Festival Focus: How conflict transforms
The first Festival of Ideas Focus day will take place at the Ron Cooke Hub from 3pm onwards on 20 June. Free tickets can be downloaded from www.yorkfestivalofideas.com/tickets.
Panel discussions, exhibitions and a photography exhibition will explore the effects that conflicts throughout the world make, both at home and abroad. We are delighted to welcome Ben Rawlence of Human Rights Watch and author of Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War to lead the discussions in collaboration with the University's Centre for Applied Human Rights and Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit.
Ben’s recent book presents the brash hustlers, sinister colonels, resilient refugees, and intrepid radio hosts who are future of Congo. While poring over dusty photographs of colonial Congo, Ben Rawlence stumbled upon the image of a lost city a glistening metropolis fuelled by tin and European capital. Today, that city, Manono, lies inside the Triangle of Death, an area rarely reached by outsiders since war broke out in Congo more than a decade ago.
Rawlence, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, set out to gather news of Manono and of Congo's uneasy peace. Rather than taking the direct flight suggested by aid workers and mercenaries, he travels by foot, bike, and boat, taking his time to meet the people who are making a new life in one of the world's most dangerous places. See yorkfestivalofideas.com/focus/festival-focus-conflict-transformation/.
Panel members will also include:
- Chief Inspector Kerrin Smith, who spent a year training police in Iraq
- Former police inspector and Director of Pacalis Associates, Dr Martin Baines
- Georgina Yates, a Conflict Advisor with the UK Department of International Development
- Erinma Bell, co-founder and chair of Community Alliance for Renewal Inner South Manchester Area (CARISMA)
- Lars Waldorf, former civil rights lawyer and current Senior Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York
- Rev Rory Dalgliesh, Methodist Chaplain to the University of York
The day will begin with at 3pm with a debate on how conflict transforms lives which will explore the impact of the controversial and viral Kony video viewed by over 100 million in less than a month on social media.
The debate will be followed by an exhibition at which a number of societies and organisations will provide interactive stands considering the theme ‘What is transformation in relation to conflict?’ to provoke one-to-one discussion and debate.
There will also be a photographic exhibition of pictures taken by students from the University’s Centre for Applied Human Rights and Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit taken on field trips to post-conflict countries, and a 3Sixty immersive visual display.
From 6pm, a public Q&A session on 'Global and local transformation: The impact of conflict abroad and at home' will follow in the same building at which audience members will be able to quiz a panel of experts on how conflict abroad affects us here in the UK.
Speaker Biographies
Chief Inspector Kerrin Smith joined North Yorkshire Police in 2008 having spent 16 years with Northumbria and Cleveland police, as well as a year spent training police in Iraq in 2006 - 2007. During her 19-year career, she has worked in a variety of roles both in uniform and CID. This ranged from specialist drug units, Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit, response roles and as Force Control Room Chief Inspector. She describes her most challenging and exciting role as the time she was posted to Iraq in 2006 as Director of Training for the coalition training programmes for the newly formed Iraqi police force. Chief Inspector Smith has been a trained Hostage Negotiator since 2003. In 2010 she was selected to join the ranks of just 20 International Hostage Negotiators in the whole of the UK. She is a qualified Firearms Incident Commander, an International Police Trainer, holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and is a mentor for black and ethnic minority students at Teesside University.
Dr Martin Baines QPM is a former Police Inspector having served with West Yorkshire Police for over 31 years. Martin has worked closely with communities from across the Bradford district and West Yorkshire throughout his police career. He developed national best practice on community engagement and managing community tensions between 2000 and 2005, playing a critical role in minimising community tensions within Bradford in the immediate aftermath of the 7th July 2005 terrorist bombings in London. He also designed the West Yorkshire Police Community Intervention Strategy in the post 7/7 period following the London Bombings of 2005. Martin is a founding Director of Pacalis Associates and he has worked extensively in Pakistan, India, Brazil and Colombia, assisting police forces with their strategic development.
Rev Rory Dalgliesh is the Methodist Chaplain to the University of York and Methodist Minister to Heslington Church. Rory was born in South Africa where he worked as a facilitator of community based initiatives from 1996 to 2001 as part of the truth and reconciliation process. He studied engineering before moving into ministry where he majored in Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics. Rory was ordained a minister in 2000.
Georgina Yates is a Conflict Advisor with the UK Department of International Development. She was the DFID Country Representative in Burundi (2002-05) and was previously a Senior Humanitarian Specialist in the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department. With experience also in East Timor, Georgina has worked alongside the key international humanitarian and development agencies, including the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme and the World Bank. Georgina is also a graduate of the MA in Post-war Recovery Studies at the University of York (2005-06).
Erinma Bell MBE DL is co-founder and chair of CARISMA - Community Alliance for Renewal Inner South Manchester Area. Since 2003, CARISMA has become a front-line community based group that offers life-chances for young people by giving them positive alternatives other than street and gun crime. In 2007, CARISMA was awarded The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award for voluntary service by groups. Erinma was awarded an MBE for voluntary services to her community in 2008 and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown recognized her work in his book, ‘Britain’s Everyday Heroes’. More recently, Erinma has become a ‘community partner’ under the National Centre for Community Public Engagement, and she has been honoured with the title of Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester.
Lars Waldorf is Senior Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York. He ran Human Rights Watch’s field office in Rwanda from 2002-2004 and reported on genocide trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2001. He also worked as a consultant for the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and Front Line Defenders. He has authored numerous book chapters, journal articles, and reports on Rwanda. He has co-edited three books: Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Violence; Localizing Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities after Mass Violence and Disarming the Past: Transitional Justice and Ex-Combatants. He previously worked as a civil rights lawyer in the US from 1990 to 2000.
Admission: by free ticket only, available from yorkfestivalofideas.com/tickets
Location: Ron Cooke Hub, University of York
Meet the featured author at a book-signing following the talk courtesy of Blackwell's.