The University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies will host an international conference on the consequences of war for youth and society Friday and Saturday (March 31 and April 1) in the Hesburgh Center for International Studies.
The conference, “Voices of Today, Changes for Tomorrow,” has been planned and directed by Notre Dame peace studies undergraduate students as one of an annual series sponsored by the Kroc Institute. Last year’s conference drew 215 undergraduate students from colleges and universities nationwide as well as from schools in Belgium, Germany and South Africa.
Two Chinese filmmakers, Jian Yi and Wu Weguang, will give a presentation to this year’s conference on their recent project in rural China, encouraging young men and women to record their daily lives and their efforts to promote self-governance. Jian Yi is a 1998 graduate of the Kroc Institute’s master’s program.
“We hope that Mr. Jian and Mr. Wu will give an inspiring testimony on how young individuals can be empowered to work for change through nonviolent means in a country that has violently put down calls for democratic reform in the past,” said conference chair and Notre Dame senior Kevin Walsh.
Other conference speakers will include Myla Leguro, visiting fellow at the Kroc Institute and peace and reconciliation manager for Catholic Relief Services in Davao City, the Philippines; Rashied Omar, coordinator of the Kroc Institute’s Research Initiative on the Resolution of Ethnic Conflict and the Program on Religion, Conflict andPeacebuilding; and Kim Overdyck, director of the Take Ten Program, a nationwide effort to teach children alternatives to violence.
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on March 28, 2006.