 Alright, why don't we go ahead and get started. Good afternoon everyone unless you're tuning in from further away and then maybe good morning. And welcome to the webinar teaching about women peace builders around the world stories and resources. I'm Megan Chabalowski and I'm a program officer with the public education team at the US Institute of Peace, where I lead our work with American K to 12 schools. I'm very pleased to be joined by my colleague Dr. Kathleen Keyness, USIP's director of gender policy and strategy, and by current USIP peace teacher and high school teacher Sarah Campbell, both of whom I'll introduce shortly. At this webinar is the fourth in a series of webinars for us based K 12 educators and is the last one for the school year. This series provides teachers with opportunities to learn about critical issues and international conflict management and peace building, and how they can integrate ready made USIP resources into their classrooms. So thank you to those joining today, and those who are watching the recording, we all at USIP deeply appreciate your work as educators. So before we get started a few logistics. All attendees mics are muted and in listen on mode, but we would still like to hear from you so if you run your mouse over the bottom of the zoom call I imagine everyone's a zoom expert by this point. You will see several ways to communicate so we asked you to use the chat box to ask questions or to comment. Feel free to ask questions throughout and we will get to them as we can. If you have a tech issue, please also use the chat function to notify us and we'll try to help you fix it. Finally, we'll be recording today's webinar and we'll post it to our website after afterwards. So I'd love to introduce my two presenters today. Dr Kathleen keenest is director of gender policy and strategy at the US Institute of peace, and where she has worked since 2008. As a socio cultural anthropologist, Dr keenest has focused on the different gender impacts of violence and conflict of both men and women. In addition her efforts have focused on the UN Security Council resolution 1325, including the critical role women should play in all aspects of peace building. Prior to us IP Dr keenest work 15 years in the international development field. Welcome Kathleen it's nice to have you. Sarah Campbell is a member of this year's US IP these teachers program cohort. She teaches AP literature, world literature and Asian literature along with a variety of thematic based English courses at kitchen can high school, located in southeast Alaska. In 2013, Miss Campbell traveled to Japan as part of the five college center for East Asian Studies peace education program, meeting with atomic bomb survivors and Tori Nagasaki and Hiroshima reshaped Miss Campbell's understanding of human compassion, forgiveness and love. So this year is Miss Campbell's 21st year in the classroom. I got that right 21st. Great. So thank you for joining us Sarah. Alright, so before we launch into the heart of our discussion today which is a chance to speak with these two wonderful presenters. I wanted to just quickly share a few notes about us IP for those of you who are new to us. We are a national non partisan independent Institute, founded by Congress in 1984 and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible practical and essential for us and global security. We are located in Washington DC, our headquarters in DC, just off the National Mall. And in fact you can see our headquarters here in the lower left hand corner of this photo. This community takes place internationally which is the focus of our mandate. We work with governments and civilian and citizens and conflict zones abroad to prevent manage and resolve violent conflict from training women leaders in Columbia and mediation skills to supporting reconciliation efforts in Iraq. The peace process in Afghanistan and young peace builders in Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan and other countries affected by violent extremism. We support those who are working to build a more peaceful inclusive world. You can learn more about our work and find stories of people building peace in some of the world's most difficult places on our website usip.org complimenting our work to build peace internationally. The US Institute of peace also serves the American public through public education. So this too is part of our mandate from Congress. We work with schools, universities, organizations and communities across the United States to engage everyday Americans in learning about working for peace. Today's webinar is part of this work. So we are here today to shine the spotlight on the important work of women peace builders. So today, you will discover compelling stories of women peace builders from around the world. You'll learn about resources and activities that will help you bring these stories into your classrooms. And you will hopefully begin to make some connections to your own content as well. Those are the objectives for today. I'm going to shop stop screen sharing. As we turn to our first presenter to Dr. Keynes to Kathleen. Before I like to open my conversation with Kathleen by actually posing a question to our participants today to those of you who are attending. I'm just going to ask you to take about 10 seconds to think through or jot down as many women peace builders as you can think of. And I'm literally going to be quiet for 10 seconds and let you do this. So I would love to hear a little bit about this. So in the chat box for those who are joining us today. Would you mind sharing something that you noticed within those very brief 10 seconds. Maybe it was whether this was easy or hard to do. It might have been the kind of women peace builders you were you were