Lee Smithey had the opportunity to meet up in Belfast, Northern Ireland with Dee Craig a couple of weeks ago. Dee is the artist who painted the mural on the Science Center here at Swarthmore. (See photos, video, and more.)
Here is his latest piece on the Newtownards Road in East Belfast!
Dee sends warm greetings to all of his friends at Swarthmore!
The Peace and Conflict Studies program at Swarthmore College is pleased to be a co-sponsor of this upcoming event. Please mark your calendars.
Whose Planet? Whose Economic Development?
Jobs vs. Environment in the United States and Latin America
November 12, 2013
Aviva Chomsky lecture: 4:30 p.m.
Noam Chomsky lecture: 7:00 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema
Swarthmore College
Aviva Chomsky is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. Her most recent books include A History of the Cuban Revolution, Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class, and They Take Our Jobs! And Twenty Other Myths about Immigration. She has been active in Latin America solidarity and immigrants’ rights movements for several decades.
Noam Chomsky joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955, where he is institute professor and professor of linguistics emeritus. Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs, and United States foreign policy. Among his recent books are New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind; On Nature and Language; The Essential Chomsky; Hopes and Prospects; Gaza in Crisis; How the World Works; 9-11: Was There an Alternative?; Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire, and Resistance; The Science of Language; Peace with Justice: Noam Chomsky in Australia; and Power Systems.
Contact:
Phone: (610) 328-8000
Email: calendar@swarthmore.edu
The Peace Innovation Lab in Sahilitar, a rural village in western Nepal.
Nimesh Ghimire ’15 is the recipient of a Davis Project for Peace Award that will allow him to direct, establish, and strengthen the recently launchedPeace Innovation Lab (PIL) at Shree Gyanodaya Higher Secondary School in Sahilitar, a rural village in western Nepal. The project also includes a weeklong Peace Innovation Camp.
The award will help build on the Peace Innovation Lab model and take it to its next level, according to Ghimire.
“The Peace Innovation Lab is a creative space for young people in rural communities to come together to design, prototype, and implement interesting projects that contribute to local peace-building and grassroots innovation efforts,” says Ghimire, who is collaborating with Mahabir Pun, winner of the Ramon Magasaysay Award (commonly called the Asian Nobel Prize), to set up a wireless internet network needed to establish the peace-building projects.
According to Ghimire, the PIL will strive to encourage continued participation in Nepali peace-building affairs and assist with the rebuilding of Nepal’s public education system. One of the outcomes of the weeklong Peace Innovation Camp is that the students will come up with at least five projects for implementation in their local village over the following months.
“During the decade-long civil war, a lot of young students in rural Nepali communities were directly involved,” Ghimere says. “After the active war ended in 2006, these young students have very little or no involvement in the peace building process. PIL’s vision is to engage young people into the peace building process and leverage their creative insight into solving local (peace building) challenges.”
Ghimire adds that a complicating factor is Nepal’s “broken” public education system. “There is too much focus on rote learning and not much emphasis on innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship and impact,” he says. “PIL’s vision is to promote itself as an innovation hub, integrated into the local public school, allowing young students to use the space as a place to create, tinker, explore, and connect.”
The Davis Projects for Peace awards more than $1.2 million in $10,000 grants to students who submit proposals for 2013 summer projects. The grant is named for philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis and funds projects that address conflict resolution and reconciliation, foster understanding, provide opportunity, and build community.
“This project will allow us to connect this rural corner of Nepal and the students to the global village,” Ghimiere says, “make different online resources available to the entire village as well as introduce a couple of revenue models – an internet cafe and a basic telemedicine hub – to generate some money for the Lab’s resource requirements. I want to help people launch some initiatives that will bring new energy and ideas to the prospects of peace in the world.”
The project is further supported with seed funding from Global Changemakers, a program managed by the British Council.
From our friends at Bryn Mawr!
Reina Chano ’09, Honors Peace and Conflict Studies minor and recipient of the 2010 Elise Boulding Award, will return to campus on November 5 to speak at an event organized by the Department of History. Welcome back, Reina!
HISTORY WITH A FUTURE
Conversation with Reina Chano ’09
November 5, 2012; Trotter 303; 4:30pm
Come hear Reina Chano ’09 speak about her experience working in international development for non-profit organization OIC International as well as her recent school relaunch at the University of Pennsylvania as a student in the Masters of Science, Historic Preservation Planning program.
Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to history@swarthmore.edu if you plan to attend.