project aims to display and uplift the incredible examples of leadership that women of our traditions can offer us today. I hope it will illuminate the brilliant light and leadership of women in religion, but also promote it. There is so much work still to do.

Presenter: Carmen Rosa Ccallomamani rsm (Peru)

Title:
Itinerancia en la Pandemia del COVID-19 (Roaming during the COVID-19 Pandemic)

Esta investigación es un estudio de caso centrado en el testimonio de cinco peruanos varados en Estados Unidos durante la pandemia del COVID-19. A través de sus experiencias, el estudio destaca los numerosos peligros a los que se enfrentaron, la actuación del Estado peruano y el papel que desempeñaron las redes sociales, las ONG y las congregaciones religiosas en su viaje. También describe los 14 días que pasaron en cuarentena en Perú, compartiendo habitaciones de hotel con desconocidos, y las formas de apoyo mutuo que surgieron entre ellos.
Se presentan conclusiones y sugerencias de buenas prácticas y políticas.

Traducción realizada por el traductor de DeepL

This research is a case study focused on the testimony of five Peruvians stranded in the United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Through their experiences, the study highlights the many dangers they faced, the action taken by the Peruvian State, and the roles that social media, NGOs and religious congregations played in their journey. It also describes the 14 days they spent in quarantine back in Peru, sharing hotel rooms with strangers, and the forms of mutual support that emerged among them.
Conclusions and suggestions for best practices and policy are presented.

Video translation by Paula Thomas rsm