Welcome
The Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, in partnership with the Los Angeles-based NGO Jewish World Watch, is proud to convene the first international summit of its kind, Informed Activism: Armed Conflict, Scarce Resources, and Congo.
The summit will bring together students, prominent scholars, policy makers, and leading activists to examine key themes related to scarce resources and conflict in Africa.
Summit participants will discuss the confluence of mass violence and mineral extraction in Congo. They will situate the issue of scarce resources and conflict in its geopolitical context and consider the broader interests that contribute to ongoing violence. Discussions will approach the conflict from historical, environmental, feminist, and economic perspectives, as well as address the challenges of implementing a Conflict-Free Minerals Policy. The summit will explore multiple facets of policy initiative without losing sight of the impetus for it: an urgent call for action from students.
Informed Activism enjoys an unprecedented level of participation. Directors and aid-workers of 35 participating organizations and NGOs that work on the ground in Africa will fly in from all over the world to attend the International Summit. Hundreds of students have registered. Increasing literally by the day, the number of colleges and universities at which registered students are enrolled now stands at 39.
The summit will feature international leading experts, such Ian Smillie, architect of the Kimberly Process, the global certification system to halt the traffic in blood diamonds. Knights International Journalism Award recipient Chouchou Namegabe will deliver the opening address, discussing her experience training Congolese women to report about sexual violence and human rights abuses. Founder and director of the South Kivu Association of Women Journalists, Ms. Namegabe has testified at The Hague, urging the International Court of Justice to classify rape as a political weapon in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on violence against women.
Students, scholars, activists, and policy makers are invited to pre-register for the afternoon session which will be devoted to interactive workshops run during two time slots, with two sessions in each. Some sessions look specifically at Congo, some at other conflict-affected regions of the African continent. The workshops will address:
Commodity Chains, Economic Livelihoods, and Complexities of Consumer Boycotts
Sexual Violence, War Crimes, and the Role of the United Nations
Humanitarian Aid Interventions, the Responsibility to Protect, and Security Reform
International Law and Human Rights Norms: Lessons from the Kimberly Process (the "No Blood Diamonds" initiative)
The Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning sessions are by pre-registration only.
Travel scholarships provided by the Enough Project.
Organizer: Dr. Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland, Academic Program Liaison Officer, Strassler Center
Conference logo designed by Keith Carville, Strategic Creative, Clark University and Congolese images courtesy of Michael Ramsdell