Global Peace Conference: Human Rights Activism

Hostelling International - Washington, DC (HI-DC) empowers young adults to be a generation of caring world citizens and leaders for a social change. In fact, HI-DC believes in a peaceful world that protects the fundamental rights of each human being.

September 22, Saturday
12:30PM-6:00PM
1009 11th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

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Even though 2011 was marked by waves of protests against oppression, human right violations still occur in various countries. With that being said, our 2012 Global Peace Conference focuses on human rights activism. Our goal is to empower our audience to fight for human rights.  To that end, our conference will feature experts in areas such as fair trade in Africa, women's rights, and human trafficking. The conference will be summed up with a panel of keynotes speakers to talk about the Arab Spring.

This is a fundraiser event. All proceeds will go to Polaris Project.

As we believe that learning should be fun, our conference will also feature complimentary international food and entertainment.

Here are the bios of our speakers:

- Rahama Wright (President of Shea Yeleen): Rahama Wright was introduced to shea butter production in 2002 when she worked as an intern for the Department of State at the American Embassy in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. During her assignment, she met and interviewed shea butter producers and discovered the challenges they had in bringing their products to market. When Rahama returned to the US in 2004, she started the process of creating Shea Yeleen International. In 2005 she officially launched Shea Yeleen International, a 501c3 that helps women in West Africa organize cooperatives, provides training on quality assurance and micro enterprise development, and brings shea butter products to market. Shea Yeleen has been featured in Oprah Magazine. In 2008 the White House Project and O, Oprah Magazine selected Rahama as a national leader. For more information on Shea Yeleen, click here

 - Hodei Sultan (Senior Program Specialist, United States Institute of Peace): Hodei has served as the senior program specialist for Afghanistan and Pakistan programs with the Center for Conflict Management at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) since 2010. In this capacity, she serves as a liaison with the USIP Kabul Office, develops funding proposals, and provides budget oversight of the Institute's Afghanistan and Pakistan funding.She also teaches two undergraduate level courses at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) on peacebuilding & conflict resolution and peace & stability operations. For more information about the U.S. Institute of Peace, click here.

- Nirvana Chetty (Grants Fellow and Development Associate, Polaris Project): Since moving to Washington, DC at the end of 2011, Nirvana has worked at the anti-human trafficking non-profit, Polaris Project as both a Grants Fellow and a Development Associate. On top of working to raise funds and awareness on the issue of human trafficking, Nirvana has also worked on the “Four Freedoms for Burma” campaign while interning with the Crisis Response Team at Amnesty International, Australia, and as Grant Writer and Family Group mentor for the Australian League of Immigration Volunteers. For more information about Polaris Project, click here.

Here is some information about our speakers for the Arab Spring Panel:

- Dr. Sahar Mohamed Khamis (Assistant Professor, Department of Communication at University of Maryland): Dr. Khamis is an expert on Arab and Middle Eastern media. She is the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar University. Dr. Khamis holds a Ph.D. in Mass Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Manchester in England.

She is the co-author of the book Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in June 2009. She authored chapters in the books:Women and Media in the Middle East: Power Through Self-Expression,edited by Naomi Sakr and published by I.B. Tauris, London in 2004, and New Media and the New Middle East, edited by Philip Seib and published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007. For more information on Dr. Sahar Mohamed Khamis, click here

- Barbara Slavin (Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center & Washington Correspondent for Al Monitor.com): Barbara is a Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor.com, a new website devoted to news from and about the Middle East. The author of a 2007 book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, she is a regular commentator on U.S. foreign policy and Iran on NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN. A career journalist, Slavin previously served as assistant managing editor for world and national security of The Washington Times, senior diplomatic reporter for USA TODAY, Cairo correspondent for The Economist and as an editor at the New York Times Week in Review. She has traveled to Iran seven times and was the first U.S. newspaper reporter to interview Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For more information about Barbara Slavin, click here.

- Mustapha Hadji (Graduate Student, George Mason University): Mustapha is a Moroccan national. He holds a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from George Mason University. Since his move to the US in 2007, Mustapha has been engaged in a number of academic and professional endeavors pertaining to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). He worked at the Iraqi Memory Foundation in Washington, DC, and served as a research assistant to Dr. Dina Khoury, Associate Professor at George Washington University, in her project on Iraq (her book, the outcome of this research project, will be published in late 2012). Mustapha Hadji has also conducted research and wrote his master's thesis on human trafficking in the MENA region, particularly in Morocco.

Entertainment: West African performance, Middle Eastern dance performance