Buffalo State College‘s 2004 “Peace Week” activities will begin Friday, Oct. 15, with a showing of the film “Gandhi,” at 3 p.m. in Science Building 213, and culminate Friday, Oct. 22, with the college‘s third annual peace conference in the Buckham Campus West School Auditorium featuring a presentation by Loung Ung, a survivor of Cambodia‘s brutal Pol Pot regime.
Throughout the week, campus-wide food, toy and clothing drives will be held to benefit the nearly 1,000 refugees who use the resettlement services of the International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Services, Catholic Charities, Viva La Casa and Journey‘s End Resettlement Services.
On Saturday, Oct. 16, a ceremony honoring casualties of war will be held by the Committee for the Study of Understanding, Community and Peace at the Martin Luther King Park Monument.
A flag-raising ceremony to raise the United Nations and United States flags in front of the Campbell Student Union will be held at 12:15 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 18. Participating will be Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dennis Ponton, Professor of Political Science Abdul Raoof, United Students Government President Todd Espinosa and members of the Buffalo State College University Police and the Niagara Frontier American Legion Post 1041. Campus West sixth grader Dolores Pereira will read a peace poem.
Also on Monday, the International Student Organization, the International Student Advisory Council and Students for Peace will hold an all-day, campus-wide food drive. Drop-off points will be located in the lobbies of the student union and E. H. Butler Library, as well as the Social Work Department in Classroom Building 114B, the Hospitality and Tourism Department in Caudell Hall 207, the Educational Foundations Department in Bacon Hall 306 and the English Department in Ketchum Hall 316.
On Tuesday, Oct. 19, the International Student Organization and the International Student Advisory Council will hold an all-day, campus-wide toy drive, using the same drop-off points as the previous day‘s food drive.
At 12:15, the film, “At the River I Stand,” will be shown in Bulger Communication Center West. The showing is sponsored by the Committee for the Study of Understanding, Community and Peace.
On Wednesday, Oct. 20, an all-day, campus-wide winter clothing drive, also coordinated by the International Student Organization and the International Student Advisory Council, will be held, using the same drop-off points as the previous day‘s toy drive.
On Thursday, Oct. 21, the International Student Advisory Council, the International Student Organization and the American Red Cross will hold an all-day blood drive in the Campbell Student Union Assembly Hall. Food, toys and winter clothing donations will also be accepted there. Project FLIGHT, a family literacy program based at Buffalo State College, will donate food and beverages for the blood drive.
On Friday, Oct. 22, the Third Annual Conference for the Study of Understanding, Community and Peace begins at 9 a.m. in the Buckham Campus West Auditorium with a welcome and program introduction from Jean Gounard, Director of International Student Affairs at Buffalo State College and the driving force behind the college‘s peace week activities.
At 9:25 a.m., Celeste Lawson, executive director of the Arts Council in Buffalo and Erie County, will present “Western New York Initiatives for Community Peace.” After her presentation, from 9:40 a.m. to 10:25 a.m., students from Buffalo State College and Campus West School will read essays they wrote about peace. At 10:25 a.m., the BSC Jazz Project, directed by Thomas Witakowski, associate professor of performing arts, will perform.
At 10:40 a.m., Alexandra von Willisen, legal officer in the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, will present “U.N. Policy and Practices that Link World Energy with Peace.”
Sulayman S. Nyang, of Howard University, will lecture on “Overcoming Barriers to Personal, Community, National and World Peace: Finding Human Energy Resources,” at 11:10 a.m.
After lunch catered by Kabab and Curry, Buffalo State College and Campus West students will read more essays on peace at 1:15 p.m., followed by Loung Ung‘s keynote presentation: “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers.”
Born to a middle class family in Phnom Penh, Ung was forced out of the city with her family during a mass evacuation to the countryside. Her parents and two of her siblings were killed by the Khmer Rouge, and she and her brother were forced to train as child soldiers before escaping to Thailand where they spent five months in a refugee camp before relocating to Vermont through a sponsorship by the Holy Family Church.
Her memoir, “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers,” was a national best-seller and recipient of the 2001 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature and the 2000 Books for a Better World literature award.
Ung has spoken widely to universities, schools and corporations throughout the U.S. and internationally, including the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing.
Her visit to Buffalo is partially sponsored by Medialle College, where she will appear from 10:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. in the college‘s library in Huber Hall to sign her book. Copies will also be on sale. For additional information about the Medaille College booksigning, contact Karen King at (716) 884-3281, ext. 448.
The conference will conclude with a presentation by Cynthia Ellis, vice president of humanitarian affairs for Television Time, “Threads of Peace: The Impact of Environmental Issues on Development in Central America and the Caribbean.”
For additional information on the conference or Peace Week activities, contact the Buffalo State College Office of International Student Affairs at (716) 878-5331.