 All right. So thank you all for coming to day one of our movement lawyering two-day series. I'm very, very excited to be able to introduce our two panelists for today. First, we have Afsena Orego, who is a legal researcher and human rights advocate working on issues of technology, LGBTQ rights, refugee and human rights. She's currently working with the Middle Eastern North Africa program at Article 19, and she's also a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center. Her recent work looks at the intersections of technology and human rights with a focus on marginalized groups, especially MENA LGBTQ communities. She also has extensive work bringing in this research to place pressure on corporate responsibility for their implication in human rights violations. And Afsena is going to begin with a short presentation on the basics of movement lawyering with a focus, again, on the MENA context. And then we will, and then Afsena will be interviewing our second panelist, Yumna Makhlouf. Yumna is a PhD candidate in law at the, and I apologize for this. I have my French is terrible. Her dissertation examines the question of the identity of the individual in Lebanese private law. She's a teacher and researcher at the Faculty of Law and St. Joseph University of Beirut. Yumna is also an attorney of the Beirut Bar Association and provides legal support as part of legal agenda Lebanon. Her publications and research focus on gender identity, nationality, family, personal status and religious law. So just a quick kind of ground rules. As I mentioned, this is going to be recorded. Also, you'll see at the bottom there are both a Q&A function and a chat function. So we're asking that if you have questions for the panelists, you put those in the Q&A. That allows us to see the questions in order and you can also go in there and view other people's questions and upload them. So if you have a question, see if someone else has already asked it and if so, you can bump that to the top. If for anything else, so if you wish to share resources, if you wish to make a comment, if you wish to give us a compliment or register a complaint, please use the chat functionality. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Opsana for the introduction to movement lawyer. Just give me a second while I try and get this up on here. But I'm so happy to be doing this and I'm very grateful to our sponsors and Mason and Kendra who work to make this happen at Harvard and we're hoping to make sure that this continues to happen. And that we continue to have more movement learning discussions. So I'll be giving a small introduction and then I'll jump into this conversation with you. I will initially start by saying that the introduction I'm giving is my personal takeaways and understandings and feelings about movement and lowering and its importance. What I would say that there is a very rich and long history of scholarship around movement learning and its implementation and I hope folks will go and look into that more after this discussion. First, I want to start with one of the definitions that I really enjoy most, and it comes from Law for Black Lives, an organization that works in the US advocating for black citizens and non-citizens in the US employing movement learning and their definition of it is movement learning is to take direction directly from impacted communities and from organizers as opposed to imposing our leadership or expertise as legal advocates. It means building the power of the people and not the power of the law and that's really fundamental in the baseline of what we mean by movement learning. So in this discussion around movement learning or community focus, it requires some thinking of paradigms and it requires us to work with affected communities, especially marginalized communities. We need to center them first and have a community-centered approach to it, so we're taking direct action from them based on needs and not pivoting or moving directly to asserting our own legal expertise. And at its core, it means that we do not employ this sort of methodology when you're doing this work, you can harm the movements or individuals you're working with. And I'm more and more clear as soon as we have these discussions and the session tomorrow as well with Daniel Blount, it's going to be very exciting. Expanding more on the wise and most laws and regulations that we're talking about have not been and will not be created to protect the most marginalized. They are often used to protect the systems that create them. And in the sector I often look at within the online sphere, this is especially true. So if you're not employing elements and the methodologies of movement learning, you can be feeding into the same sort of systems of oppression that have harmed community and uphold the same systems that have been creating these sort of impacts on. And we need to also remember that the client and lawyer relationship in itself is rife with power dynamics and often the long-term goals we may have as legal experts or attorneys may have as representatives aligned with the communities or the client itself and understanding that sort of personality we ourselves becomes very important because it can have an impact. And moving on, finally, I want to also, that's in the room, you will be working with experts who are directly impacted in living and experiencing what is needed and what is wanted. So therefore you are working with experts who have broad range of expertise way beyond their own experiences to and learning from them and bringing in and centering their lived experiences increases the chances of success in tackling bigger and complex cases. You'll also be able to understand the benefits or harm you can bring. So I'm going to start with a segment in the article by Alexi Nunn-Freeman and Jim Freeman that kind of emphasizes this point talking about how paralyzing it could be to try and tackle some of these massive issues that can impact local income communities of color or communities of color and other oppressed groups. They say for