Akira Kawasaki will give a lecture in Taipei on Dec. 8 called Nurturing Changemakers: Peace Education in a Globalized Era.
Kawasaki, an International Steering Group member of Nobel Prize-winning organization International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and an Executive Committee member of Peace Boat, will discuss ways to increase participatory learning to combat discrimination throughout the globe.
The lecture, which is part of the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation (龍應台文化基金會) Taipei Salon (台北沙龍) lecture series, will be moderated by Shaw May-Yi (邵梅儀), Assistant Professor of Humanities Education, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Photo courtesy of ICAN
Kawasaki’s talk will examine how advances in technologies have led to the rapid spread of discrimination and hatred — and even nuclear weapons pose once again an existential risk to humanity. When peace is threatened, he says, peace education becomes critical. How do we nurture change-makers who can take concrete actions toward peace?
As a member of ICAN, Kawasaki has devoted years to the abolition of nuclear weapons. The civil society coalition has helped bring about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted by the United Nations in 2017. Since 2008, Kawasaki has coordinated the “Global Voyage for a Nuclear-Free World: Peace Boat’s Hibakusha Project,” in which atomic bomb survivors travel the world to share their stories.
Drawing on his extensive experience, Kawasaki will discuss the importance of first-hand participatory learning as a means to understand the consequences of global conflicts and disasters in diverse regions.
■ Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance (台灣金融研訓院), 2F, 62 Roosevelt Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路三段62號2樓)
■ Sunday Dec 8 from 2pm to 3:30pm; free admission, but those wanting to attend must pre-register at www.civictaipei.org/registration.php (English and Chinese). For more information, call Tiffany Jan (02) 3322-4907, Ext. 12. The lecture will be held in English.
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