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“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” it reads in the first article of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Recording on an exceptionally sunny Hong Kong day with Bess Hepworth who is advancing human rights with her multimedia platform Planet Ally.
In this episode you hear from Bess Hepworth, Founder of Planet Ally, a new global multimedia platform committed to LGBTI advocacy.
Bess is an activist and bridge builder, a natural networker and social media specialist, but there is one title she is most proud of: “Just call me Mommy Bess”, she says before we turn on the microphone.
“I didn’t choose to have the colour of my skin and I didn’t choose to be gay. I was born this way and to be my most authentic self is to tell you that. I know that as a woman with caucasian skin this comes with immense privilege, even as a gay woman that comes with immense privilege. I want to help to challenge inequalities in Hong Kong and around the world by leveraging my privilege,” Bess shared in a recent social media post with her community.
She leverages her privileges as well as her networking and community building skills to encourage open and honest discussions on human rights within the LGBTI community and beyond.
“Allyship is something we don’t do fantastically well,” says Bess.
She is keen to make allyship a conversation topic and encourages people to be open and honest about things they don’t know and just ask questions. Giving input for open human rights discussions is at the heart of Planet Ally’s numerous activities on the ground. Bess, a brilliant social media networker is just as passionate about person to person interactions. Bess and her team run events on a regular basis, often to react to imminent crises situations like the recent human rights violations e.g. in Chechnya, Indonesia and Uganda.
By rallying the Planet Ally community to get involved by donating money or supporting online campaigns and petitions they empower everyone to play an active role in the human rights conversation.
The community is growing
Together with her team of three, she is running impactful events like the most recent Human Dignity Festival where they brought projects like the Human Rights Tattoo to Hong Kong. Many opinion leaders from inside and outside of Hong Kong joined the Human Dignity Festival to address the world’s most pressing human rights issues.
Planet Ally. A multimedia platform to encourage open conversations on human rights issues.
Everyone is welcome
If you are following the Twitter Feed of Bess and Planet Ally you will quickly get a feeling for the kind of community that Bess aims to build: One that is welcoming everyone interested to join the discussion, make contributions small or big but most importantly you feel the warmth and kindness that sets the tone for the interactions.
You can't be an angry activist, says @bess_hepworth, Founder of @PlanetAllyApp #humanrights Click To TweetWith her authentic way of communicating, she draws people in. With each of her social media postings, you feel like you get to know the human behind the social media account. And this is what Bess’s multimedia platform is all about – although she uses technology as a medium, she cares deeply about real connections online and offline.
Leveraging Hong Kong and social media
“You can hustle here and that’s why I am in love with this place,” Bess says about Hong Kong.
There is also a corporate privilege to leverage here. She reaches out to corporations like Bloomberg, to host documentary screenings and panel discussions. This go-getter attitude allows Bess and her team to organise impactful events with little funding in a short amount of time.
Bess’s fearless approach to reaching out to people helps her to connect with influential opinion leaders outside of Hong Kong, like the Indian Prince Manvendra, the world’s first openly gay prince.
“I’ll go find him on Facebook, ” Bess confidently shared with her team when she heard about Prince Manvendra. Not only did she find him, like many other supporters from the global LGBTI community, he shared a video message to promote Planet Ally’s vision.
Conscious Travelling
Another aspect of the Planet Ally mission is to encourage travellers to be conscious of the political frameworks in the countries they choose to spend their vacation in. She wants people to think about how to give back to people living in countries that might be lovely holiday destinations but where LGBTI rights are being violated and how to support marginalised communities in the region.
The failures and setbacks
Bess shares a lot of happy moments when working on her allyship initiatives but there were major setbacks as well. She very humbly shared a story of a gay Ugandan refugee that joined her community.
“We gave false hope to this man,” Bess shares a painful memory of her journey.
They work closely with the Justice Centre Hong Kong and Amnesty International to make sure that mistakes they made in the past will not be repeated by them or others.
Recharging and the challenge of dating an activist
“Activists are tough to be in a relationship with because we love so passionately,” Bess points out.
Bess tries her best to get better at switching off and her children are a great motivation to do just that. She also has her partner to thank for grounding her. When it comes to her work, Bess and her team are building in self-care strategies in their routines which allow Bess to make sure she is home for the kid’s bedtime.
Bess Hepworth fights for equality. It is her family that keeps her grounded.
Looking ahead Bess encourages everyone to have self-confidence to achieve whatever you set out to accomplish and to let this self-belief guide you along your very own impactful journey.
#impACT
- Follow Planet Ally on Twitter and Facebook!
- Find a space where you want to contribute. You don’t have to do it all, Bess shares in this episode.
- Find ways to be an ally for marginalised groups in your community.
- Reach out to people that inspire you. If you feel inspired by Bess and her story, get in touch with Bess here.
- Educate yourself on issues you care about. If you are interested to learn more about children growing up in same-sex families, we can highly recommend watching the documentary Gayby Baby. Find more information about the documentary here.