first thinking of. If you were a woman joining us did you have yourself on that list maybe why or why not. Anything you might have noticed in this very, very quick opening challenge. And please feel free to drop that into the chat box and that's what we can see. And I'll give you a few seconds to jump in. Before waiting I can share a few things that I usually notice. When I ask people to do this and take a few minutes to think. Sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge to do Kathleen that people might be able to think of a few right off the top of their head and they tend to be iconic figures people who we hear most about in the news or that we know most about in history. I want to maybe turn to you to open with with that thought in mind and maybe what we normally think of or hear when we hear about women peace builders. And see if you any reflections on that before I turn to my first question to you about your work. Well first of all thank you Megan great to see you again Sarah and to all of our participants thank you for joining today. I think you've really picked up on an important part of my work actually already Megan, which is the fact that when it comes to not only peace building but many parts of our world, women's work, women's contributions are invisible. As I noted I was reading an article last week about the wife of the brother of Vincent van Gogh, maybe some of you saw this but it turns out that the person that put Vincent van Gogh on the radar was his sister in law. It's only recently with a very notable book that is written in Dutch that has found out that it was this woman named yo van Gogh who actually brought Vincent to us. A perfect example in history. It's only taken, you know 100 years to uncover that. But so it is no surprise to me that in fact when we have to sit and think about who are the women peace builders that you think of. There might be a blank page. Of course, some might think of Malala, and the mini peace prize, the Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Lea McGowey, Ellen Johnson, from the president of Liberia and others. So they're out there, and certainly one of the things US IP has been working on is trying to amplify these women peace builders. A little bit more. This is part of your work. You are the director of, you are the director of gender. I've just lost your title, gender policy and strategy like US IP. Can you tell us a bit more about what that means. What does that work do. Yeah, you know, I'll just take it right from my kids. I told them that I'm what I'm the director of they said, what does that mean. I said, okay, let me just break it down for you. Every day I go to work to help make the invisible visible and they go. Oh, now that makes sense. And it's very simplistic in some ways but it isn't it's a lot of work for all of us to start to bring the the voices of women, really to to the storyboard we we have had, especially in the peace war in peace world when we think of war we usually think of John Wayne in a pith helmet, we rarely think of women. And so I would note that 20 years ago, the UN Security Council actually came up with a resolution to focus on women in peace and security and that you may have heard of is called nicknamed 1325. Or the women peace and security agenda. Why is this important, because women have always been a part of war and women have always been a part of peace building, and we need to know the stories. I like to say, you know, especially as an anthropologist. So much of the work that anthropologists do is to listen to those stories to discover those stories that are found in every single culture on earth, because they really help us understand us as human beings and our human condition. And to note that, you know, a story is not just words but it is really a pattern where we take meeting from and so I like to say that violence often deconstructs our world, but it is in the storytelling that we reconstructed. And so storytelling is the essence of peace building, and thus the connection to the next part we want to tell you about is a women building piece award. Yeah, so what is the women building piece award. Why was it created. I have some, I know there are some stories that you'd like to share with us from the finalists of this award, and I, I will turn it back to you to share a bit more. Well, all of us have heard of the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is, you know, the pinnacle of being recognized, either as an individual or an organization for contribution to peace building. Our board of directors wanted to see us as an institute, even amplify that award in another way by bringing women really as the focal point. And so, starting a year ago, we began to award one woman in the world, and recognize for contributions to peace building as a way of inspiration as a guiding light to future peace builders, and to really recognize it. And as a well note, of course the Nobel Peace Prize winners, I think they are given a million dollars. This prize is given $10,000, but we're thrilled that it has a monetary prize associated with it, because so often for women, they might get a plaque of recognition, but not a significant kind of award that actually can help them in their work. And so yes, we had our first awardee last September announced, and we also had nine finalists and I think Megan and I are going to work together to very quickly show you some of the vignettes and what I would like you to think about is, before we show you this, you know, what is a woman peace builder? And I'd like to offer that there is no one definition. You will begin to see the many contexts that these women live in and what they have done to make a difference in their communities and in their countries. Great. So we're going to