2016 J. Bonnor Ritchie Dialogue on
Peace & Justice Conference
Women, War, and Peacebuilding
Utah Valley University, USA
Mar 23-25, 2016
Mara Rabin, MD is the Medical Director of Utah Health and Human Rights (UHHR), a non-profit organization, founded in 2003. It is a direct service and advocacy agency that promotes the health, dignity, and self-sufficiency of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants who have endured severe human rights abuses, including torture and war-related trauma. As Medical Director, Dr. Rabin advocates for UHHR clients, serves as a medical consultant to physicians who provide care to UHHR clients, provides forensic medical examinations for asylum seekers, and runs a Wellness group for UHHR clients. In addition, she does outreach in the medical community to increase awareness among Utah’s health care providers on the unique health issues facing refugee and immigrant survivors of severe human rights abuses. For thirteen years, Dr. Rabin was one of two physicians in the state of Utah to conduct health screenings on all newly arriving refugees. She currently cares for many refugees, asylum seekers, and asylees in her primary care practice.
Dr. Rabin has served on the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs (NCTTP) and the refugee health advisory committee for the Utah Department of Workforce Services. In 2011 the Utah Refugee Services Office recognized her for her "invaluable contribution to improving the health of refugees resettled in Utah”. In 2012, she was the co-recipient of Jewish Family Service’s “Tikkun Olam: Healing the World” award.
Delphine Ndayikeza, is the National Coordinator at World Outreach Initiative (WOI), and has coordinated a number of programs for women, peace and healing throughout Burundi for over 16 years. WOI is a Christian NGO based in Burundi supporting community development and peace and reconciliation throughout the Nation. As National Coordinator for 14 years, Delphine has developed and led a number of projects on agriculture, health, income generation and environmental protection with partners such as UNHCR, UNICEF, Christian Aid and ICCO. Prior to her role as National Coordinator at WOI, she was the Program Manager of the Women and Family Department leading projects for marginalized women and children in specific provinces in Burundi. Throughout her career, Delphine has also developed and facilitated several workshops on healing and reconciliation for families following the Burundi crisis. She currently serves on several National Boards, including the Leadership Team for Samaritan’s Purse.
Professor Elizabeta Jevtic-Somlai, or simply Dr. L, is native of Serbia and a passionate advocate for children’s inclusion and active participation in peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Dr L did her BA in International Relations, with a focus on Law and Diplomacy, as well as her BA and MA in German, with a focus on Persecution of Roma during WWII, at Brigham Young University. She finished her PhD in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent, in Canterbury, England, researching international law and therein prescribed approaches to reintegration and rehabilitation of child soldiers and assessing their feasibility on grass roots levels. Her study and humanitarian efforts have taken her to many countries transitioning to peace, including Uganda, DRC, and Nepal. Dr L returns to BYU as a visiting professor after working full-time with CTBTO, or Preparatory Commission for the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, in Vienna, Austria for past 9.5 years. In her work, she was involved in development of policy, procedures and operations to facilitate nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
Gerald Brown became interested in other cultures and social justice during a three-year assignment with the YMCA in Cairo Egypt and Taichung Taiwan in the late 1970s. Looking for similar work in the U.S. , he learned of the refugee resettlement program and has worked with refugees in one way or another since 1980. He has resettled newly arrived refugees in Texas and overseen U.S. refugee resettlement for one of the national resettlement organizations in New York City. For four years he served as an Asylum Officer for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), adjudicating applications for asylum in the U.S. He is featured in the PBS documentary on the U.S. asylum program, ”A Well-founded Fear”. Gerald has worked with refugees outside of the United States in Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Cuba. Gerald is the first director of the Utah Refugee Services Office, within the Department of Workforce Services. The office administers federal funding designated for refugees resettled in Utah and oversees and coordinates all services for refugees in the state.
Samira Harnish is passionate about ensuring refugee women are self-reliant! Because of her perseverance out of an arranged marriage and into a senior engineering role in a male dominated engineering culture, even before she founded her refugee service non-profit Women of the World in 2009, Samira was a dedicated volunteer to women’s causes like Meal’s on Wheels, Women in Engineering, and cancer survivor support at numerous hospitals.
With Women of the World (WoW), Samira has been able to increase her impact, serving hundreds of refugee women fleeing violence in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, Somalia, and Burma to name a few. The women that WoW serves have gotten advanced educations, continued to be promoted within their companies, formed their own small businesses, and even returned back to their home countries to teach some of the lessons that Women of the World had taught them. Samira’s life-saving efforts truly have a global reach.
Samira has led Women of the World to be recognized and funded as the preeminent women’s refugee service organization in Utah. She has raised tens of thousands of dollars in funds, spoken at many venues including the Utah Hunger Banquet, the Bennion Center, universities, schools, and churches and was awarded the Enlightened 50 award by the Utah Community Foundation. Women of the World was awarded the 2014 Salt Lake City Human Rights Award for its efforts in customized refugee service and advocacy.
