Attention, attention! A vital new initiative by the cultural diplomacy organisation Liberatum, aptly named Lifesaving Conversations, is encouraging discussions about human rights issues around the world. The series, which according to a press release aims to pair “high profile cultural voices” with “frontline workers and individuals with extraordinary stories”, will feature conversations with Sharon Stone, Zoe Saldana, Chika, Saif Ali Khan, and more as they address some of society’s most pressing problems.
The aim of Lifesaving Conversations, a “cultural campaign with a direct humanitarian mission at its heart”, is to raise funds for food banks, humanitarian efforts and racial justice movements around the globe.
In the second instalment of the video series (in support of the Brazilian chapter of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), drag superstar Pabllo Vittar speaks to Elvis Messias, a Venezuelan laboratory assistant who was forced to flee his home due to the homophobic discrimination he faced there. The pair talk through Elvis’s journey as a refugee and the various barriers he came up against, Pabllo’s experiences as a queer person, and further challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ people in Brazil today, as well as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s not that we are all the same, no!” says Pabllo in the video, “We want respect. Everyone has to be respected, you know? And this is what we have to put in people’s minds.”