The Circle Women’s Centre at Brescia University College is pleased to welcome award-winning reporter and author Stephanie Nolen, South Asia correspondent for the Globe & Mail, to present the International Women’s Day (IWD) lecture of the Sophia Series.
Nolen’s address titled, “Courage in the Darkness: Women, Hope & the Power for Change,” will be presented in the Brescia Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Thursday (Mar. 11) – the eve of the second Women Making Change Conference, which will be held on Mar. 12.
Nolen has reported from more than 40 countries around the world. She is a four-time winner of the National Newspaper Award for coverage that has taken her from war zones to AIDS clinics to camel races.
In 2008, she ended a six-year assignment based in Johannesburg, in which she had a particular mandate to cover the impact of the HIV-AIDS pandemic across Africa – one of only two reporters in the world media with that assignment. Some of her experiences are captured in her best-selling book 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa, and she’ll be drawing on those stories in her address at Brescia.
“Being in Canada there’s this ability to live in the cocoon of our comfortable life here and think there’s nothing I can do, or I’m not connected to it, or it’s not my responsibility or my fault,” says Nolen. “I’ve seen first-hand how we’re all connected. I think we all recognize the way that we’re connected and need to ask what our responsibilities are and what we can easily do.”
In addition to hearing Nolen’s inspiring words, guests will see a display by Art for AIDS International, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds and awareness for those most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In a second IWD event at Brescia on Mar. 12 (9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.) in the St. James Building, students and community members will present on the subject of change individually and collectively, locally and globally at the second annual Women Making Change Conference.
The event is being organized by Kim Young-Milani, director of The Circle and the Institute for Women in Leadership and Faculty of Education professor Rebecca Coulter.