February 2012

"Who Am I? Empowering Me to Be Me" ALANA Network Crossing Boundaries Conference (College Community Only)
Saturday, 2/11/2012 12:30 PM-6:30 PM
Worcester State University: Student Center, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, MA - Free for Consortium Students, must register in advance
This ALANA student conference is your opportunity to meet with other Consortium students of color while exploring the concept of personal identity. You will
reflect upon and examine who YOU are and how you can
integrate that into your campus experience and your life.

Schedule:
12:30pm Registration
1:00pm Welcome, Student Performance
Opening & Keynote: Dr. Robert E. Johnson
1:45pm Workshop Session
2:45pm Workshop Session
3:45pm Closing workshop with Dr. Ravi Perry
5:00pm Dinner and Debriefing

Register with your Office of Multicultural Affairs by January 27.
Sponsored by: Colleges of Worcester Consortium ALANA Network
For more information, e-mail studentaffairs@cowc.org.

"Oppressed Everywhere in this Slavery-Cursed Land": Free People of Color Before the Civil War
Sunday, 2/12/2012 2:00 PM-3:00 PM
Worcester Art Museum, Conference Room, 55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA - Free with Musuem Admission
Professor Janette Greenwood, author of "First Fruits of Freedom: The Migration of Former Slaves and Their Search for Equality in Worcester," will explore the worlds of free people of color in both the American South and New England. She will discuss the legal and social restrictions that limited their freedom as well as their fight for full-fledged citizenship. Free with Museum Admission.

For more information on programming associated with the Julien Hudson exhibition, visit: http://www.worcesterart.org/Exhibitions/julien-hudson/events.html
Sponsored by: This exhibition is co-organized by Worcester Art Museum and The Historic New Orleans Collection. It is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information, e-mail information@worcesterart.org.

Black Culture Movie Night-SKIN
Wednesday, 2/15/2012 5:30 PM-8:00 PM
Worcester Public Library, Saxe Room, 3 Salem Square, Worcester, MA - 00
SKIN is one of the most moving stories to emerge from apartheid South Africa: Sandra Laing is a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners, unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, who lovingly bring her up as their white little girl. But at the age of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society. The film follows Sandras thirty-year journey from rejection to acceptance, betrayal to reconciliation, as she struggles to define her place in a changing world - and triumphs against all odds. http://www.skinthemovie.net/site/ . Presented by OurStory Edutainment and Anna Maria College International Film Group.

For more information, e-mail earthsister17@aol.com or call 508-410-1209.

The Human Right to Peace
Sunday, 2/19/2012 9:00 AM-9:00 PM
Clark University: Jonas Clark Hall, 3rd floor, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA - Conference $35 paid by February 15 to Virginia Swain, Center for Global Community and World Law, 210 Park Avenue, Suite 299, Worcester, MA 01609
Imaging A Human Right to Peace: An Interactive Conference
Sponsored by the Coalition of the Human Right to Peace Conference

Sunday, February 19, 2012 at Jonas Clark Hall, Clark University, 3rd Floor

Agenda

9:00 Introductions Interested Observers and Active Participants are welcome! Participants are asked to first read “A Brief Background to the Human Right to Peace” http://www.aedidh.org/?q=node/1969/

Introductory Remarks
Professor Joseph Baratta, Co-Founder, Center for Global Community and World Law

Facilitators:
Dr. Michael Britton and Virginia Swain of the Center for Global Community and World Law www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org

10:00 Skype Conference Remarks from Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, Negotiator of the Santiago Declaration of the Human Right to Peace.http://bit.ly/ytGZ9p. Ambassador Chowdhury’s most recent article can be found at http://bit.ly/ytGZ9p

10:30 Evelin Lindner, MD, Ph.D and Linda Hartling, Ph.D, Found and Director of the World Dignity Institute www.worlddignityuniversity.org/joo/ and Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies Network on skype from Oslo and Seattle

11:00-5:00 with short lunch break-- participants encouraged to bring their lunch

Presentation of papers and abstracts (15 minutes each) on Coalition for the Human Right to Peace Steering Committee Members special interests of the Human Right to Peace. Concurrent Imaging Process faciliated by Dr. Michael Britton and Virginia Swain using Dr. Elise Boulding (late Professor Emeritus of Dartmouth College) and Warren Ziegler methodology. Boulding and Ziegler created an imaging workshop to motivate behavior in the present by using images of the future. Their theory is that the people of this earth will not be able to create something they haven’t envisioned. As people imagine a positive future, they then can work back into present time to achieve a positive present with a timeline and concrete action steps. Dr. Boulding believed that if we can image a solution to a challenge, the solution will happen after we get practical with a timeline and action steps. www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/BouldingWhyImaginetheFuture.pdf

Virginia Swain was trained by Dr. Boulding to lead imaging workshops and has been using imaging in the Reconciliation Leadership courses, the Global Mediation and Reconciliation Service she founded at the United Nations and the Coalition for the Human Right to Peace she founded in Worcester in 2011.