many lawyers encountering those challenges can be profoundly discouraging and even paralyzing because our training does not provide us with the analytical tools or the practical skill sets needed to even envisage a viable path forward. Unlike conventional legal practice, there are no limits to what can be accomplished when movement lawyers embrace multifaceted grassroots power building. I really encourage anyone to go and read this to us interesting article and the point about multifaceted approach is really important because often I think folks coming as attorneys of legal backgrounds may see their place as legal experts as being faster around suits and litigation, but legal experts can have a need to employ different methodologies and tool sets that are multifaceted to build around the needs of the communities they're working with. I sometimes call this litigation saviorism. I have no idea if it gets used elsewhere, but I like it. And what I mean by that is often when, especially in west-centric conceptions of litigation and advocacy and the initial jump is to go and litigate about an issue. This could be harmful for the movement that you're working with, because sometimes the litigation might not be the best answer, but also it needs to be accepted that legal expertise can be impactful in methods far beyond litigation itself. Training as legal practitioners in the US and in countries in the global wealth itself, although I hate that term, and really revolves around suits and legal actions often. It might fit what you may think is your purpose, but it could cause complications for the communities you're working with. Some of them can include drain on resources, financial costs, even further marginalization, and in cases, a harmful precedent. Why do we need to move away from some of these west-centric models I'm mentioning about? For example, we're talking about the United States. It's very individualistic and it usually autonomizes disputes. Like I mentioned here, a methodology that really works against the organizing model. The system is designed to address disputes between a single plaintiff and often works against achieving collective goals and makes it very, the procedural rules make it very incredibly difficult to bring in these collective goals. So, employing these sort of methodologies to ensure that we're not feeding into these same power dynamics and the power of the collective can be brought in requires understanding the multifaceted approaches to take when employing movement luring and working with communities and movements. I had some practical tips I want to put here. You know it will be providing even better context and understanding here, but I had put some in here for us to just look at before we start the conversation. One first realize that your clients are your partners and that means in leadership in control and in decision making or whatever you're working towards. And you need to also ensure that whatever you're doing as part of the movement or support for community you're breaking it down to as they will be breaking down what's going on within the community. You need to understand the strategies you will be using to help the groups. Again, like I mentioned not defaulting to what you think they need and what your expertise is but rather what can be helpful as a strategy building as part of the movement. And this point I think is obviously relevant for anything always take part in self perfection. How much of your work perpetuates racism, sexism, homophobia, classism or elitism, and how often are you working to dismantle that within your own work. And you and the community you're representing talking different languages of strategy which often may happen, and you need to work to understand and understand each other's languages of strategy and adopt to that to make it even more powerful. And I would also really want to point as a call for action that whoever is working as part of their methodology as a movement lawyer it becomes imperative that you try and kind of bring in more movement lawyers and encourage your colleagues to employ movement lawyers to deconstruct what they see as their implementation of the law and their support because it requires a bigger movement than just a few. And something that we'll be talking about with you and that too, I know is that the legal jargon is a tool of power, the inaccessibility of this language is constructed within itself. And even when we're talking about working NGOs or international organizations, I have colleagues that always tell me about the lawyers who have their own internal language that often becomes inaccessible to even their own colleagues and the community. And this as part of movement learning, breaking down this tool of power this language of power becomes really fundamental, and your job will be in part working to make this language accessible in your partnership. Again, build your knowledge of the community and the movement you're trying to take part in and support and work to center what it means and stands for. Finally, I think you should really understand the strengths you bring and as legal practitioners, experts and technical experts, especially lawyers, you're engaging with systems of power daily and you can bring support to these communities from a different angle. Like I can say here from like within the system itself, if you will, you speak the language of power and you can provide that access and it's really important to highlight that, especially if you're a Harvard lawyer provide that form provide that access and provide that sort of different leveraging and to balance and dynamics and power dynamics that may really harm these shifts and barriers that are looking to a block chain. I think we can really establish that it's important that you continue to talk about the systems of power and the expression of power within the community and bring that in. I'm going to switch from this notion of talking about the language of power to and the conflict with you're not right now. A real for me of the legal experts and technical