The Office of International Programs invites you to participate in UNCW’s 17th Annual I-Week 2010 (February 15-20). The theme of this year’s I-Week will be “Connecting Communities through Social Justice.” Start thinking about sponsoring, organizing, and/or participating in an I-Week event. Panel sessions, movies, workshops, presentations, performances, posters, photo and art exhibitions, simulation exercises, are all acceptable media.

As suggested by the title, we want to focus on how social justice affects communities. If, for example, we might assume that social injustice divides members of a community, we might then explore how the process of social justice connects them. We may also look at how an example of local social justice has repercussions in the global community. A few natural fits for this topic would be panels or lectures dealing with the restorative justice movement as it relates to Australia’s aboriginal and dominant white populations or tribunals held to convict the perpetrators of Argentina’s Dirty War. Nevertheless, please know that we want to explore this topic through the widest of interdisciplinary lens. Art and education heal communities. In fact, part of the reason for choosing this theme was to dovetail with the Leadership Lecture to be held on Monday, February 15 in Kenan Hall: Jonathan Kozol, “Joy and Justice: An Invitation to Serve the Children of the Poor.” Kozol will talk about social justice and education in the Boston public schools. A panel discussion that connects what’s happening in Boston with, say, what’s happening in Belize or South Africa would allow us to link local and global issues. A play or a piece of music that brings the spectator or listener to a heightened sense of justice, even in the most abstract way, will be a significant contribution to this week-long learning community.

Please fill out the attached proposal form and return it to Jennifer Fernández Villa in OIP. (Full instructions on attachment.)