Rainia Elias is the recipient of the Keychange Inspiration Award 2023
Read what the jury wrote about her work.
“The Keychange Inspiration award honours and celebrates women and gender expansive talent who have made extraordinary and pioneering contributions to music. Women that are role models for the next generation.
Throughout the last three decades, this year's recipient has played an essential part in promoting culture, freedom of speech and the rights of women in Palestine. She has been a fieldwork researcher, author of several published articles and has contributed to vital studies. She has also been involved in voluntary social work dealing with various human rights violations.
She has held several key positions in the palestinian cultural sector and from 1988 until the end of 2022, she was the director of the Yabous Cultural Centre and the Jerusalem Festival in occupied Jerusalem. Here, she oversaw the renovation and transformation of Yabous from an abandoned old cinema, into the largest and most important cultural center in Jerusalem. She did all this despite the obstacles that Palestinian organizations in Jerusalem face.
She has remained steadfast in her commitment to feminist and human thought in the face of adversity. She has dedicated her life's work to girls and women in Palestine, defending their social, political, and economic rights and their right to self-determination. She has witnessed the violations inflicted on many women and girls by the Israeli occupation and their detention and in July 2020, she was arrested. She faces continuous persecution and restrictions because of her work and activity in the cultural sector and her role in reviving cultural life in Jerusalem and preserving the Palestinian identity of the city. But still, she persists and in this, she is truly a role model to us all. The recipient of this years Keychange Inspiration Award is Rania Elias.”
