The Obama Foundation Leader, Amiirah Saleh-Hoddin, to open summit.

Amiirah Saleh-Hoddin, founder and chair of Finland’s Anti-Racist Forum, will be delivering the opening remarks for the TMDD summit.

Amiirah is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Anti-Racist Forum, an NGO working to empower people in their fight for social and racial justice to achieve an equal society. As someone who came to Europe as a young adult, Amiirah is especially proud of being able to provide mentorship and jobs for racialized minorities and influencing critical national conversations on racial issues in Finland. Through her work with ARF, Amiirah is helping to develop a national hate crime reporting platform and is a strong advocate for developing a national action plan against racism. Amiirah believes social justice comes from the lifelong processes of learning, reflecting and being accountable to communities.

We asked Amiirah:

- Why was ARF founded?

The idea for ARF came about as I had perceived a gap in the discourses on racism and antiracism in Finnish society at that time, which I felt were not as critical and still centered whiteness. Even amongst the more "progressive" activist circles, it meant that the situation/position of someone like me was not taken into consideration, much less seen as an expert.

- What is ARF's mission?

We fight for social and racial justice by collaboratively engaging critical, intersectional feminist voices to give people the tools to transform communities and achieve an equal society.

- How is migrant / minority organizing important to ARF's mission?

It is important for marginalised minorities or the people who are impacted by racism/racist structures/whiteness to be leading the conversations and setting the demands for racial equality themselves. In ARF, we center PoC/racialised minority voices, needs and expertise in all that we do.

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