Symposia

We have coordinated several symposia focused on issues of social justice, spirituality and healing. These were organized in Denver, Colorado and co-sponsored with a variety of local educational, cultural and religious groups. The following are descriptions of recent gatherings.

In collaboration with the Simpson United Methodist Church and the Tri-State Buddhist Fellowship, we organized a two-day symposium on Spirituality in the Japanese American Internment. On the first day of the symposium, held at the Buddhist temple in downtown Denver, older Japanese-Americans who had been imprisoned in the camps during World War II talked about their experiences and the religious and cultural resources they drew on to help themselves survive. The events of the second day, at the Methodist church, featured younger people -- children and grandchildren of those who had been interned -- who interpreted the meaning of the camps through the lens of their own experience, artistry and convictions.

During the first visit of Valdina Pinto, an environmental rights activist and Candomblé priestess from Bahia, Brazil, we organized a symposium on Eco-Theology in Religions of the Afro-Atlantic Diaspora. This gathering featured Ms. Pinto, Maaraidzo Mutambara (an Iliff student and Project staff member who studies concepts of land preservation from the perspective of traditional African religions) and Dr. Chirevo Kwenda, a South African theologian and specialist in traditional African religions who was visiting professor at the W.E.B. DuBois center for Afro-American studies at Harvard University. The panelists discussed perspectives of environmental justice and human rights in Afro-Latin American and African religions.

During Ms. Pinto's second visit to the Project, we hosted a symposium -- co-sponsored by several local organizations -- called Healing Communities: Models of Personal and Societal Healing from Indigenous Traditions. The day-long gathering included Grupo Tlaloc, a local Aztec Dance group; a Mexican-American curandera, Diana Velasquez; Yvonne Lee, a Methodist pastor and student of Korean Shamanism; Maaraidzo Mutambara, a doctoral student who spoke about Shona traditions of ancestral connection to land; Ramon del Castillo, poet and student of Mexican Curanderismo; Valnizia Pereira Oliveira, Candomblé priestess and healer and Ms. Pinto, also a priestess and healer in the Candomblé tradition. The panelists were asked to address ways that indigenous healing models might address societal illnesses and injustices. The event was facilitated by Dr. Edward Antonio, an Iliff professor from Zimbabwe whose work includes the area of African theology. The symposium was held at the Iliff School of Theology and catered with delicious Kenyan food by Anne Gatobu, an Iliff doctoral student.

International Exchanges

Since 1997, in addition to US-based veterans, we have interviewed several international peace and justice activists -- from Guatemala, Thailand, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico. In several instances our international veterans have spent extended amounts of time with us -- usually between two and five weeks -- and have presented their work, their stories and their visions to audiences as varied as middle school children, interfaith dialogue groups, and conference participants. Additionally, we have been able to sponsor and/or coordinate international exchanges to Brazil and to West Africa.

We organized a study-tour to Brazil that included several Veterans (Sonia Sanchez and Rachel Noel among them) as well as other, younger activists, artists and religious leaders. Over at two-week period we visited Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Bahia meeting with local activists, visiting educational and cultural organizations, and learning about how Afro-Brazilian religious and cultural traditions have been resources for social change movements in Brazil.

We coordinated a delegation to the annual conference of the Association for the Promotion of Traditional African Medicine (PROMETRA) in Benin, West Africa. Our delegation included three Afro-Brazilian healers who are also ritual elders in the Candomblé religion. These individuals had tremendous knowledge of herbal and spiritual healing which are central elements of the African-based religious systems of which they are a part. Our group was part of a larger assembly of "American" (North and South America) representatives to the conference which included Patricia Moore Harbour, founder of Healing the Heart of Diversity, and other representatives of that organization. Our presentations and conversations centered around the work of healing the historical and social wounds of slavery as well as recognizing the enduring power of traditional medicine to address some of the world's major health crises.