Afri’s 2012 Hedge School will be organised in partnership with the International Peace Bureau, and will take place on Saturday 17th November. This will coincide with the first ever International Peace Bureau Council Meeting to be held in Ireland.
As our globalised world gets smaller, so the burning issues we are confronted with seem to overlap to a greater and greater extent. How to solve the challenge of poverty without re-allocating some of the huge sums devoted to militarism? How to ensure a stable future for our economies and our societies without taking into account the massive impacts of climate change and resource depletion? How to redeem the promise of a new democratic order in the Middle East and North Africa without ensuring true gender justice? And how can we achieve any of these things without a full, inclusive, transparent democracy? These are some of the issues we will tackle in the Dublin Dialogue.
On Friday 16th the MacBride prize award ceremony will be presented to two women activists from the ‘Arab Spring’ by President Michael D. Higgins.
The theme of the Hedge School will be “Joining the Dots: Disarmament, Development and Democracy”.
Programme / Clár
Saturday 17th November 2012
Woodlock Hall, All Hallows College, Dublin 9
10am: Registration and tea/coffee
10.30am: Music by Fionnuala Gill, introductory remarks by Joe Murray and tree planting
11am: Climate, Resources and War (with Rose Kelly, Paddy Reilly and Andy Storey)
1pm: Lunch
2pm: Non Violent Struggles for Democracy (with Lina Ben Mhenni, Ruairí McKiernan and Tomas Magnusson)
3:30pm: Tea/coffee
3:45pm: Role of Women in the Arab Spring (with Nawal El Sadaawi, Ingeborg Breines and Iain Atack)
5:30pm: Music. Concluding remarks by Colin Archer
7pm – 8:30pm: Special performance of “The Cambria” with Donal O’Kelly and Sorcha Fox. The Cambria is the story of freed slave Frederick Douglas’ journey to, and through, Ireland. “A powerful theatrical experience…a stirring production” (Irish Examiner). A small admission fee will be charged at the door.
Followed by Irish music, dancing, conversation agus craic!
*** Full details are available in our brochure which you can download here: Hedge School 2012 Brochure ***
As spaces are limited this year, please register for the event either by downloading our Registration Form 2012 and posting it back to us, or by registering online here: http://hedgeschool2012.eventbrite.ie/
Over 130 different actions will take place in 40 countries worldwide, with participation in over 50 cities in the United States alone. The events, which coincide with Tax Day in the United States, emphasize the staggering amount of taxpayer money that goes toward military spending. Amidst global economic and climate crises, groups will be calling for a shift in spending from war and militarism to expenditures on human need. An annual report on global military spending will be released on the same day, and is expected to show an increase.