employer, but the impact that it can bring come really fundamental for movements and changes that occur. And that's something that I really want us to talk about that, although it takes more work than you may have been trained with and tools that you may have been provided with is the work you do more fruitful. So now I'm just going to switch to a conversation with our wonderful colleague, you know, and we can like have a little back and forth about our own personal experiences and ideas and the incredible work she's been doing in Lebanon. Hi, you know. How are you. I'm good. I thought initially if you wanted to provide any sort of reflection on some of the points I made and then I can jump into the questions. Yes, of course. First of all, I would like to thank you for having me here. I'm very happy to join in to this very interesting conversation. I have seen in your presentation a lot of points that I identify with that I can see in my daily legal practice because we will see this during our discussion but the law is at the same time and the legal system is at the same time a tool of power actually and the way to liberate ourselves from the powers and to destroy or at least to reconsider power dynamics within the society and this is what we are going to discuss today. And this you can see it with the legal practice because and it's it's far away from everything theoretical that you can be taught because there are lots of power dynamics that will happen in the court that will happen within the police between the police force and between the individuals and between different communities that that you are not going to learn at the university but that you are going to go into when you start actually practicing law and as you were saying it is very important to understand our role and to figure out what kind of lawyers we want to be because since we are really at the frontiers of the system of power and the communities and the individuals our role may vary very quickly and you can very quickly become an instrument of power without even knowing it. Or you can also and this is what we are going to discuss or you can also try to recuperate the space in favor of certain communities in order to make their voices heard in the legal sphere. So this is what I had to say about your presentation but there are lots a lot of other things that you will discuss I think with in the course of our discussion. Thank you. That's incredible. I really would love and give a bit of background on the work you've been doing and also how you employing movement learning and work and you already taught it but a little bit more it means to you and employing it you're going to explain to us. Well I'm a lawyer since 2010. I've been a lawyer practicing lawyer in Lebanon and I joined and was part actually of the founding initiative of an NGO called Legal Agenda. And this NGO actually I mean you can find actually what we represent in the founding article that was written by a human rights lawyer and the legal sociologist Samar Ghamroon and the idea of the NGO was actually to reclaim the legal arena and sphere. So to create an organization actually that would make it possible to take back the law and destroy all of the illusion of technicality that surrounds the law. Because we know I mean I think we can observe it in many countries. I have seen it in France. I see it in Lebanon that there are lots of language of technicality when we talk about the law and this language of technicality and this atmosphere of technicality that you can see in the legal jargon what what you were talking about is actually there to serve certain agendas and purposes. It is not something that is mutual. It is there actually to maintain the system to keep people quiet and to make it more and more hard to perceive that the law just like anything else in the society handles the conflict of interests and there are many social and economic and political interests behind every aspect of the law whatever the technicality may be. And so the idea with this NGO was actually to have a different approach of the law and the main article was entitled actually in order not to leave the law for the legal professionals. The idea behind it was actually that we need to recuperate the legal sphere and to enter it again to actually deconstruct the power dynamic and interests that always underlie the legal system and actually to enter back the legal scene with different social and economic perspectives. To enter actually the battle, the legal battle. So this was the idea of this NGO and this is how I started working with on certain issues, mainly LGBTQ issues handling cases where trans individuals were being prosecuted based on the article in Lebanon. We are going to discuss this article and other issues just like nationality issues invoking the Lebanese nationality for stateless individuals in Lebanon, refugees and the defense rights in the course of arrests that have been done during protests in 2015. I'm sorry my connection cut out. As soon as you started talking about your work and in protection of the transfer in Lebanon, but I would love for you to talk a little bit more about these cases and you've had a number of and you've been involved with a number of really important landmark cases in Lebanon on these issues and I would love for you to give a little bit of a background on these cases and also how movement luring made these landmark decisions and possible and how the community itself helped to form some of the strategies you use to get these landmark cases. So first of all, what we have in Lebanon is an article in the criminal code, which is article 534 and this article criminalizes intercourse against nature. It states that intercourse against nature is punishable up to one year of imprisonment. And so based on this article, people get arrested because of their sexual orientation and based on their gender identity sexual orientation in case they have had intercourse or even were suspected of having intercourse with a person of the same biological sex and the same portrays