begin with who? Who would you like to begin with? Just whatever you want to put up there, we can talk about. Great. Let's start with, let's start with Asia, Asia. Asia Jamil. Right. And I'm going to optimize my screen for sharing here. Optimize the video. Great. I would try my level best not to let any other girl fight and be beaten for her right to education, for her right to choose a career for herself, for her right to her identity. If all of us are together in this fight for our identity, fight for our empowerment, our rights, we definitely are going to bring a change very soon. I'll just add that Asia comes from a part of Pakistan that is often a focus of development work. It is the federally administered tribal areas. And she specifically works with refugees in this area. And it works on resolving not only the big conflicts but the local ones. And so she is constantly working with a traditional assembly of leaders, predominantly men and having to navigate very traditional concepts, including child bride marriages, honor killings. And this is very tough work. Some of the toughest work to change the norms of a society around the importance and the meaning of a girl child and women in general. I'm going to let you go to the next one. Looks like Victoria. I want the world to know that a lot happens during war. People's children have suffered. Some families may never know what happened to their loved ones. But here I am today. I am no longer ashamed of myself. I will talk to uplift others from the situations they are in. These things should be known. It should never repeat itself. Yeah, Victoria's story is one that you know is is deep and difficult. She grew up in Uganda. She's a survivor of abduction, sexual violence, forced captivity, but she took that trauma and actually transformed it. She was eight years in captivity with the Lord's Resistance Army, where she gave birth to two children. And she was able to escape captivity with her children, completed undergraduate studies and returned home to northern Uganda to help other children survivors of war. Perhaps we'll get one more, maybe two more in. Great. Okay. I really dream about a well-organized country where women pursue their passion without persecution. I really dream about a well-balanced country where both men and women are the same in decision-making. I will contribute to reach this future. Yes, Odette is one of 10 children, grew up in Burundi from very poor means, and she was the very first daughter in her family to be educated. And so she also began to support her family, especially her parents, and really became the chief financial provider of this very, very large family. She developed her own Burundi Friends International to really build that capacity in women to be a part of the presidential process and political efforts in their regional elections as well. So peace building has many different frames and efforts, but most of it starts really on the ground. All right, let's do one more. All right. It's an aim of my life to God justice for those women, for those girls who are vulnerable and are not able to get any of their rights. The question that is asked about women is about their condition. If this is less, in fact, it would be better if the situation in Pakistan is better. It will take some time, but I hope that we will be able to do it quickly. Tabassan grew up in the Swat Valley, which was a stronghold of the Taliban. She was married at age 13 to a man who was 30 years her senior. And she had suffered great physical, mental and verbal abuse and was able to navigate her way out of the situation and in actually to become a part of a tribal community in its leadership. And as you can see, she is trying to provide hope and focus on her peace building word work is really to end violence against women. Kathleen, these stories are gosh, there's so many things running through them that feel so relevant resilience, hope, bravery, strength, I think that there are a lot, there are a lot of themes we can draw out of these and I'm going to show our participants where to go to find these stories as well as additional videos about our women building peace finalists and more about your work. But I would love if you could just speak in our final couple minutes together about why it's important for young people to be hearing these stories and learning about women peace builders last month was women's history month. And why is it important for women peace builders to be part of that conversation. And how can we make these stories and this work relevant and meaningful for students here in the US maybe don't feel maybe connected to the stories that they hear or the particular places that these women are from. So any thoughts on that. I think the most direct connection is what's happening in our day to day world domestically I think young people are very aware of the degree of violence of fear. Certainly, the hope has been challenged. I do believe again that storytelling is a part of how we reconstruct ourselves individually and or relate to others and say I recognize that person and if she or he can do it. Maybe I could as well I do believe that you know storytelling is the essence of peace building that's how we learn how other people have overcome unbelievable difficulty and we know that war is is truly one of the most devastating experiences of human society. But we have our own violence in this country and I do believe reaching and connecting the dots about the everyday peace builder that you know you don't need to come from Uganda. You can come from, you know, here in Washington DC as I said, and be a peace builder in one's community and I think it does resonate I think the peaceful protests resonate in terms of action. And people do want to make a change and make