Daniele Procida Lightning talk

I've been involved in uh organizing and attending African PyCons um for nearly a nearly a decade now. And they're events that have their own special challenges, particularly financial ones. So that's PyCon Namibia from earlier this year. and it was uh there were oh uh 90 people for three days and the total conference budget for everything and catering and financial assistance was less than 7,000 US dollars. And we finish the conference with a uh budget balance of just over 100 US dollars. So that's the kind of figures that we are dealing um with.

Now, like all other Django cons and PyCons and Python events, um these events in Africa every like those everywhere have to be places of safety for their participants. They have to make uh meaningful and effective attempts to um uh to provide that safety. And that's why we have codes of conduct, for example, and why it's something that's right beyond the community's mind. Now, if you look at this map, or you'll find many maps like this of LGBT rights across Africa They tend to look a bit different because they're showing slightly different things. But in this picture, yellow and red and orange shades are not good. The law is against you. Grey means that homosexual acts are

not outside the law, but recognition is uh is lacking. And it's actually a little bit more complicated than that, than There are multiple nuances that the map's not showing that we can't go into. But it's a picture that we can start with. If we were looking at safety rather than the law, it would be even more uh complicated. And you can see now why the question of attendee safety at Python events in Africa acquires an extra edge for people and it brings a challenge for organizers of those events because people can ask questions. They have asked and they're entitled to ask, why should we support an event taking place somewhere that LGBT people are not Safe.

And some of those people are literally asking why should I encourage a Python event in a place where I am not welcome, where people like me are l literally being murdered for who they are. And honestly You cannot blame people for asking such questions for even for not wanting to support an event in a place like that. Because even for them simply having to a answer that question or being confronted that with that question is upsetting or or or offensive and there are some things that everybody has a right to recoil from And it's been an issue for us organizing DjangoCon Africa in Zanzibar, in Tanzania, which is not an LGBT-friendly place. And I couldn't blame someone for not wanting to support that

or even for being positively against it. But I think it's fair to answer those questions, but we must not just ask those questions only, for example, about African events. only about some countries or some people, we should be asking those questions about our own places and events as well. So what what is safety For black people, for Africans, for example, or Muslims in the USA or visiting the USA perhaps for a for a conference. Because violations and humiliations do occur, and I won't tell you about them, but I know of them. And they occur because the places are unsafe. And sometimes participating in our events means coming through those unsafe spaces for some

people. It can be hard to see that because people who suffer violations and humiliations tend not to tell you about them. And I don't expect just to cover a really complicated subject in just a few sentences, but just to these are real questions that if you're in the Netherlands or in the USA or Italy Perhaps it's those countries need to come with some safety warnings for certain visitors as well, not just African ones. But I want to do something more than that because It's not about just where safety is, but about creating safety at our African pycons There will be a code of conduct and people will stand up and

assert that code of conduct. So I've been at an event in Namibia in 2017 where an undergraduate In front of a minister of health and senior officials from the university. By the way, Namibia is a country where homosexual acts are still officially punishable by law. And explain the code of conduct. Not just saying that we don't tolerate discriminatory language, but saying we welcome everybody, whoever they are, LGBT people. And asserting positively what kind of a place that is, telling people, telling everyone, you're amongst us, you're with us, and you're safe here. And that's a kind of courage and commitment that is being demonstrated by people in our Python community around the world

asserting the global Python community values, sometimes in complicated situations. And Pycons aren't safe just because um Uh harassment is not tolerated, they're safe because people are actively working to create these positively warm and welcoming um Environments who are they are investing those spaces with that commitment and courage. And when they do that They also give courage to the people who are in those spaces and they create a space that radiates courage and values out into their wider communities. So that seems to me really um important because it is important sometimes for us to say that's not what we do here.

But the other side of that, which I think is The really positive side is when we are able to say, or people come up and say, this is what we do, and this is how we are, and that is what is happening in. African pie cons and other African events. And I think that's why they should be supported, even if they're in places that themselves are not safe. I would like the other organizers and attendees and people involved in DjangoCon Africa to come up. And join me here for a moment just so you can see us and see them. Um there are she know they are.

So some of us There are other organizers and people here and around the world. Kojos , a contributor, a participant, if not an organizer. Noah, Dawn, Abigail, and Sheena from different parts of the world all doing the same work for you in the rest of the world. So thank you very much. And but there's one this particular DjangoCon is doing exactly the same work. And I haven't seen so many African and black faces, non-white faces at a as a proportion at an event anywhere outside Africa. And that also has taken effort and commitment and a kind of courage because I know it costs

money and to do that you've got to make some choices. So thank you and thank you and thank you everybody.