Lecture: Peace, Security and Sustainable Development in Eastern Africa

The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention at Maynooth University will host the Annual Lt. Gen. Dermot Earley Lecture in the Renehan Hall, North Campus, Maynooth University on Thursday, 23 November at 6.30pm followed by a reception. Registration will be from 6.00pm - 6.30pm. Admission is free but advance booking is necessary to kennedyinstitute@mu.ie or to 01-7086629 by 17 November.

The lecture “Peace, Security and Sustainable Development in Eastern Africa” will be delivered by Irish missionary priest, Fr. Padraig Devine SMA, who is the founder and Executive Chairman of the Shalom Centre for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation - http://www.shalomconflictcenter.org/ - in Kenya. He will discuss his experience of working with communities in East Africa to promote peace, justice, security, reconciliation, and sustainable development with the focus on Shalom’s successful approach in peace-building. In particular, he will focus on Shalom’s approach to its work with tribal and community leaders on education, empowerment and transcending ethnic and religious boundaries to get to the root causes of conflict.

Shalom has had considerable success in replacing conflict and violence with peace and co-operation in renowned conflict areas catalyzed by negative ethnicity, long-standing animosities, cultural differences, resource competition, and institutional deficiencies. It is comprised of an international team of conflict resolution experts from various religious backgrounds and disciplines. It has memorandums of understanding with the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention at Maynooth University, the Institute for Conflict Transformation at Queen’s University Belfast, and in the process of making similar collaborative arrangements with the University of Texas in Austin.