individuals when they have not had recourse actually to illegal gender change. And so what is interesting with the NGO that I was working with is that and this is why we also talk about this type of ployering is that for many, many, many years, judges did not even have used to actually condemn people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, even if there was no proof even of any kind of sexual encounter. And they never actually found it necessary to justify in their court decisions why they would consider that intercourse between individuals who have the same biological sex is an intercourse that is against nature. So it was it used to be something that they thought was very logical to say without even having to justify it. And so with the, I mean, with Nizar Sarie, who is the founding member of the NGO and executive director, we started actually, we started going in front of the court to say that this type of reasoning is cannot be helped. And that mainly that intercourse between two individuals of the same biological sex is not against nature. And to have had some kind of success in this, since we have had more and more decisions and more and more landmark cases with judges who have considered that our reasoning was correct. And, but I'm going to stress more, maybe about the aspect of the movement ployering. First of all, I started working on trans cases through an NGO that is, I mean, that is a, that has a community center, and that is in direct contact of many trans individuals. And this is why they came and saw me and asked me if I could start handling cases of trans individuals. And it was very important in front of the court and mainly the key court because we have, we won the decision in front of the individual judge. So it was the first judge who based his reasoning on fundamental rights, so on human rights and that it was not acceptable to consider that intercourse between two individuals of the same biological sex is against nature. So when we, when the case was appealed because there was a lot of opposition that came out of the legal courtrooms, when it came out and we were going to go and defend the case in front of the appeal court, it was very important in front of the appeal court to show that all of our reasoning was based on values and ideas and that were local, that we were not talking about importing some kind of foreign culture in Lebanon. That's what we were talking about was something actually that is happening in Lebanon and that the ideas that we are talking about were and the cultures that we were talking about were Lebanese cultures. And so this is where it was very important, the connection with the community to show actually that when we talk about these types of relationships and any kind of relationships and any kind of communities. These were Lebanese movements and not foreign movements. And this is how we constructed it by showing actually to the judges that when we talk about LGBT movements and when we talk about individuals that have a different sexual orientation than the majority or a different gender identity. We were talking about Lebanese individuals who think Lebanese were brought up in Lebanon and we showed actually to the court with actual data that what we are talking about was actually in the Lebanese society. And this actually, this kind of strategy was developed by interacting with the Lebanese communities in order to show this. So we brought up examples of this and we also started connecting other causes to it too, to show actually that when we talk about sexuality, because it was very important also to show that today when we say intercourse against nature, it cannot be defined as an intercourse that does not have as an objective to procreate. And this we have shown by saying actually that now birth controls were allowed, I mean we, the legislator allowed actually birth controls to be sold in pharmacies, etc. And that we, I mean, when we talk about the sexuality, even of individuals that do not have the same biological sex, we cannot say today that it has as an objective procreation. And so this is the kind of strategy that we constructed in front of the judges to show actually that all of our strategy or of our reasoning was based actually on the Lebanese community. And this we have done through other medical NGOs, we have done through the local NGOs that work directly with the communities. In other cases, and this is why I think it's important also to talk about this, when I, in other cases I have worked with trans individuals on this. We started actually constructing, I mean we started developing and exchanging the legal and the legal capabilities of the individuals involved in the trans community. So for example, in one case, I was defending one trans individual and there was another trans individual that was arrested and I wasn't the lawyer. But then when my clients was set free by the judge, it was the other trans, it was my client actually that did all that assisted me in all of the legal work in order to set the other person free. Third thing that was very important in the landmark cases is that in these cases it is very important to see how the individuals were arrested. And this we do not understand if we do not understand actually and if we do not discuss with the client what is happening. And this is very important also in order to develop the strategies in front of the court. In one of the cases actually we had a different trans individuals that were in a cafe. And these trans women were arrested because agents, police officers from the moral bureau came to this cafe and they just arrested all of the trans individuals that were there. They brought them to the precinct and it was in the course of the investigation that they started actually interviewing them about actually who they were having sex with, who they are going out with etc. And it was based on these conversations that happened with the police officers that there were certain minutes that were drafted. And based on the minutes which included things that even my clients did not