events
RISC organises a variety of events and exhibitions on global issues to increase public understanding of the economic, political social and environmental forces, which shape all our lives. We create a platform of speakers from the Majority World (Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America), organise workshops, feasts, films and meetings that inform people about how we can take action to create a more just, equal and sustainable world.
reading international development forum
The Reading International Festival programme highlights the many international activities, twinning links and solidarity in Reading. The theme highlighted this year is: Hungry For Peace
Let us act together to:
- Build a world where we live in peace, without divisions and violence.
- Prevent the displacement of people caused by land theft, war, environmental injustice and climate change.
- Create a food system that respects food sovereignty and biodiversity.
- Protect all human rights.
- Create an economic system that serves the needs of people and planet.
The Festival includes Black History Month.
upcoming events organised by risc
previous events organised by risc
Sat 9th November, 2024 @ 7:00 pm - 10:00 pmA celebration – Palestine, Lebanon & Yemen
Tickets £10 https://www.tickettailor.com/events/whitekitecollective/1446380 Join us in solidarity, bring your passion & voices. Funds raised from this event will go directly to charities working on the ground in Palestine, Lebanon &
Wed 6th November, 2024 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pmViva Reading – San Francisco Libre
Fri 25th October, 2024Film – Where Olive Trees Weep
Short Event Description Award-winning documentary that gives a searing picture of the struggles
Thu 17th October, 2024Invest For Change – Investing in a Fairer World
Short Event DescriptionSince 1990 Shared Interest has enabled millions of people across the world
Sat 12th October, 2024Meet Mixy Fandino @ The World Shop
Short Event DescriptionMeet Mixy Fandino @ The World Shop
Wed 25th September, 2024ilm A crude mistake? Uganda’s oil rush & the fight for climate justice
Uganda is banking on major oil projects to create growth
Wed 28th August, 2024Messages From Gaza
An evening of monologues, poetry, testimonials and music at Reading International Solidarity Centre. Bear witness to the experience of Gazans on the ground read by a variety actors, performers and
Tue 23rd July, 2024Event Title
Short Event Description
Wed 22nd May, 2024There’s Water & then …There’s Water
Mick Lacey (taga Marikina ang asawa ko) uses his lived
Sun 12th May, 2024Palestine – News From Fair Trade Producers
Cathi Pawson, co-founder of Zaytoun, will talk about the
Sun 28th April, 2024Rooftop Garden Open Day
Part of the Good To Grow week 2024
Wed 27th March, 2024Let’s clear the way for a FOSSIL-FREE FUTURE
Fossil fuel corporations are making billions from driving the climate crisis. Further climate chaos will negatively affect us all with extreme weather events. However, a global exit plan from coal,
Thu 14th March, 2024Are You A Global Teacher?
Short Event Description
Thu 25th January, 2024CLIMATE EDUCATION & ACTION training & resourcesKS1-4
Short Event DescriptionUnderstand how to implement the government’s
- Wed 24th January, 2024
COURAGEOUS CAMPAIGNERS in COLUMBIA
Cleodie Rickard from Global Justice Now will tell us about her factfinding trip to Colombia. She met people who are fighting for justice, members of the Wayúu community who are
Wed 15th November, 2023Global Teacher Award Training
The national Global Teacher Award (GTA) is suitable for teachers, HLTAs and TAs in all phases and subjects. GTA promotes skills, confidence and practical approaches to incorporate global learning into
Thu 9th November, 2023This Xmas, don’t just buy! BUY JUST
Hear stories of our fair trade producers & a chance to browse our new ranges of toys from Sri Lanka by Lanka Kade & Weaving Hope, Christmas decorations from Kashmir
Wed 8th November, 2023pharmanomics
How big pharma threatens global health. Pharmaceutical companies make billions while billions of people are left without essential medicines. Author Nick Dearden exposes the current problems and shows a pathway
Fri 3rd November, 2023hood in the wood
McAlistair Hood talks about his journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle that brings together sculpture using recycled stone and wild living & foraging in the woods of West Berkshire.
Fri 20th October, 2023Slavery, Free Labour & Fair Trade
Dr Joseph Yannielli of Aston University will explore how society has been grappling with the issue of fair trade since early industrialisation.
Sat 14th October, 2023Incredible Small Actions: Community food growing in Reading and beyond
Presentations and discussion on the Incredible Edible Reading vision to protect our environment and planet
Wed 27th September, 2023The Debt Crisis
Heidi Chow, Executive Director of Debt Justice, argues for a more just system requiring radical system change to redress this exploitation.
Sun 10th September, 2023heritage open days – risc roof garden
Come and visit the RISC roof garde as part of Heriate Open Days.
- Sat 9th September, 2023
heritage open days – risc roof garden
Come and visit the RISC roof garde as part of Heriate Open Days.
Wed 26th July, 2023PRACTICAL STEPS to living within planetary boundaries
Our society is wasteful and unfair. How can we make a planned reduction of excess energy and resource use to bring the economy back into balance with the living world
Thu 22nd June, 2023Global Teacher Award Training (Part 2 of 2)
The national GTA promotes skills, confidence and practical approaches to incorporate global learning into the curriculum, and active global citizenship into the school.
