PROJECTS
ADVOCACY:
SAFE HAVENS FREEDOM TALKS
Safe Havens is the annual global summit of the artistic freedoms sector. It has been held in the first week of December since 2013 and in 2016, HART's Michael Schmidt became its official rapporteur, responsible for producing the conference report. He served in this capacity for five years before becoming the lead curator and conferene organiser of Safe Havens in 2021. In 2019, the newly-formed HART was tasked with organising the content and logistics for Safe Havens' first summit outside of Sweden, that held in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2019 - out of which arose the continental Amani: Africa Creative Defence Network. In 2020, Safe Havens was reconfigured as an independent artistic freedoms non-profit, Safe Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT) of which HART is a founder member.
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HART OPERATES IN THREE DIMENSIONS: ADVOCACY, DEFENCE, AND RESEARCH
DEFENCE:
AMANI: AFRICA CREATIVE DEFENCE NETWORK & HART'S FELLOWSHIP
Arising out of a strategic collective decision taken by participants in Safe Havens 2019 in Cape Town, a continental network of arts advocacy and artistic freedoms organisations plus protective mechanisms for creatives founded the Amani: Africa Creative Defence Network. Functional in English, Arabic, and French, Amani performs the role of observer of African artistic freedoms and abuses, advocate for such freedoms, and as a support mechanism to artists at risk. Currently consisting of 14 member oranisations, it meets twice a month, to discuss network issues, and cases of artists at risk - who are referred to assisting organisations, including those able to provide financial or legal aid, safety and other training, and emergency relocations where necessary. HART sits alongside Artists at Risk Connection's Africa Regional Desk and Al-Mawred Al-Thaquafy on Amani's co-ordinating committee. HART's contriution to the network is its Fellowship, a protective residency in Johannesburg for at-risk creatives whose work intersects with human rights.
RESEARCH:
ACCOUNTABILITY INTERNATIONAL & OTHERS
HART is a research associate of Accountability International (AI), a Cape Town based nonprofit which focuses on African continental policy interventions and compliance monitoring to ensure comprehensive healthcare access across the African continent, especially to marginalised and vulnerable communities (refugees, LGBTIQA* communities, the poor, people living with HIV/AIDS and/or TB, criminalised sex-workers and drug users, people living with disabilities, people living with albinism, etc). For example over 2020 - 2021, HART ran the research team for AI's Coronavirus Scorecard, monitoring, analysing, and rating African governments' (and donor agencies') responses to the pandemic, producing a comprehensive continental overview of the impact of the virus and of reactions to it on already strained healthcare systems and marginalised communities. HART has also produced research for the likes of Africa in Fact, the journal of Good Governance Africa, and for other clients focusing on in-depth knowledge.
CONTACT
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