say these individuals were brought up in front of the court. And during our conversations a lot of my clients were asking me why were they being brought up in front of the court that they did not say anything and they did not even understand why they had been arrested. And it is by discussing all of this that we understood that what was happening here was a type of profiling and that the arrest were only based on the appearance of the individuals. And it was actually transphobia that was being done here and it was prosecuting just based on a gender identity. And regardless of the fact if the article 534 applies or not to intercourse between two individuals of the same biological sex. It was also important to develop in our strategy in front of the court that the criminal code in Lebanon does not criminalize identities nor orientation in itself. What the article talks about is intercourse and in our opinion it does not even apply to individuals with the same biological sex. But like what I'm trying to say is that all of this interaction with the communities helped to develop the certain kind of strategies that can also bring victory in front of the courts. Because in Lebanon when we work around human rights or in issues social or economic issues we always have to defend ourselves against the argument of foreign values that are here to impose themselves in Lebanon. And so it is very important to bring out the voice of local communities and to show actually that what we are talking about in the way that we are talking about it is something that is very low. Thank you. You know that's really comprehensive and it's so fascinating to see the different strategies in the different involvement and support and engagement with the communities and why it led to these changes in landmark changes. One of the things that we discussed before together and I think it's important to discuss here is this idea that international organizations or legal experts often try and parachute into different local contexts and communities without full understanding. And how that could cause harmful impact because often that becomes really a contradiction to core concepts of any sort of movement lowering and that can create harm. Have you what sort of advice would you have for example for students and for legal practitioners and so on who may be working on international level who want to one work with communities and two want to work with communities that may be in somewhere like Lebanon and not their own locality. I think that you cannot parachute anything in any kind of society so you cannot come with a set of things that you would like to parachute and to I mean you can come with a comparative approach if you'd like but it is very important to engage within the local communities and the local lawyers and the local sphere to understand what is happening in the country and to develop even strategies when you want to work on issues especially issues that are related to economic, social, political rights. Any kind actually of parachute approach is like one provokes total rejection because I mean you would see that you are not talking on the same line and to actually be effective and to develop strategies that will lead you to victory. You need to develop these within the individuals that are directly concerned with what we are talking about. So my advice would be to actually go in within the local communities to discuss to see the needs and wants of the local communities and to develop strategies based on that. And it is I mean this issue of human rights like when we talk about the universality of human rights or the relativism of human rights we are at the center of it when we talk about certain issues in the societies we are at the center of it and any kind of approach that would be here like trying to state that these are our values they are international values and we are going to hear we are coming to the local country to teach you about these values is one totally rejected and two will be faced by a very strong opposition even in the legal circuit like within the judges within the lawyers within the local communities that will be a rejection as if what are they talking about these are coming out of space. This is not our society and then and then you will be also faced with the very harsh opposition from other parts of the society that are much I mean that are against these types of these types of causes actually. And this actually you see it's not just not only not only when we talk about international experts coming into a local country or coming into another country you can see it also in the legal sphere like when we as lawyers in our practice try to parachute anything on our clients or on the communities that we are working with it will not work it will be it will not be understood it will not be effective and it will be wrong it will not actually I mean people will not recognize themselves with the fact of this course that you are having. Yes 100% and I love that you and also added in that parachuting can happen within our own context and as technical experts and so on. I remember and when we started constructing the work around and the use of technology and where dating apps and the targeting of individuals we it became a very long process and we tried to ensure of course we always can be better and we need to always be better to ensure that we did initial one first. The it was asked for that what we are doing was necessary and it was reported and and it made sense but even then we had to do some scoping and research with local groups and all the different places we were working including Lebanon. To understand the strategies to take get information from the users who are affected by these arrests and targeted themselves and the local groups. And it really informed the way we changed the different strategies we were going to use to hold companies accountable so that so and when I'm talking about that it had different layers to it and it had this element to it where still today becomes very complicated to hold companies to account