a difference and I, I actually think it's a it's never been a more coherent connection than what we are living through, and even this week. Thank you Kathleen I am always in awe of the women that whose stories you share and it makes me proud to associate myself with them and with you so thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Of course we're thrilled to have you join and it's a really nice transition I think to Sarah, and to how one might begin to bring these, these stories and these these topics and this work into their class and to Sarah. It's going to share with us some ideas that she had some some lessons and activities. So Sarah, over to you. Sure. Can you see my screen here okay, I hope. Did I lose you Megan. Sorry, that was a non verbal thumb up. Give you the verbal thumbs up yes. I was moving my window panels here so thank you for being able to present and Kathleen you've given me a lot of inspiration and an admission to bring back these women's stories into my classroom and so it has been an honor to become or to work as a peace teacher for the past two years with us IP and have all these resources and experts and learn from your passion and be able to share that with my students here at Ketchum high school so looking at let's go through here why is it important to teach about peace well just like you said it fosters connection. It allows our students to expand their global view to think beyond their own communities and their states and their countries but to unify us as global citizens. In working through these lessons about peace it enhances active listening skills and dialogue skills for our students. They get to explore multiple perspectives. Think creatively really does foster this passion for lifelong learning and they learn a lot about the resiliency of others and and get to work on building that within themselves and and being advocates for eliminating violent conflict in the world. So us IP has amazing toolkits that are free and available on their website for educators and the lessons are really targeted for secondary level students both middle school and high school and have used these successfully with my students, and it's really encouraged me how I can integrate peace lessons into whatever I'm teaching in my English classroom, and they're highly relevant and accessible. So this video that you've talked about and showcasing these women around the world for these women peace builders led me to create a lesson for my students on what does it take to be a peace builder. I like that idea of looking at real people and maybe not the ones that they read about in their history textbooks but women who are actively working to promote peace within their regions within their countries. And you know a lot of time my students will say oh well peace building is just something that an organization does or a famous person. And while that's true to some extent, as Kathleen has mentioned here and, and we've showcased their regular individuals as well who do extraordinary things. So the first lesson I created got me thinking though that many of the students might be able to recognize the flag of the country in which these women are from. They might be able to find them and locate them on a map, but they may not know specifically what's going on and in barundi for example or you know what the conflict is in Pakistan or the Democratic Republic of Congo. And so in this lesson I wanted students to dive into those countries and learn a little bit more about the backstory the conflict to figure out what is still going on. And then as well as look at how these unique women went about fostering peace with the ultimate goal of just like Kathleen said, is that each one of us as human beings does possess many of the characteristics that are necessary for building peace. So, sometimes what's helpful for students on something a project like this is just to create a template or a graphic organizer for them and so here's a sample. You could modify this depending on you know your students ability level and certainly the grade level that you teach. But you could take for example, one of the women peace builders, you know a debt from barundi and you can place her there up at the top research some background information about the country. Obviously what you know the conflict is students could explore some country facts, you know what is the population. What are the ethnic divides, you know, what's the political situation within that country. The finalist videos, Megan was showing you vignettes, the videos are beautiful. And there are some longer clips also that really allow for more of a look at the, the actual approaches that these women employed within their countries to foster peace and so students can glean a lot from those as well. And the main takeaways or conclusions I think that's always great to leave that kind of open ended you know what how is this relevant to you as a student in 2021. What did you learn about these women and what did you, what can you take away from their stories and how can you apply this to your everyday life. Students, you know, are very familiar with Google searches, but I also like to provide a list of vetted resources to share with my students just to kind of narrow their search and ensure that they're getting quality information. The SIP has an amazing resource here for educators and for students, you can see they explore by regions and countries. And so these are highly accessible for students, and you can just click on one of the tabs here. And if you click on one of these tabs, then you'll get information from country experts regional experts. You'll also get my students love these fact sheets, and they're pretty short, easy to read, and they have these nice bold headlines so students