THIEL ANNOUNCES EARTH WEEK EVENTS
For immediate release April 11, 2006
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to appear April 26
 GREENVILLE, PA – Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
will headline a series of events during Thiel College's 2006 Fortnightly
Celebration of the Earth from April 12-26.
This year's event, the eighth annual Celebration
of the Earth, will focus on “Women and Children of the Earth,” and
special activities, including Kennedy's visit on April 26, include
speakers, entertainment, a workshop for grade-school children, and
a Global Journey featuring photos of women and children from around
the world.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12
• Nancy Arnison, “Human Rights of Women and Children and
the Contributions of Christian Faith.”: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday,
April 12, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller Student Center. Nancy
Arnison will present “Human Rights of Women and Children and the
Contributions of Christian Faith.” Arnison is the director of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s World Hunger Program.
She holds a law degree from the University of Michigan
Law School and has a background in human rights issues. She is currently
completing her Ph.D. in heology and Ethics from the University of Chicago
Divinity School.
TUESDAY, APRIL 18
• Student Workshop: From 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April
18. Hundreds of area grade school students will be on Thiel’s
campus to participate in a “Women and Children of the Earth Workshop.” Presenters
from off campus will join forces with faculty and students
of the biology, education, and religion departments of the college to
engage these young people in learning about various customs, ways, and
struggles of women and children in different cultural contexts around
the globe.
• Farooka Gauhari, “Women’s Role in Rebuilding Afghanistan”:
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 18, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller Student
Center. Farooka Gauhari, the first Afghan woman to publish an English
language memoir Searching for Saleem: An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey,
will speak on “Women’s Role in Rebuilding Afghanistan.” Gauhari’s
story reflects the harrowing encounters of countless
Afghan families, their sufferings and their struggles to maintain their
identities under totalitarian rule. Her personal account covers everything
from the search for her missing husband, watching her home country topple,
the shrinking presence of Afghan women in politics, witnessing the government
institutionalize repression, to her gradual decision to take her family
and leave a country where she had once been flagged as an American agent.
A question and answer session will follow.
• SAMITE Open Concert: 9 p.m., Tuesday, April 18, Lutheran Heritage
Room, Howard Miller Student Center. The performer Samite will give a
concert entitled “Music for Children of the Earth.” Samite,
back for the second year in a row, comes to Thiel from the African country
of Uganda and from Ithaca, N.Y. A musician and composer from Uganda,
Samite’s music – which merges traditional and contemporary
music – celebrates Ugandan culture: he sings in his native tongue
of Luganda and performs on African instruments such as kalimba, marimba,
litungu and flutes. In addition to Samite’s musical career, he
is the founder of the non-profit organization Musicians
for World Harmony, whose mission is to enable musicians throughout the
world to share their music to promote peace, understanding and harmony
among peoples, with a special emphasis on the displaced or the distressed
who could benefit most from the healing power of music.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19
• Arn Chorn-Pond, “Human Rights and Children of War”:
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller
Student Center. Chorn-Pond is an internationally recognized human rights
activist, community organizer and musician who survived the Cambodian
genocide. He spent four years in a labor camp, and survived by
playing the flute in a music ensemble created by Khmer Rouge leaders
to play the regime’s songs. At 15, he fled to a refugee camp in
Thailand, and later found a new life in the United States. His story
is told in the Academy-Award winning, documentary film The Flute Player, and
he shares his message of survival, hope, healing and
peace to audiences around the world. Mr. Chorn-Pond has spent a decade
as a speaker for Amnesty International and he co-founded Children of
War, an organization that educates young people around the country about
the devastating effects of war.
NOTE: The film The Flute Player, the story of Arn Chorn-Pond, will
be shown on the campus of Thiel College on Friday, April 14, and Saturday,
April 15 with both showings taking place at 7 p.m. in Bly Lecture Hall,
Academic Center.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Crimes Against Nature: Our Environmental
Destiny”: 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 26, William A. Passavant
Memorial Center, Thiel College. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., law professor
and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, is the
country’s most prominent environmental attorney. He is an authority
on the laws that have protected America’s air, water, public lands,
and wildlife for the past 30 years. His reputation as a resolute defender
of the environment stems from a litany of successful confrontations
against governments and companies polluting the Hudson River and Long
Island Sound. In Kennedy’s recent book “Crimes Against Nature,” released
in fall 2004, he shares his concerns for the health of our world’s
environment. The book details the poor environmental
record of the current administration as compared to Republican and Democratic
administrations of the past.
All of the events throughout the celebration
are free and open to the public. The events of the
Fortnightly Earth Celebration on “Women
and Children of the Earth” are sponsored by the Global Institute
of Thiel College, working in partnership with the College’s Division
for Student Engagement and Success. Questions related
to the Fortnightly Celebration of the Earth can be directed
to co-directors of the Global Institute, Dr. Curt Thompson
at (724) 589-2016, Dr. Joyce Cuff at (724) 589-2066,
or Marianne Calenda at (724) 589-2028. |