in a very productive way. But what became such incredibly powerful tool was that we had this sort of expertise from different and stakeholders from the legal experts from the technologists from the company representatives who brought in their technical expertise as a tool to support what the community the local NGOs the users had said they wanted to see change. And what the research was showing to fit into that dynamic rather than what was usually happening in terms of saying these are the issues. We are the technical experts we are the lawyers that we know these these laws or these issues are problematic in this sense and we need to create this sort of change or the technologists who had come in with issues around encryption or so on who were seeing different things is the problem area that needed to be changed. And the local community when they started and we started engaging with those who were directly impacted. All of these preconceptions were changed all of them were changed and it became better and stronger and we managed to have that sort of impactful change based on the needs and wants and and we what I really want to also employ is that when we're working with tools such as the law it becomes part of a tool case of effect and change. And it becomes part of the parcel of how we can affect changing as legal experts in the way for example the agenda has been using it has been providing it as a part of a tool base is a broader movement to push for this change and not as a separate movement on its own and it becomes so powerful in that and so it's really it's really fascinating to hear all of that from you and I know we have sometimes so whoever has questions do write it down otherwise I would like us to continue because I do have more questions for you. But one of the things I wanted to also ask you to clarify whilst and we see about questions is how do you deal with and something that we hear come across often with folks that want to employ movement you're lawyering is and when something mostly this concept that I talked about this and the language of strategy is different for your client and and it may not be always in line for the movement itself. How do you navigate that as a lawyer yourself. Of course what the first thing is that when individuals like come to see me or to consult with me or want me to handle their cases. I am part of certain movements so so I lay down our strategies because like we are going to take for example the article 534 and and I say that actually we do not and so in these cases like for example I explain our strategy I explain what is our line of defense which is to say that the criminal code does not criminalizes any kind of identity or orientation one and to that we can we go to say that intercourse against intercourse between individuals who have the same biological sense is not against nature so this is our strategy. Some people of course will prefer to deny their sexual orientation or even sometimes their gender identity. And this is something that. I mean that I do not use as a strategy in my kind in these cases. So what I usually say is that for the person is that this is not the kind of strategy that I would use they have the freedom to go see another type of lawyer but that they can also that what they are talking about is the right to have their privacy respected and not to go and inform or be even interrogated in by judges or police officers regarding their gender identity or their sexual orientation this is something that we can use in our strategy. So the thing is is to take what the person is telling you to understand what is their fears and their anxieties and to understand how you can translate this in the lawyer in that you are doing for for like the example that I have given it is very important for us also to state the right of privacy to state the fact that the state or police officers or the judges do not have the right to interfere in your sexual life in anyone's sexual life. And this is when I hear a client say that they would like to deny what is being what they are being prosecuted for. For me this is an expression of the need for them to have the right of privacy respected and this is how I usually advise my clients to do so. And this is something else that we have talked about is the way I mean how we understand our role. Because as I see myself actually is that we are at the I mean we as lawyers are here at the gates of the system. We are people that are put there at the gates of the system. And so our my job my main job is not actually to or only or mainly to develop legal arguments or to go into that technicality. My main job actually is to translate what the people have to say in the courts and to actually bring out this bridge between the legal spirit and between the communities because I think that when we talk about marginalized communities the thing is that the system is so strong the power dynamics are so strong in the system is that these communities are not seen in the legal sphere and they are not heard in the legal sphere and when they go into like even physically when they go into a court room and when they talk and when they speak they will not be allowed to speak and even when they do the judges will not understand them and they will not understand the language of the judge. And so it is very important to voice I mean to translate this voice and to allow for these communities to voice out in front of the legal sphere. And I think that when this is done you have half of the half of the victories half of the victory that is gained by this way of voicing of getting the voice out there. And this I have seen it with LGBT communities I have seen it with cases of domestic violence. When you are there and when you put out the domestic violence and when you show it and when you voice out and when you defend your right to be heard and when you destroy the technicality the language technicality the physical technicality because there are also a lot of physical customs that you have in the court rooms etc etc. When you do that half of the battle