Anita Abaisa awarded Folia's person of the year
Anita Abaisa has been awarded Folia’s Person of the Year Award for 2016. A jury of Folia editors praised the applied psychology student of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) for her efforts to improve the position of black women in Dutch society.
‘Racism hurts. Period,’ Abaisa told Folia in an interview. Abaisa, who studies applied psychology at the HvA, founded a Facebook group called Black Ladies Talk to give black women in the Netherlands the opportunity to talk about their experiences with racism. Ten thousand black women subscribed in the first year.
In a year that will be remembered for its Internet trolls, you might think that many black women would rather disconnect from the Internet all together. But Abaisa has established a safe haven for them with her Facebook group. Every morning Abaisa publishes a message on the wall of Black Ladies Talk – a piece of positive advise or a question — to prompt a positive movement for change.
But Anita Abaisa didn’t stop there. Soon after, she also started organising ‘tea and talks’ meetings for the black women to also meet offline. She even organised a congress in the Bijlmerpark theatre in November.
Hope
‘We’re lucky that we don’t have to put someone that stands for division and dissatisfaction on our cover, unlike Time Magazine did with Trump,’ Folia’s editor-in-chief Altan Erdogan writes in this week’s editorial. ‘Nevertheless, our decision will, I’m sure, be heavily debated and without a doubt we will have forgotten many talented people.’
Folia has also published a top ten of talented people to have distinguished themselves for the important roles they play at the HvA and UvA. ‘We think this top 10 represents hope,’ Erdogan writes.
Besides Anita Abaisa, the ten nominees for Folia’s Person of the Year Award were: Jarmo Berkhout, chairman of the national students union LSVb; Hans Amman, member of the Board of Directors of UvA and HvA; Pari Ibrahim, student at the HvA; HvA lecturer Jacob Eikelboom; Louise Elffers, lecturer at the HvA; Matilda Médard, AUC student and theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde.
Read their profiles in this year’s final edition of Folia.
