STUDENTS IN UKRAINE AND TRANSNATIONAL SOLIDARITY: NOIRUNITED INTERNATIONAL.

NoirUnited International is a 501(c)(3) committed to centering the lives of Black people and other marginalized groups in community development. The organization has played a pivotal role in supporting international students in Ukraine, particularly those from Africa, to continue their studies amidst displacement and racism. The Journal spoke with Macire Aribot, co-founder of NoirUnited International and 2023 graduate of Columbia SIPA, about the founding of the organization around the George Floyd protest movement in June 2020, the importance of leveraging networks across the world to address the legal and mental health needs of students in Ukraine, and the role of advocacy in raising awareness about and securing resources for overlooked and under-protected populations.

Journal of International Affairs (JIA): Start by providing us an overview of the organization and its founding.

Macire Aribot (MA): I co-founded NoirUnited International in 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd inspired all of the work that we're doing now. Essentially, what we saw was that there's this issue of racial justice, of Black people around the world not having the dignity that they need to thrive in the communities that they are working in and living in. And essentially what we are is a development and humanitarian organization that is focused on centering Black and other marginalized communities in our work. One of the biggest issues that we saw at the time was that there are organizations dedicated to development and humanitarian responses for underprivileged communities, but many of these organizations were White-led and having issues thinking about how their institutions were reinforcing neo-colonial ideas around development and humanitarian work.

We wanted to create this organization in order to address that, as well as to create a space for Black people who are also development practitioners and community members: people who are passionate about developing their communities, who need a space to come together to have their voices be centered around what they want to see. While we founded the organization in Atlanta, our work is global, since racism and how it affects development or under-development of Black and Brown communities is global. That's the reason why we are focusing on the global impact of our work as well.

JIA: Global looks different as viewed from New York or from Washington, D.C. What is the specific international context in Atlanta? What does it mean to look globally from that particular city?

MA: The reason why Atlanta is so special is because Atlanta is a place where Black people are thriving. Black people have been able to develop themselves and their communities and really reinvest in the communities there. Reflecting on my own background and how it was for me growing up in Atlanta, my family is from the Republic of Guinea. My parents immigrated to the United States in the 1990s, and they moved to Atlanta and found a community there surrounded by other Black people of different backgrounds from the continent of Africa or from the Caribbean and other places. We were all living in harmony and community with Black American people in Atlanta, too, and so I feel like Atlanta is very special because it's a place where Black people feel comfortable. Black people find themselves being able to achieve a lot of things, the dreams and the goals that they want While there's all these good things that happen in Atlanta, there is still so much work that needs to be done. I feel like there are also a lot of transnational movements that are emerging in Atlanta, so I'll provide an example about what's happening. Right now, there's a movement called Stop Cop City, and it's about the militarization of the Atlanta police. People are really trying to think about how this issue relates to other issues across the globe, other issues of militarization and Black communities around the world-and not only the Black community, but other people of color as well. It's movements like these that make Atlanta a great place to be, and it's not surprising that we feel this way given what we want to do for Black people, not only in the city of Atlanta, but globally as well.

JIA: NoirUnited International was founded at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. How did that shape the organization's early existence?

MA: It was a very empowering experience, because not only was there COVID-19, where we're all confined in our homes, having to adjust and readjust our livelihoods, but it happened at a time where there's this movement, the global Black Lives Matter movement, and the death of George Floyd, which made people choose. People had to choose between staying home and avoiding illness that could come from being around people and going out and protesting and advocating for themselves and their lives. Either way, Black people were at risk: you were either more likely to die from COVID-19 if you were living in a predominantly Black community or more likely to die from police action. There was this choice that Black people had to contend with, and I think that was something that I myself had to confront, as well as my family members, my peers, my community members, and my other co-founders.

One of our first actions within the organization was to start a Black-owned business support fund for businesses that were shut down by COVID-19 or also experienced vandalism after the protests. We raised money to provide micro-grants for Black-owned businesses in Atlanta. That was our way of trying to highlight, for instance, the significance of Black-owned businesses and communities and how we as the community should come together and support and uplift them during a time like this.

At the same time, we were there marching in Atlanta, Georgia, marching every day. We spent an entire week protesting, and I think that experience is what really galvanized us and confirmed that the work had to continue after protesting. Black Lives Matter is in the media, it's in the Senate. But what do we do...