Women PeaceMakers Conference

"Crafting Human Security in an Insecure World"

This past week the Institute for Peace and Justice hosted this conference and all of us students were able to be a part of it. It was an incredibly empowering feeling to sit in a room full of women and men from all over the world who were meeting together to foster peace and justice.

I will write more about the specifics of what I learned in upcoming posts, but I would love to hear if there is anything about the topics that you are interested in that I could address. Here are the sessions I attended:

Lecture:
Louise Arbour, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
"Integrating Security, Development and Human Rights"

Panel One:
"Ending Cycles of Conflict through Gender-Inclusive Peacebuilding"

Breakout Session One:
Captain Margaret Grun Kibben, Office of the Chief of Navy Chaplains
"The role of religion and religious in areas of conflict"

Panel Two:
"Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflict from Violence, including Sexual Violence"

Breakout Session Two:
Binalakshmi Nepram, Manipuri Women Gun Survivors Network and Control Arms Foundation of India
"Women and Micro-disarmament"

Panel Three:
"Advancing Inclusive Security in Multiple Settings: Strategies and Best Practices"

Breakout Session Three:
Kathleen Staudt, University of Texas, El Paso

"Violence and Activism at the U.S.-Mexico Border"

Fellow Masters Students Cheryl, Jill, Sangita of Nepal, Cassidy, and Qiuwan of China

Lunch at the Conference

The Institute for Peace and Justice
My Dutch brother Wilco and IMasters Student Wadri of Uganda with Binal of India, a conference presenter

Fellow Masters Students Marcia, Wilco, and Greg