Day 2: Continuing Seminars & Next Steps

Day 1: Opening Panel & Seminar

AWWA Co-Director Edie Hartshorne opened the conference with a performance of Japanese koto music. Then the opening panel of guests, including... gave talks about the state of various Central American countries' efforts to de-militarize.

Opening Celebrations

In addition to the exhibition, there were some wonderful performances by children, including a shadow puppet show, poetry, traditional dance, and music. Sandra Ribas, AWWA Costa Rica Coordinator, even felt inspired to give an impromptu dance performance!

In Memory of Cranes

As part of the prep for the conference, organizers created many paper cranes at UCI to welcome participants. They are in memory of a little girl in Japan who was injured by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and vowed to make 1000 cranes before she died as a prayer for peace.

Young Visions of a World Without War

I had the opportunity to curate this wonderful exhibition of children's work from Nepal, Costa Rica, Italy, Poland, and Germany at the Ministry of Culture in San Jose, Costa Rica. The paintings asked very simple questions --questions such as "What is peace?" "What is violence?"
...and "What would our world look like without war?"



Other pics:


Lily, an American student and volunteer.



Ruth helped coordinate the logistics for the conference--and was its facilitator, host, organizer extraordinaire.