can kind of focus in and and skim and scan easily to pull the information out. So I wanted to share these with teachers because you can download them everything of course is free and accessible, and you can make copies for your students if you needed to. So to extend upon this lesson, these peace builders who are showcased in this video of women who build peace might lead students to want to do more of a formal research paper about a topic that they uncovered in their initial case study work. They might develop this into a speech. So they could support one of these peace building organizations around the world. And in addition, just kind of showcasing the US IP is peace day challenge that happens every year on the 21st of September. This is a great way to again help students recognize that each one of us has these peace building characteristics within, and we can explore that within our classrooms and our schools and our communities. And it's a really great way to foster peace. This next lesson that I want to showcase for you really quickly was inspired by my walk on the peace trail at the National Mall. A couple years ago I was lucky enough to chaperone a group of students on their close up trip to Washington DC, and US IP has an app here so you can follow along and it will tell you about each of the different memorials here featured on this trail, but one that I just fell in love with was the FDR Memorial. And it was Eleanor, and I just love this quote and took a picture of it when I was there it meant so much. The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation. It must be a piece which rests on cooperated cooperative effort of the whole world. And I just think that that fits in so beautifully with us IPs women who build peace award because it is we're all invested in this this process of, of global peace. And I like to have my students look at quotes. And so with this one here is something that you can bring into your classroom also, which is who said what. And so the quotes featured on this little handout for students they would basically just probably put it into a Google search and you know the top one we know is from Eleanor Roosevelt and then they'd find oh it's from Eleanor Roosevelt. But then students could explore a little bit more about how this famous woman from our history went about fostering and advocating for peace, and what some of the issues were that were important. And what the main goals or objectives were as a class I would love to have students have the opportunity to really discuss these peace builders, more of these famous peace builders here. What each quote might tell us today within the context of what's going on in our communities and national and global level, and look at the relevance of what these peace builders from our past. And how their work is still maybe relevant today or how we can apply it to our own situations. So looking at at words is something that as an English teacher I, I of course love to do. It is April, which is National Poetry Month, and I just want to end by talking about two poetry lessons that you might want to integrate into your classroom. This one blackout poetry I'm not sure if you've done this before it's super easy. If you have any old pages from a book, a magazine and newspaper around your classroom. You just need a pen or a pencil and a sharpie, and that's all you need. And so what students do is I always tell them, okay we're going to create some poetry, but you don't have necessarily a blank page in front of you you have this page filled with words. And I pose a question. What qualities do women peace builders possess, or what does peace mean to you. How would you go about fostering peace within, you know a question kind of like that, and then just give students some time to read over and look at the print in front of them. And all they have to do then is highlight or outline words or a combination of phrases that kind of stand out. It's exciting to see what these students can create and what can be, you know the message the final outcome of their blackout poem. And I want to share a couple with you. A fantastic woman, no other word for her, her shoulders, the way she trotted down the street bag flapping hands never empty, always listening or talking manners perfect. I was eight years old. She had charm. And this, you know, obviously this woman is a role model she's confident, which are fabulous characteristics of a peace builder. I was impressed with what my students created this young lady saw a woman of peace, being that who nurtures a child, and really works to create a strong bond and a relationship. And you can see I'll just share some student samples with you really quickly. They take on a variety of forms, you know, sometimes they black out the whole page sometimes it's just a few lines. This particular student just decided after reading the text hey I see this woman is powerful and coming from the earth and and just forward moving and bold. Again the dove in the hand. It's great to see what they created and sometimes you know they did admit that they got a little frustrated and couldn't quite get the meaning that they want but this is a rich lesson in diction and syntax and, and you know allows students to really contemplate the meaning of the word to try to create and construct meaning for themselves of that question they were trying to answer so I encourage you to try it with students they really like it. It's a good exercise. And finally, this idea of creating a community poem, and I can't take credit for this. This was featured at the very end of the video showcasing the 10 who were selected as women who build peace in 2020. And they must have posed you know a question here, which is, I have always, and then the women finished