On today’s episode of Justice Matters co-host Aminta Ossom speaks with Yara Sallam about the experiences of women human rights defenders in Egypt and Tunisia as well as her personal history following the Arab Spring that led her to write about burnout and well-being in human rights activism.
Yara Sallam is a prominent feminist activist and human rights defender who has worked for several Egyptian and international human rights organisations. She was awarded the North Africa Shield Award in 2013 for her work with Nazra for Feminist Studies and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. In 2020 she published Even the Finest of Warriors a book about how feminist activists manage different aspects of their private lives and concurrently deal with the difficulties of being in the public space. The book looks at case studies of female activists in Egypt and Tunisia dealing with aspects of psychological health, general exhaustion, financial security, as well as growing old.
In this episode’s conversation they discuss: what inspired her to write Even the Finest of Warriors, the impact of activism on well being, the personal and political intersections of activism, redefining resilience, building community and collective care, evolving perspectives on activism and aging, and Yara’s own resilience in this work.