is actually gained this is this is what I think. That's great. Thank you. I think we have a question that I'll defer to Mason right now. Yes, I just wanted to read it out so that we have it on the recording here. This question is from Raquel and says do you have any ideas about how we can make movement lawyering more sustainable avoiding depending on donor funding and philanthropy so we don't perpetuate those same structures of power we are trying to dismantle so either of you have thoughts on that so it's an excellent question and I think a very tough one. So I'd love to hear what you have to say. Yes, so in my kind of work my work is very diverse. So I have corporate law I practice corporate law I practice other kinds of flow that makes it possible for me to have other sources of funding which makes it possible also to sustain these kinds of initiatives. So I do not depend actually on funding that gets from other organizations etc. And this is how I can actually develop a practice of pro bono by being able to to survive. And I think that now what we are seeing in Lebanon for example we are seeing some kind of groups that are developing that are grassroots groups and that are developing other models. Economic models etc. etc. based on certain kinds like cooperatives but cooperatives in a lot of spaces like in not just in economical sectors like agriculture and industrial but other times also cooperatives. And I think that these kind of initiatives that help actually bring bring in many kinds of I mean many kinds of tools are very helpful. So these kinds of solidarity are very makes it possible actually to liberate yourself from the funding. Of course it will never be an entire I mean you will always have I mean some kind of funding but it will not be the core of your activity. In other cases like for example in my various activities when I defend individuals in cases of like based on 534 or etc. etc. And I don't usually take fees for these kinds of lawsuits. These individuals are also individuals that are productive in the society that create jobs that have companies etc etc. And they will come soon for other types of activities which will be funded privately because if they need to set up a company if they need legal advice etc. So this is what I can say actually about this question. Yeah thank you. I would just only add to that that even when it comes to funding and I do. So a lot of like the movements that were part of a lot of like NGOs and the projects that come about do you rely on this funding and I always us that people push back on the sort of narratives funders do place on what's important what sort of activities they want to see and so on that may pretty much feed into these structures we're talking about. So if you are getting funding as well to these do this sort of different elements of movement lawyering. It's important that even in the funding structure and the funding you're getting in this sort of activities and outputs you're looking to provide for that you're trying to at least push back with the funder to not perpetuate the same sort of systems of power that harm these communities. And I've had many occasions of debating with funders of what is necessary and needed to be focused on and how for example I will need to change certain elements of the project to ensure that it's reflective of what the community wants and needs. And it's it's a difficult one, especially in because I want us not to constantly rely on volunteerism of different people putting in their expertise and work into this element especially people like you know who's working in a very complex environment and doing complex work but also to put pressure on those who are providing funding to fund what is necessary and needed and required rather than what is seen by them as the sort of aspect that requires funding. But I think in the broad view of things hopefully we will never need to rely on funders again and we can move away from that structure soon. This has been a really great conversation and I hope we can continue. I know that we have another conversation and tomorrow with Kendra and Danielle Blonde about the work that they've been doing around the legal provisions and laws that harm sex workers globally especially in the US. But I wanted to re-emphasize some of the things that you've been saying and and ask you whether there is more that can be done from your colleagues that are let's say out here in the States elsewhere to support the work you and legal agenda have been doing to support the work of the communities. I know I am involved in different ways myself with some of them but in general for you to outline a little bit of that too. Yeah I don't know we have to think about that of course but I don't know a lot to be done actually but we will have to develop this we will have to think about it much. Yeah I know one thing you mentioned and is having access to the clinics and so on that are here and kind of further collaboration between the law faculties and clinics you're working with and those that are here to kind of push some of this and kind of it's this sort of knowledge exchange so I think that would be really great to look at. But I'm just really really happy and I'm hoping that we can as a collective continue to push for more movement lawyering and to push our colleagues to employ it more as well. But thank you for everyone that came and thank you so much for taking the time. I know it's a difficult time in Lebanon right now and we didn't even get to discuss the complexity of that. But I am so grateful for everything you do. Hopefully speak to you very soon. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Bye. And thank you Asuna for leading that excellent conversation. I just also want to say thank you to our sponsors for this event the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs at the Harvard Law School for their support in getting this set up and yes hope to see as many of you as possible tomorrow at 1pm for the second part in our two day series on movement. Thank you everyone. Bye bye.