Zebedee Parkes

Thousands of people from across NSW marched through the streets of Sydney at the #Time2Choose rally to demand a sustainable future — without coal and gas.

Thousands of people rallied at Sydney's Palm Sunday justice for refugees march to demand the goverment close the detention centres and #BringThemHere.

There is a global refugee crisis. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported last year that there are at least 22.5 million people seeking asylum across state borders and tens of millions more have been internally displaced.

The numbers are growing as more people become displaced due to conflict and environmental disasters.

In response, from New York to Berlin to Sydney, leading political parties are building walls, figuratively and literally, instead of coming up with humane solutions.

In this episode we cover five reasons to come to the Palm Sunday refugee rights rallies on March 25 and three things you can do to help build the rallies.

A list of all the Palm Sunday rallies across the country:

https://australianrefugeeactionnetwor...

At Sydney's IWD march, protesters rallied for paid domestic violence leave, migrant workers' rights, sex workers' rights, an end to sexual harassment on campus and elsewhere, abortion rights, equal pay and for Turkey to end its war on Afrin in Northern Syria.

Thousands of people attended the Sydney's 40th annual Mardi Gras parade. A number of community and activist floats marched in the parade including Positive Life, No Pride in Detention, Amnesty International and Stop Adani among others.

Hundreds of refugee families defied a protest ban in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Sulawesi on February 21.

They marched from their refugee accommodation to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with banners and placards that read “No one is illegal” “Is there any UNHCR?”. A young girl held up a placard, almost as tall as her, that read “We are forgotten”.

Students at the University of Sydney held a protest during the first day of Oweek to protest sexual assault and harassment on campus.

The rally comes in the wake of the release of 'The Red Zone Report' that details a spike in sexual harassment and assault during Oweek, especially in USYD's colleges.

In this episode I join dozens of community groups from across NSW at the "Fix NSW Transport" rally. The battle between WestConnex and public transport is explored.

To get involved in the campaign: www.facebook.com/NoWestconnex

We can fix the public transport crisis

Community groups from across NSW came out to rally against Westconnex and attacks on public transport on February 17.

A man waves over a roughly boarded fence, as a guard walks intimidatingly in front of it. A group of refugee protesters, sweltering in the hot sun in Leonora — a two day drive from Perth into the desert — wave back and yell “azadi”, the Farsi word for freedom.

I am one of the protesters and I am filming the protest.

One week earlier, just before the start of my second year at university, I opened an email from an activist group advertising a “Caravan of Compassion” to Leonora detention centre.

A few days later I was on the bus, barely knowing one other person.

In the first episode of Activist Stories we travel up to Canberra to join activists from around the country protesting against the Adani mega coal mine on the first day of parliament on February 5. We then look back at the campaign, the pressure mounting on Labor to oppose the mine and how you can get involved.

To get involved Stopadani.com Adani’s threat to Australia’s groundwater greenleft.org.au/content/adani-threat-great-artesian-basin

Keep up with me

Twitter: @zebparkes

Blog: zebedeeparkes.com

Insta: zebedeeparkes