Truth, Memory, and Reconciliation

7.30.2008

Nancy Morrison Residential School Survivor 1Nancy Morrison Residential School Survivor 1

Relatives of disappeared children Canada 1

7.29.2008

Rwanda: Nadege and Caritas remember

More than 800,000 people were murdered in 1994 during the Rwanda Genocide. Now two women who survived it tell their stories.

Gacaca Rwanda woman's testimony

Clip from the documentary film "In the Tall Grass" which explore the work of gacaca is trying those accused of genocide.

Gacaca Rwanda "Growing Roses on a Bed of Skeletons"

When the genocide breaks out in Rwanda in 1994, Gilbert's family, father, mother and young sister are killed. Along with 200 neighbours, they are attacked with hoes and then burned alive in a pit in his parent's back garden. This coming film follows what happens next...

Course Instructors

Angela Contreras-Chávez has done extensive work in academic, non-governmental, governmental, and religious contexts in projects committed to peace, religious freedom, the elimination of poverty, and the promotion of justice and human rights. Between 1987 and 1993 in Guatemala she worked at numerous applied anthropology projects linked to promoting respect to the dignity of the Maya and understanding their cosmovision and history. She was a research assistant to Dr. Myrna Mack, with Guatemala's Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences, during her research on forced migration and political violence. In 1992 Angela and a small group of colleagues co-founded the Forensic Anthropology Team of Guatemala, which provided independently collected evidence on human rights abuses perpetrated against civilians during the country's counterinsurgency war. Upon earning her B.A. in cultural anthropology from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Angela went to work at the Apostolic Vicariate of El Petén-Guatemala monitoring human rights of the Maya-Kekchi internally displaced by the war.Angela's doctoral work has analyzed the influence of the Mayan cosmovision on the victims' rights movement and the fight against impunity in Guatemala's criminal justice system. Angela has also studied human rights, peacekeeping, victims' rights and international justice at the Pearson Peace Centre in Halifax, at the Institute of Human Rights at University of Galway, and at the International Institute of International Crime Investigators in The Hague. In 2006 Angela founded VeraPax, a collective of women located in the Americas, Asia and Africa that provides investigation and analysis, program evaluation, and project management services to socially conscious organizations and individuals working locally or globally.

Lorena Sekwan Fontaine B.A., LL.B., LL.M. is Cree and Anishnabe from the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba. She is a member of the wolf clan and the Three Fires Midewiwin Society. She is Assistant Professor of Aboriginal Governance at University of Winnipeg and a Doctoral Candidate at Osgood, York University, researching Aboriginal language rights in Canada. Prior to this Lorena was an Assistant Professor for the First Nations University of Canada. She has worked with Aboriginal political organizations for the past 19 years. For the past five years Lorena has advocated for Aboriginal Residential School Survivors as well as Children of Residential School Survivors. Lorena has spoken nationally and has authored articles in Australia and Canada on Residential School issues. In 2003 Lorena was a task force member and contributor to the Assembly of First Nation's Report on Canada's Dispute Resolution Plan to compensate for Abuses in Indian Residential Schools. Lorena has also acted as a legal consultant to the Toronto law firm Thomson, Rogers for the plaintiffs and their counsel in the Baxter National Residential School Class Action as well as to Mother of Red Nations Women's Council in Manitoba on cultural harm issues. Currently, Lorena is organizing a group of Children of Residential School Survivors across Canada to facilitate their input in the Residential School Truth and Reconciliation process. Both Lorena's parents and grandparents are Residential School Survivors. Internationally, Lorena has worked with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States as a legal intern, and has assisted in land rights cases for Indigenous peoples in Belize, and the United States.

Truth, Memory, and Reconciliation

7.30.2008

Nancy Morrison Residential School Survivor 1Nancy Morrison Residential School Survivor 1

Relatives of disappeared children Canada 1

7.29.2008

Rwanda: Nadege and Caritas remember

Gacaca Rwanda woman's testimony

Gacaca Rwanda "Growing Roses on a Bed of Skeletons"

INDEX

INTERNET LINKS: Introduction to Human Rights, Basic Concepts, Residential Schools,

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