it with their own phrase. I come from women who, and then they finished my heart is my hands are, I am able a piece building woman is. I want to share this with you it's just a minute long here hopefully I can find it on my courses I'm trying to shift gears to another. Here we go. Let's see, hopefully this will work. I have always been passionate about peace. I have always loved the blue, green, brown of sky and earth. I have always motivated to make a difference. I have always loved to empower women. I come from women who are the heart of the family. Who sit on their thrones smiling like cats. I come from women who have been internally displaced. I come from women who have been internally displaced. Who are visionaries. Who do not have the right to speak for themselves. My heart is aching. My heart breaks and rebuilds. My heart is full of joy. My hands initiate change. My hands are hardworking. My hands are open to give more. I am able to face the future. I am able. I am able. And I am able to create happiness in sorrow. To go to the moon if that is what I choose to do. I am able to crumble soil and polish diamonds. I am able to challenge the world. I am able to change my story and that of many other young South Sudanese women. I hope you were all able to see that okay. But it was just a beautiful idea and such a strong way to end and to showcase what we're talking about here with the impacts that women have on their communities and the world. And so I'm going to take that challenge of next year for the International Day of Peace to work on a community poem within my school of Ketchikan High School. And I plan to use very similar sentence starters and see what we can combine and really pull in some great experts from our town to help us craft this poem. And I'm excited to see what the students can create. So thank you to Kathleen and the work of USIP and inspiring my work as a peace educator and allowing me to share some lesson applications with you all today. Thank you so much. Gosh, Sarah, that was so rich. Thank you. What wonderful ideas and what a perfect note to close out on. I would love to show everybody where you can find some of the things that we talked about. Sarah showed us some good examples in her slides of where to find some things, but I thought it might be useful to show you where you can find more on Kathleen's work on gender and some of these resources. So I'm going to share my screen so you can see USIP's web page. So if you come to our homepage, you can find more on as Sarah shared particular countries, but you can also find more on issue areas like our work on gender. So this is where you can learn more about what Kathleen has talked about today. There is a ton of rich information here, lots of stories, multimedia events that are coming up, great articles. And if you keep scrolling, you'll also find projects including our Women Building Peace Award. So this is where you can go to both watch the celebration of last year's finalists and winner, where there are longer vignettes and stories about each of these women, which is what Sarah referenced in her lesson plan. You can watch the entire celebration, which shows all of these vignettes and to hear from some of the women themselves. And so this is a great resource for those stories of women peace builders and you can send your students there. For our resources for our lesson plans, if you go to education and training, you'll find our public education and outreach section where we have all of our lesson plans including our Peace Building Toolkit for Educators, which is a tool that Sarah referenced, as well as additional resources, lessons, ways to connect with us virtually, bring you as IP experts into your classroom. If you're particularly interested in this topic and would like to hear directly from a woman peace builder, we have lots of them for you, so feel free to reach out and we could get you connected. So I'm going to switch over here to my final slides to close us out in the last minute to share with you a few ways to stay engaged with us. So I hope that you will sign up for our email list to receive periodic announcements about resources and opportunities for students and teachers, like this one. I hope that you will learn more about our virtual resources. If you follow this abbreviated link, you will find a page that tells you more about how to get access to our experts, where to find content and current events, all of our free educator resources, lots of online learning opportunities and ways to have virtual educational programming while it's difficult to travel. I hope you will also, as Sarah said, mark your calendar for September 21st to take up USIP's Peace Day Challenge, which challenges everybody to take one action for peace on or around the day, and to share it on social media using the hashtag Peace Day Challenge. You can find more information on our website. And last but not least, please feel free to connect with me. I am your resource for anything school related at USIP. So please feel free to connect with me and I will make sure to get you to the right person or to send you resources that you might need. So I'm going to close us out and say thank you so much to our two presenters, to Kathleen and to Sarah for joining today. It was a wonderful conversation. We both are sending me off with lots of new renewed spirit and vigor. So thank you for joining. And I'd love to ask our participants today to complete a quick survey, which is going to be dropped into the chat box. It should only take you gosh, no more than one minute tops. It's very, very short. And to please stay tuned for any upcoming events that we might have or new opportunities for students. So thank you all for joining today and take care and we will see you next time.