ICAR Undergrads Celebrate 5 Years: Looking Ahead With an Eye on Innovation
As new director Agnieszka Paczynska settles in and with the move to the space in Northeast Module II accomplished, ICAR's Undergraduate Program is set to begin celebrating their 5th anniversary with an upcoming conference on Youth in Post-Conflict Settings: Toward Healing, Justice, and Development, a brown bag lecture series, and a new action initiative called ICAR Serves.
The conference is scheduled to convene October 30th from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm in Research I, Room 63 on the Fairfax campus. The ICAR community, including alumni is invited to attend. Helena Cobban, a veteran writer and researcher on global affair and the author of seven books, including her most recent entitled, Re-engage! American and the World After Bush, will be the keynote speaker. Cobban was a columnist for The Christian Science Monitor, and is currently the author of Just World News, a lively blog which focuses on international issues. Other speakers at the conference will include ICAR professors, Leslie Dwyer, Susan Hirsch, Patricia Maulden, Agnieszka Paczynska, and Sandra Cheldelin.
The topic of the conference is of special importance since so much of the literature on justice and peacebuuilding in post-conflict settings focuses on adult needs and involvement, overlooking the impact of conflict on the young lives caught in the crossfire. According to Dr. Paczynska, presenters at the conference will focus on efforts to address the needs and interests of youth with respect to education, employment, trauma, economic reconstruction, reparations, transnational justice, civic participation, and health. The final session of the conference will include a facilitated brainstorming session to consider future directions for action and research.
The brown bag series, held at the Fairfax campus from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm every other Wednesday in Student Union 1, room A, began October 7th with Agnieszka Paczynska discussing the August 2009 Afghan elections. Upcoming speakers include: Dan Rothbart on the Sudan talks, Richard Rubenstein on why America goes to war, Patricia Maulden and Lisa Shaw on trainings conducted in Liberia in June 2009, Maneshka Eliatamby on internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka, and Patricia Maulden on her research in Burundi.
The idea for ICAR Serves was developed to encourage students, staff, faculty and ICAR alumni to participate together in organized, ongoing service projects throughout the Northern Virginia and DC Metro area. According to Lisa Shaw, Undergraduate Student Services Coordinator, who conceived of the initiative, ICAR Serves is a way of naming and becoming intentional about something that is already very much a part of the ICAR ethos. Shaw points to the Dialogue and Difference and Peer Mediation programs (which will now operate under the umbrella of ICAR Serves) as well as the various graduate-level working groups and APT projects as examples of ICAR service already in progress.
Part of ICAR's mission is to advance the understanding of deeply rooted conflicts between individuals, groups, organizations, and communities through research, teaching, practice, and outreach. ICAR Serves will support that mission by engaging in service projects that focus on the effects of poverty, social justice, youth and gender violence, environmental, refugee, religious, and community conflicts. Each project will be approached with a desire to be helpful and with a curiosity, informed by theoretical frameworks, that aims to understand the conditions and systems that generate and sustain cycles of conflict.
On October 17th ICAR Serves will sponsor its first project, partnering with Casey's Trees (http://www.caseytrees.org) from 9 am to 1 pm, to plant 18 trees at St. Paul's Rock Creek Cemetery. The next opportunity to serve together will be Friday, November 6th from 1 pm to 3 pm, when ICAR will team up with Food for Others (http://www.foodforothers.org), the largest direct provider of food in Northern Virginia. Food for Others provides assistance and a safety net for low-income individuals and families. During the Food for Others project participants will be asked to help to record incoming and outgoing food, sort and shelve products, and pack emergency boxes. Work on both projects involves some bending and lifting and volunteers should be sure to wear work clothes and closed-toed shoes.
Shaw anticipates that individual members and the ICAR community as a whole will realize multiple benefits as a result of participation in the program, including a satisfaction that comes from service, an increased understanding gained from direct exposure to the manifestations of conflict, and the cohesion that develops in groups that work together for overarching goals. One of Shaw's hopes is that these projects will bring ICAR's four distinct programs together as a more interactional whole, It will make us better people and it will make ICAR a better institution.
For specific information on the upcoming conference, the brown bag series, and ICAR Serves projects, contact the Undergraduate office at 703-993-4165 or visit the website at http://car.gmu.edu