Ksenija Joksimovic

Current occupation

PhD researcher, social justice educator and trainer

Work experience

I have been working as a trainer, youth worker, and mentor in the last 10 years, on the local, national, and international levels in the field of human rights education, youth work, professional orientation, and career counselling. My international activism has developed through my past roles as a Co-Chair, and previously a member of the Executive Board of IGLYO - the world's biggest LGBTIQ Youth and Student Organization based in Brussels, Belgium. In that context, I had the privilege to facilitate several international trainings for LGBTQI activists based on the intersectional and norm-critical framework, and was a co-author of IGLYO's Norm Criticism Toolkit, developed for activists and youth workers with the aim to help them develop a more inclusive, norm-critical, and intersectional human rights education (https://www.iglyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Norm-Toolkit-WEB.pdf).
My approach to social justice education, youth work, and human rights education is grounded in critical pedagogy and intersectionality theory. Moreover, my human rights education work is based on action and drama techniques based on Psychodrama and Theatre of the Oppressed methodology.

Examples of the training courses I co-facilitated and co-designed:

''Tapping Skills in Drama and Play'' (2019), an international training course for youth workers from Serbia and Malta, working with different minority groups. The training was organized in two parts (the main training in Belgrade and the follow-up in Malta), on the use of Theatre of the Oppressed methodology and drama methods in youth work to tackle social exclusion and discrimination. The training was grounded in intersectionality theory and critical pedagogy, with specific sessions dedicated to understanding the theoretical and practical aspects of both approaches. It was organized within Erasmus + platform, as a collaboration between ALTERO organization from Belgrade, Serbia, and Right to Smile foundation from Malta.

International training course ''Playing for Equality'' (2017-2018), organized by OKO organization from Serbia, designed based on critical pedagogy and intersectionality, aimed to promote human rights of different marginalized social groups, especially LGBTQI people, prevent and combat discrimination and social exclusion, through the use of drama techniques and theatre production. The project was implemented with partner organizations from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Hungary, Turkey, Serbia, and Montenegro, within the Erasmus + program.
Link: http://www.okoorg.rs/playing-for-equality-2

IGLYO's First Activist Academy (2017), the five-day intensive skills-based training programme for young people in Europe who have a strong interest in LGBTQI human rights. It involved a set of practical modules on topics such as public speaking, campaigning, creating trans-inclusive organizations, video editing, and community organizing, all delivered by leading global LGBTQI+ organizations.
Link: https://www.iglyo.com/activist-academy-2017-brought-the-lgtbqi-community-together/