08 April 2022 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Ole ter Wey
In this interview, correspondent Ole ter Wey speaks with Alicia Wallace from The Bahamas. Alicia is the director of Equality Bahamas, Steering Committee Member of Feminist Alliance for Rights, and also a self-described Queer Black Feminist. Together they discuss the devastating impact of constantly recurring hurricanes on the land, people and economy of The Bahamas, as well as discuss necessary policy intervention points.
The interview focuses on the intersectionality of climate change. Using many practical and real-world examples from her own experiences, Alicia brings this abstract academic construct to life and shows how climate change is hitting already marginalized groups particularly hard. Concrete policy recommendations are then derived from these insights.
“The climate crisis is affecting people in different ways. It’s never just about ‘those people’, we’re not a homogenous group. You have women, you have young people, you have aýoung women, you have people with disabilities, you have young people with disabilities. There are all these layers to who we are [and that shape appropriate policies].”
Alicia Wallace is a queer Black feminist, gender expert, and research consultant. She is the Director of Equality Bahamas which promotes women’s and LGBTQ+ rights as human rights through public education, community programming, and advocacy.
She is passionate about social justice work and using creativity as a tool. She is skilled in creating safe spaces for critical dialogue and passionate about activating imagination, collective visioning, and creating feminist futures.
Alicia is an Advisor and the Online Education Coordinator at Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, former Regional Coordinator at FRIDA the Young Feminist Fund, and a steering committee member of Feminist Alliance for Rights (FAR). She has a weekly column on social and political issues in the Bahamian daily newspaper The Tribune and has published academic papers. She enjoys reading, cycling, baking, having dessert, and talking to everyone and no one at the same time on Twitter as @_AliciaAudrey.
