APC has a unique and dynamic team spread across the globe. We are excited to introduce you to our newest staff members, all of whom have joined in recent months. Welcome to the APC family, Tarryn, Tarakiyee, Cristiana and Leila!
Tarryn Booysen lives in South Africa and is currently the youngest member of the APC staff. Previously, Tarryn worked as an intern for APC member Women’sNet and came to APC in April of this year to work on the End Violence: Women’s rights and safety online project as the administrative assistant. She works with country partners OWPSEE, Colnodo, SJS, Bytes for All, Foundation for Media Alternatives and IAWRT.
She says, “APC has already opened me up to a new world… There are various projects within APC that fight for human rights, women’s rights and sexual rights. I want to get young people involved in APC’s campaigns and open them up to different opportunities.” This year, Tarryn received her bachelor’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. She writes poetry and is a clarinetist.
Mohammad Tarakiyee, who goes by Tarakiyee, joined APC in May as a campaign coordinator with a focus on digital security, online rights and internet governance. Previously, Tarakiyee served as a communications officer at Jordan Open Source Association (JOSA), leading campaigns to advocate against online censorship and mapping the infrastructure, legislation and policy of censorship in Jordan. Trained as a computer engineer, Tarakiyee recalls, “Internet censorship started to increase in my country… so I quit my web development job and decided to get involved full time in online rights advocacy.”
Tarakiyee coordinates APC’s work in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) digital rights project, which is led by Alternatives and also includes eQualit.ie, both of whom are APC members. The goal of the project is to build a culture of digital rights in four MENA countries through digital security trainings, advocacy and network development. Tarakiyee says, “The biggest advantage of being part of the APC network is the unique position of being always in touch with local perspectives and contacts from all over the world, in particular within the global South. It tests my assumptions and ensures that the work I do is in the best interest of all people.”
Cristiana Gonzalez is a senior fellow and PhD candidate at the University of São Paulo. She is an advocate in the field of copyright and privacy. Last month, she joined APC’s Communications and Information Policy Programme (CIPP) to coordinate the Local Actions for Internet Rights Project (APC-LAIR) that gives support to local organisations in eight countries to buld civil rights on the internet, combining “Marco Civil” (the groundbreaking civil rights framework for the internet adopted in Brazil), the NETmundial process and the Web We Want campaign.
Her involvement in social movements got her interested in communication tools and strategies for activists like the Indymedia movement and free/libre and open source software. She says, “It’s no secret that the press is controlled by economic interests, and dissenting opinions don’t reach the general public. My perception is that the internet can empower those who are fighting for their basic rights.” She also became involved in the open access movement, addressing issues around copyright in the digital age. She is eager to stay involved with the political processes in Brazil in 2015, specifically copyright reform, regulation of the Marco Civil, the Personal Data Protection Bill, development of the National Broadband Plan, cyber security policies, the net neutrality debate and the 10th annual Internet Governance Forum.
Leila Nachawati Rego lives in Madrid as a Spanish-Syrian writer, communications consultant and human rights activist. In addition to her role as communications associate for APC CIPP, she teaches communications at Madrid’s Carlos III University. She has written for Global Voices Online, Global Voices Advocacy, Al Jazeera English, El Mundo and eldiario.es. She is also part of the SyriaUntold team, a digital archive on the Syrian civil movement and its creative and artistic content.
She has lived, worked and studied in Spain, Syria, the US, Morocco and Mexico and has been involved in several organisations, but she says, “I find APC to be quite a unique and exciting landscape that I’m really happy to be part of.” She continued by saying, “I hope that my knowledge and expertise in the Mediterranean region helps maintain and enrich APC’s ‘Southern’ perspective, which I find very important in an increasingly Western-influenced scenario.”