my manifesto
When we commit to challenging unjust systems,
we never shy away from the radical work
of creating a world rooted in equity and justice.
◦ Reimagine Solutions: Systems Aren’t Broken—They’re Designed to Oppress
When we acknowledge that injustice is not a flaw, but a feature, then we understand that true change can only occur by reimagining a system that works, not reforming a broken one.
◦ Explore Intersections: Justice is One Struggle, With Many Fronts
Environmental, racial, social, and economic justice are inseparable. When we build coalitions that connect, we amplify our impact across movements, and can liberate collectively.
◦ Step Up and Stand Back: Indigenous Stewards, Not Spectators
As the original and continuing caretakers of our planet, when Indigenous voices, knowledge, and leadership are at the centre of decision-making our liberation will reflect the environment that nourishes us.
◦ Remembering Our Positionality: Decolonising Land & Language
Reimagining our liberation can happen when we de-weaponise language and self.
This starts with me and the body I inhabit: I don’t help; I don’t entrust; I don’t translate. Instead, I equip, I stand beside, I transfer.
Facts and data provide clarity, but stories inspire change. Frontline communities have living histories, and it is in collectivising these stories that resonate across borders.
◦ Data Informs, Stories TransforM
Grassroots movements are the foundation of revolution. Change doesn’t trickle down—it rises up. Collaborating for community-led initiatives is how we can see success.
◦ Building starts from the Roots
◦ Inclusive Knowledge Systems: Collective Liberation Requires a Collective
Bring together a variety of knowledge holders — activists, lawyers, frontline workers, Indigenous leaders, scientists, artists, and others — to create holistic solutions that address complex, interconnected challenges.
◦ Learn to Leverage Tools that Work
Policy is dry, and the law is difficult, but these are necessary tools for accountability and assurances. We must learn to leverage these tools protect rights, and enforce equity.
There are thousands of tools, resources, and platforms to use in the world — we need to continue being vigilant and intentional to use the ones that work.
Standing in solidarity with those on the frontlines of oppression does not ‘occur’, it is continued. This movement is a lifelong commitment to learning and contribution that comes in many forms.
◦ COMMIT TO RESISTANCE
Why I do what I do
I commit to this part of community movement building because it is intertwined with my lived experience, and with the values that a migrant upbringing instilled in me.
The commitment to learning and sharing decolonised and feminised approaches is part and parcel with the deconstruction of oppressive systems that impact us differently daily.
The ways that community movements are funded; facilitated; and supported is built on patriarchal and colonial ideas. Communities tell us time and time again — the traditional antiquated NGO approaches don’t work to sustain a fulfilled and unified community.
I was born in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.
Here, the spark of revolution began against dictator Salazar (thanks to resistance in then-colonised Angola) but it is also the epicentre of the heroin epidemic that decimated poor families in Western Europe.
Worldwide, the project to decriminalise drug use in Portugal is deemed a success to be replicated. Here, there is controversy. Communities are dependant on legal alternatives and lack social support.
We were not consulted on what success would look like.
I was raised in Bulanaming (Marrickville), Australia.
Our hyper gentrified suburb of 90,000+ people ‘evolved’ from it's crime-riddled diverse and queer past, but who was that evolution for? Like many places, it made it inviable for me, and many others, to continue living in our neighbourhood.
We were not consulted on what evolution would look like.
These are the sparks that inform my collaborations.
