IPRA Program Highlights, Trinidad & Tobago, 17-21 May 2023
N.B. This is a preliminary overview, subject to amendment and adjustment.
16 May 2023
Arrivals and brief IPRA Outgoing Council meeting over dinner
17 May 2023
Welcome and Opening Ceremony
Hilton Grand Ballroom
Plenary: Indigenous Resurgence
featuring Kelli Te Maiharoa (Maori; co-President, Asia Pacific Peace Research Association), with Akilah Jaramogi (Trinidadian Merikan; UN representative, United Maroon Indigenous Peoples; Founder/CEO, Fondes Amandes Community Reforestation Project), Polly Walker (Cherokee; President, Indigenous Education Institute), Cynthia Ellis-Topsey (Belize; Ambassador at Large of the Garifuna Nation)
Panels, Workshops, Small Group Sessions, Dinner, After-dinner free time and networking
9:00 am
1:30 pm
3:00 pm
18 May 2023
Panels, Workshops, Small Group Sessions, Reiki treatment healing offerings, Lunch
Two Concurrent Plenaries:
Youth Leadership for Justice and Peace, featuring Monica Solis (IPRA Trinidad 2023 conference Administrative Coordinator, Gettysburg College Class of 26); Suphane Dash (Guyana Environmental Protection Agency); Michael Meyer Starr (Juniata College, Class of 22); Eunice Kisiwaa Gyan (Ghana Youth Bridge Foundation); Noor El-Gazairly (Consortium of North American Peace Program Youth Leadership alumna)
Peace and Healing: Ourselves and the Earth, featuring Yalile Quiñones (Colombian healer and singer), Vivian Camacho (Bolivia, Director-General of Traditional Medicines for the Ministry of Health and Sports), Rosina Wiltshire (Barbados; Reiki healer; First Caribbean CARICOM Community Advocate for Gender Justice)
Plenary: Conversation with Don Rojas
"Grenada and the Caribbean today, 40 Years after the US invasion."
Don Rojas has a distinguished and unique global career as Press Secretary for the late Grenadian New Jewel Movement Prime Minister Maurice Bishop; Founder of international cable station UWI-TV; Communications Director, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; General Manager of Pacifica Radio’s WBAI-NYC; and Executive Editor of NY’s Amsterdam News. He is currently Director of Communications and International Relations for the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW).
With Comments by Esteban A. Ramos Muslera -Coordinator of the Peace Area of the University Institute for Democracy, Peace and Security, National Autonomous University of Honduras
Dinner on your own; after-dinner free time and networking
8:30 am
3:30 pm
5:30 pm
19 May 2023
Panels, Workshops, Small Group Sessions, Reiki treatment healing offerings, Lunch
Plenary: Decolonizing our Minds—Redefining Genocide and Human Rights,
featuring Mireille Fanon Mendes-France (Frantz Fanon Foundation; former President, UN Working Group on Peoples of African Descent), with Jihad Abdulmumit (Spirit of Mandela coalition; Black Panther former political prisoner); Luis Rosa Perez (Casa Corretjer; Puerto Rican former political prisoner), Sherly Fabre (Haitian Jurist of independent 2021 International Tribunal on US Human Rights Abuses Against Black, Brown & Indigenous Peoples); Diana Marcela Agudelo-Ortiz (Colombian psychologist, Universidad Externado)
Evening at Renegades Pan Yard, Port of Spain
Steel Pan, Community, and Healing Through Music (showcase, food and merchandise market, dinner available for purchase), featuring Duvone Stewart (Arranger, Renegades Steel Orchestra), Mia Gormandy Benjamin (Musical Director, Trinidad All Stars Steel Orchestra), and Jamal Glynn (Steel Pan Music Therapist, Phase 2 Pan Groove)
8:30 am
3:30 pm
6:00 pm
20 May 2023
Panels, Workshops, Small Group Sessions, Reiki treatment healing offerings, Lunch
Plenary: IPRA Foundation Presents:
Emerging Scholars, New Scholarship, moderated by IPRA Foundation President
Linda M. Johnston and featuring Colleen O’Brien, Nisan Alici, Rajib Timalsina, Peter Cousins, and Susan Brewer-Osorio
Plenary: Redefining and Sharpening our Strategies and Tactics Revolution, Nonviolence, and Decolonization in a Time of Crisis,
featuring Huwaida Araf (Palestinian-American co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement; chair of the Free Gaza Movement), with Wende Marshall (via video), Mark Lance (Georgetown University; former director of the Institute for Anarchist Studies), Matt Meyer (IPRA Secretary-General; Senior Research Scholar, UMass/Amherst Resistance Studies Initiative), and Magdalene Moonsamy (South African former Member of Parliament and director, Women’ Justice Foundation)
International Cultural Celebration (open to all!)
Pakistani poet and peace studies faculty member Rumana Mehdi, Puerto Rican activist/drummer Luis Rosa Perez, and Mississippi-based author/organizer Sacajawea Hall will co-host this last-night-together sharing session where we enlighten, entertain, and inspire one another. The evening will featuring a special video presentation specially written and performed for our IPRA 2023 conference:
International Cultural Celebration (continued)
“I CARE—DO YOU?” is a docu-song cycle inspired by Afghan, Iranian and all girls and
women, combining mixed media featuring Nobel Peace Laureate Malala in her own
words, CNN embedded journalist Clarissa Ward and Afghan poet, journalist, and teacher
of girls, Aysha. It is set to the music of Iranian/Armenian/American composer, poet, and
singer Alexa Babakhanian, and performed by a choir of talented teenagers.
(Please see Rumana, Saki, Luis, or Matt Meyer if you wish to share something this evening. The Celebration will take place off-site at an artisan-based community center, where dinner will be available for purchase)
8:30 am
3:30 pm
7:30 pm
5:30 pm
21 May 2023
IPRA Biennial Administrative / General Membership Meeting (including elections) [Open to all IPRA members: you are encouraged to attend! Help build IPRA!]
Plenary: Peace Education at 50!
A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of IPRA’s Peace Education Commission
and a look at the Future of Education for Peace Globally, featuring Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams (Gettysburg College; founder of the Consortium of North American Peace Programs), Monisha Bajaj (University of San Francisco), Candice Carter (PEC Convener), Alicia Cabezudo (Universidad Nacional de Rosario), Tony Jenkins (International Institute on Peace Education; Coordinator, Global Campaign for Peace Education; with a special message from PEC co-founder Betty Reardon).
Closing Ceremony and Grounding
Closing Ritual at Fondes Amandes Community Reforestation Project
Dismissal of Energies, River Ritual for interested participants.
Lunch and departures to the airport
(Closed meeting of the newly elected IPRA Council representatives and officers will take place at this time)