Bios
Keynote Speakers
Keynote Speakers:
Presenters:
Kelli Muddell is a gender specialist with ICTJ. She has been with ICTJ since it opened its doors in March 2001. In addition to focusing on gender issues, she has also worked on ICTJ’s Sierra Leone country program. Muddell is currently conducting the first study to be done in the field on how transitional justice mechanisms have addressed, or failed to address, the targeting of sexual minorities during periods of conflict. Prior to joining ICTJ, Muddell interned in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, and was a contributing writer for its World Report 2000. She has an M.A. in International Political Economy and Development with a concentration in Development Studies from Fordham University.
Chukwuemeka B. Eze is the Executive Director for the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). He served as the Program Director at the WANEP Regional Office for 5 years and as National Network Coordinator for WANEP-Nigeria for 7 years. He is a Ph.D. Student in Peace and Conflict Studies (with emphasis in Conflict Early Warning Systems) and also holds a Master’s Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from University of Ibadan Nigeria. Mr. Eze has over fifteen years experience in peace and human security with very strong flair for political and community dialogue and mediation, training, researching, monitoring and analyzing of conflict trends and dynamics. He consults for a number of organization and institutions in West Africa and beyond including the UN, ECOWAS, AU, Catholic Relief Services, and the ECOWAS Member States etc. He led in the development of an Early Warning System for the Government of Southern Sudan and is the lead interface between ECOWAS Early Warning System and CSO in his capacity as the Executive Director of WANEP. Eze is a fellow and Member of Governing Council for the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators of Nigeria and a faculty member of the West Africa Peacebuilding and Institute and Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Center
Mayesha Alam is the Associate Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. In this role, she directs the Institute's various research projects, the Profiles in Peace oral histories project, major convenings, the Hillary R. Clinton Fellowship program, the Summer Graduate Research Fellows program, and the online repository. She is also in charge of operations at the Institute, and supports the Executive Director in fundraising and building external relations. Ms. Alam is an Adjunct Faculty member in the School of Foreign Service where she co-teaches a graduate seminar on women, peace and security. Her first book, Women and Transitional Justice: Progress and Persistent Challenges, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014; she is co-author of the Handbook on Gender and War to be published by Routledge in 2016, and she has written numerous Op-Eds and reports on issues related to peace and conflict including. She currently also holds a Visiting Research Fellowship at The University of Cambridge's Centre for Science and Policy. Ms. Alam previously worked in the U.S. and internationally with the OSCE, the World Bank, the United Nations and several NGOs. Originally from Bangladesh, she received her M.A. in conflict resolution with high honors from Georgetown University and her B.A. in international relations and biology from Mount Holyoke College.
Professor Susan Merrill is adjunct professor at Brigham Young University. Her previous assignments included Senior Governance Advisor at the U.S. Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), U.S Army War College (USAWC). As a senior official with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), she has had extensive experience in conflict and post-conflict countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. She has served in El Salvador, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Cambodia, as well as Bosnia and Iraq. Ms. Merrill was the first USAID representative to the USAWC and PKSOI in 2005. In 2002-03, she was selected to lead a USAID-wide Taskforce on U.S. Foreign Aid in the National Interest, an examination of the successes and failures of foreign aid and the role of aid in U.S. foreign policy. In her overseas assignments, she was Acting Mission Director, Cambodia, and held senior level positions in missions in El Salvador, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Cambodia. She is an expert in post-conflict reconstruction and governance, conflict prevention and mitigation, and economic stabilization and recovery.
Natalie Romeri-Lewis studied international development, forced migration, and law, exploring judicial reform and women's informal power in developing nations. She has worked in judicial chambers and NGOs, consulted internationally, and presented at the UN on women negotiating peace. Currently, she teaches international development and is designing new classes at Brigham Young University. She also manages projects and collects data for The WomanStats Project, the largest compilation of information on the status of women, examining 360 variables on laws, institutions, practices, and prevalence across 175 countries. Natalie's current research focuses on women in urban poverty in Colombia, the benefits of and points of entry for high female involvement during peace negotiations and transitional justice periods, and the pro-development outcomes of legislatures with larger ratios of females.
Kif Augustine-Adams, Charles E. Jones Professor of Law, returned to BYU Law School in August 2014 after spending a year as Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at Renmin University of China Law School in Beijing. She has also been a visiting professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law in ShenZhen, China (September 2009) and at Boston College Law School (2007-2008). She spent six months in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a Fulbright Fellowship in 2003. Just prior to her time in Beijing, Professor Augustine-Adams completed five and a half years of service as Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs.Professor Augustine-Adams joined the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1995. Her regular teaching assignments include torts, seminars in feminist legal theory and critical race theory, as well as professional responsibility. She has twice been named teacher of the year, once by first-year students and once by second- and third-year students.She is completing a book length legal history project on the Chinese migrant experience in early 20thCentury Mexico. She publishes in both English and Spanish.Prior to joining the BYU law faculty, Professor Augustine-Adams practiced administrative law with Covington & Burling in Washington D.C.
Warner Woodworth received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Michigan where he was also a researcher at the Institute of Social Research (ISR). He has been a consultant with global consulting firms, such as Arthur D. Little, Inc. and Rensis Likert Associates. Visiting scholar experiences include work for the International Institute for Labor Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and the University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has also been a visiting professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, BYU-Hawaii, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Additionally, Warner is on the faculty at Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business, has served as an advisor to various international groups and multi-million dollar companies, led non-profit foundations, and is the author or co-author of ten books. He has also been featured in various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, CNN Business, and Forbes magazine, among many others.