Sun 18th June, 2023Reading Climate Festival ‘Incredible Edible Reading’ Event
Thu 30th April, 2020risc book club: the sound of things falling
By Juan Gabriel Vásquez – No sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde in a seedy billiard hall in Bogotá than Antonio Yammara realises that the ex-pilot has a
Thu 26th March, 2020risc book club: stories from the romani world
By Janna Eliot – Spokes is made up of stories from across the Traveller world, featuring British Gypsies, settled and still travelling; Irish Travellers, East European Roma; and people whose
Thu 27th February, 2020risc book club: our women on the ground
By Zahra Hankir – Nineteen Arab women journalists speak out about what it’s like to report on their changing homelands in this first-of-its-kind essay collection, with a foreword by CNN
Thu 30th January, 2020risc book club: paradise
By Toni Morrison – Spanning the birth of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, the counter-culture and politics of the late 1970s, deftly manipulating past, present and future, this novel reveals
Thu 19th December, 2019risc book club: the lime tree
By César Aira – In the town square of Coronel Pringles stands a lime tree from which the author’s father used to brew a sedative tea. This Proustian infusion evokes
Thu 28th November, 2019risc book club: the death of musrat idrissi
Two venturesome women on a journey through the land of their fathers and mothers. A wrong turn. A bad decision. They had no idea, when they arrived in Morocco, that
Thu 31st October, 2019risc book club: we, the survivors
Ah Hock is an ordinary, uneducated man born in a Malaysian fishing village and now trying to make his way in a country that promises riches and security to everyone,
Thu 26th September, 2019risc book club: resistance
In the terrifying atmosphere of late 1970s Buenos Aires, a young militant couple engaged in the resistance against the military regime adopt a child. Matters had reached a nadir; people
Thu 29th August, 2019risc book club: celestial bodies
Set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who
Thu 25th July, 2019risc book club: the reluctant mullah
Alone in his room in a London madrasah, Musah tries on an abaya, a hijab and a shawl: he has crossed over – to outsiders he has become a Muslim
Thu 27th June, 2019risc book club: disoriental
By Negar Djavadi (tr by Tina Kover) – Iran/France Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father
Thu 30th May, 2019risc book club: freshwater
By Akwaeke Emezi – Nigeria (hardback £10) Ada is the second child of Saul, a Nigerian doctor, and his Malaysian wife Saachi, a nurse. When Ada is still a child,
Thu 25th April, 2019risc book club: No Knives in the Kitchens of This City
by Khaled Khalifa (tr by Leri Price) – Syria Khalifa portrays his native city under the grip of the Assad regimes though the lives of one family over three generations.
Thu 28th March, 2019risc book club: pachinko
By Min Jin Lee – Korea/Japan Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The
Thu 28th February, 2019risc book club: silence is my mother tongue
By Sulaiman Addonia – Eritrea/Sudan Saba arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl, devastated to have had to abandon her books as her family fled. In
Thu 31st January, 2019risc book club: musical youth
By Joanne Hillhouse – Antigua/Barbados. Zahara is a loner. She’s brilliant on the guitar but in everyday life she doesn’t really fit in. Then she meets Shaka, himself a musical
Thu 20th December, 2018risc book club: The Incomplete Manuscript
By Kamal Abdullayev – Azerbaijan. Translated from Azerbaijani by Anne Thompson, this is a novel narrating the imaginary life of medieval icons. When a young researcher accidentally comes across a
Thu 29th November, 2018risc book club: The Hundred Wells of Salaga
By Ayesha Haruna Attah – Ghana. Aminah lives an idyllic life until she is brutally separated from her home and forced on a journey that turns her from a daydreamer
Thu 25th October, 2018risc book club: The Museum of Innocence
By Orhan Pamuk – Turkey. The Museum of Innocence – set in Istanbul between 1975 and today – tells the story of Kemal, the son of one of Istanbul’s richest
Thu 27th September, 2018risc book club: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race
By Reni Eddo-Lodge – UK. Writing on black life in Britain has long been the poor relation of its African American equivalent, not least because, in the hierarchy of suffering,
Thu 30th August, 2018risc book club: flights
By Olga Tokarczuk – Poland. Flights interweaves travel narratives and reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. From the seventeenth
Thu 26th July, 2018risc book club: codename butterfly
By Ahlam Bsharat (tr Nancy Roberts) – Palestine. A young adult book. With irony and poignant teenage idealism, Butterfly draws us into her world of adult hypocrisy, sibling rivalries, girlfriends’
Thu 28th June, 2018risc book club: the ministry of utmost happiness
By Arundhati Roy – India. In a graveyard outside the walls of Old Delhi, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby suddenly appears, just
Thu 31st May, 2018risc book club: the investigator
By Margarita Khemlin (tr Melanie Moore) – Ukraine Set in the Ukrainian SSR, The Investigator is rooted in a specific time and place. Lilia Vorobeichik’s death is given as 18
Thu 26th April, 2018risc book club: the gurugu pledge
By Juan Tomas Avila Laurel – Melilla On Mount Gurugu, overlooking the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast, desperate migrants gather before attempting to scale the city’s