Mwende Katwiwa
Mwende Katwiwa is a 25-year-old Black, Kenyan, Immigrant, Queer, Womyn poet, organizer and youth worker in New Orleans, LA. In New Orleans, she is a program coordinator for the Young Women With A Vision program at Women With A Vision, Inc., a founding member and former co-chair of the New Orleans chapter of the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), an African fashion and culture blogger at www.Noirlinians.com and a poet with Slam New Orleans.
Presentations from Facing Race 2016
My Existence is Political: Black Feminist Freedom Dreams in the Incarceration Capital of the World
This session asks participants to go into the intersection of race, geography, gender, and incarceration to explore the unique ways it impacts our communities. This interactive session will allow attendees to reflect upon the centrality of the penal state in producing/enforcing structures of gender, reproductive, and sexual injustice, as well as explore and build upon the strategies that formerly-incarcerated cis and trans* women are using to change policy, decarcerate their communities, and pave the way for others coming home. Session is hosted by the staff and volunteers of Women With A Vision, Inc. (WWAV), New Orleans’ only Queer, Black-women-led organization doing grassroots and policy level work at this intersection. Through our work, WWAV argues that “my existence is political,” using public health, human rights, and Black feminist frameworks, alongside the liberation histories of the Deep South, to craft new visions for change.
Speakers: Desiree Evans, Mwende Katwiwa