Civic Activism & NGO Panel:

Technology for Good, #MeToo, COVID-19

Live on Zoom on April 18th, 9am EST

This Zoom panel brings together the leaders of three civic groups - Jing WANG from NGO 2.0, LÜ Pin from Feminist Voices (女权之声), and HE Jian and LIN Shutong from Fish and Friends (F&F公益小组). Respectively, our panelists have worked on promoting Technology for Good in China, feminist campaigns in China and the US, and providing essential medical supplies to Chinese and British hospitals during this pandemic. The panel will be moderated by HE Chang, a PhD student studying Chinese NGOs in the Brown Anthropology Department. 

Civic engagement of various forms has a long tradition in China, ranging from grassroots voluntary organizations to national-scale NGOs. With COVID-19, the enthusiasm and need for such engagement are again on their rise with many unprecedented forms of organizing emerging.

Join us on Zoom at 9 AM (Eastern Standard Time) on 4/18, this Saturday, to hear our panelists talk about their work, how they became engaged in this less-traveled path, and what it looks like for them. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions after panelists’ presentations. The event will be held in English. 

Time: Apr 18, 2020 09:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Beijing: 9 P.M., 4/18

UK: 2P.M., 4/18

Zoom Meeting Link: https://brown.zoom.us/j/9712805939

Meeting ID: 971 280 5939

NGO2.0 and Nonconfrontational Activism by jing wang

Professor Wang will provide a conceptual framework of nonconfrontational activism in the Chinese context by citing examples of various strategies adopted by Chinese NGOs to walk around obstacles. She will then introduce NGO2.0, its genesis and flagship programs, focusing primarily on civic hackathons and the recently launched Future Village project.

Professor Wang is the founder and director of New Media Action Lab at MIT. Wang developed NGO 2.0, an ICT-powered activist project serving Chinese grassroots NGOs. Its major projects include the NGO 2.0 Mapping Platform (www.ngo20map.com) and New Media Training Class to improve Chinese NGOs abilities to use the internet and social media, to enhance communication between organizations, and to learn how to promote and advocate online. Professor Wang’s current research interests include advertising and marketing, civic media and communication, social media action research, popular culture, and nonprofit technology, with an area focus on the PRC. She recently published a new book The Other Digital China: Nonconfrontational Activism on the Social Web, Harvard University Press.

The dynamics of #MeToo in China in a Transnational Context by Lü, Pin

#MeToo movement, an indignant momentum mainly formed by the young people identifying with feminism, has been throwing an unprecedented public debate on sexual harassment and broad gender issues in China since 2018. How did those young people drive and organize themselves to confront the establishment that had always exclude women's and youth's right to speak up? I will analyze the dynamics of #MeToo in China by dissecting some most influential cases. I will also share the contribution of overseas communities to this movement to demonstrate the potential to expand the energy of social transformation to a transnational level.

Lü is a leading feminist activist and thought leader currently based in the U.S. She has been working on women’s rights issues for more than 20 years. In 2009, she founded Feminist Voices, among the most influential communication platforms on feminist activism in China. It was the first public platform to use the word “feminism” in its name on Chinese social media, and moreover, it has played a leading role in feminist communities since 2011. It was shut down by the government on International Women’s Day in March 2018. In 2011, Lü Pin began working closely with other activists in developing a national feminist network to promote women’s rights. In 2016, after relocating to the U.S., she co-founded a new organization in New York to support the feminist movement in China, including the #MeToo movement.

Kindness starts from something small... BY HE, JIAN & LIN, SHUTONG

Fish & Friends Charitable Association was founded by a group of Chinese individuals studying and working in the UK in late January. Initially, it was set up to provide adequate medical supplies to hospitals in China, to support the government’s effort of fighting COVID-19. The group has successfully fundraised 75K+ USD worth of goods and helped more than 30 hospitals and organizations across 10 proveniences in China. As the situation of coronavirus deteriorates in the UK, the group has shifted its focus to assist the National Health Service (NHS) since the start of April. It is now sourcing adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) of high quality from China, to send to British hospitals in desperate needs.

He joined F&F in late January, currently in charge of procurement standards and liaison with hospitals in the U.K. He is a graduate of Imperial College London. He now works as a system reliability engineer in the petroleum industry and acts as a Trustee of Space Science & Engineering Foundation, an education charity fund that aims to promote science and engineering in the U.K. He loves volunteering and has been actively organizing school competitions and giving scientific talks to students since 2009.

Lin joined F&F as head of logistics and communication. obtained her BA in Architecture at Central Saint Martins. She is a RIBA Part One Architect, entrepreneur, and business owner. She co-founded her own brand A-List Eco Sports Lab.

ModeratED BY HE, CHANG

She is a PhD student in Anthropology at Brown University. She does research on NGOs, particularly foundations, in China. She obtained her BA in sociology from Reed College. She established a nonprofit program in Anhui on humane education - Humaneness 101 - for teenagers in 2015. She also used to work for Beijing K2 Foundation and Chengdu Wuhou Community Development Foundation. She has been a volunteer and researcher for multiple animal and conservation programs in China and the US.