Abstract presentations TBA

Dinner 6:00-9:00 pm at the home of Virginia Swain and Joseph Baratta

Join the Coalition for the Human Right to Peace http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_contact.html

Donate to the Center for Global Community and World Law for their work on the Human Right to Peace http://www.centerglobalcommunitylaw.org/wl_getinvolved.html

For two articles on the Launching of the Coalition of the Human Right to Peace and an Interview with Dr. Joseph Baratta and Virginia Swain:
•http://bit.ly/ACNq0U
•http://bit.ly/s54THI

Many of the people involved in the Human Right to Peace have been interviewed on Virginia Swain's television show, Imagine Worcester and the World. To view their interviews, go to http://bit.ly/svdp1O
Sponsored by: Center for Global Community and World Law
For more information, e-mail vswain@centerglobalcommunitylaw.org or call 508-245-6843.

Black Culture Movie Night-The Interrupters
Wednesday, 2/22/2012 5:30 PM-8:00 PM
Worcester Public Library, Saxe Room, 3 Salem Square, Worcester, MA - 00
The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. From acclaimed director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, this film is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities. Shot over the course of a year out of Kartemquin Films, The Interrupters captures a period in Chicago when it became a national symbol for the violence in our cities. During that period, the city was besieged by high-profile incidents, most notably the brutal beating of Derrion Albert, a Chicago High School student, whose death was caught on videotape. The films main subjects work for an innovative organization, CeaseFire. It was founded by an epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, who believes that the spread of violence mimics the spread of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. www/ http://interrupters.kartemquin.com/ . Presented by OurStory
Edutainment and T. Lee Associates & the Institute for Nonviolence &Community Change.

For more information, e-mail earthsister17@aol.com or call 508-410-1209.

The Ghost of Pere Antoine: Afro-Creole Traditions and the Making of New Orleans Catholicism
Thursday, 2/23/2012 6:00 PM-7:00 PM
Worcester Art Museum, Conference Room, 55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA - Free with Musuem Admission
This lecture explores how race informed dominant narratives of New Orleans' Catholic heritage. It also examines the struggle by many Catholics of color in the early twentieth century to recover this lost Afro-Creole tradition against the rise of Jim Crow discrimination. Speaker Justin D. Poché is Assistant Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross. Held in conjunction with the exhibition "In Search of Julien Hudson: Free Artist of Color in Pre-Civil War New Orleans." Event is sponsored by The College of the Holy Cross.

Sponsored by: The College of the Holy Cross
For more information, e-mail information@worcesterart.org.

Black Culture Movie Night~ The Help
Wednesday, 2/29/2012 5:30 PM-8:00 PM
Worcester Public Library, 3 Salem Square, Worcester, MA - 00
THE HELP (Sha-Asias Choice). An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960's decides to write a book detailing the African-American maid's point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis. http://thehelpmovie.com/us/#s=about
For more information, e-mail earthsister17@aol.com or call 508-410-1209.

March 2012

Courageous Conversations
Thursday, 3/15/2012 10:00 AM-11:30 PM
Worcester State University: Student Center, Blue Lounge, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, MA - Free
“Define American: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant”

Immigration, a highly polarized and powerful issue.

Jose Antonio Vargas was born in the Philippines and sent by his mother to live in the U.S. with his grandparents when he was 12. His essay in the New York Times Magazine (June 2011) disclosed his story, "My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant," stunning the media and political circles and attracting worldwide coverage. A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and activist, Vargas has written for some of the most prestigious news organizations in the country which include The New Yorker, the Huffington Post, and the Washington Post.

He has received esteemed recognition for work by the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and also appeared on
programs such as CNN, ABC News, and PBS NewsHour.

FREE PARKING IN THE UNIVERSITY PARKING GARAGE

For a campus map and directions visit www.worcester.edu/directions. For more info call 508-929-8049.
Sponsored by: Third World Alliance, Office of Multicultural Affairs, International Programs, Amnesty International, and the Center for the Study of Human Rights
For more information, e-mail kannucci@worcester.edu or call 508-929-8049.

"Celebrate-A Multi-Cultural Celebration of the Arts"
Sunday, 3/18/2012 1:00 PM-4:00 PM
Mechanics Hall, 321 Main Street, Worcester, MA - $5.00
This multicultural celebration will surely provide a memorable connection between art, music and dance. Audiences will be charmed by the internationally recognized Daxing Childrens Chorus who will travel all the way from Beijing to perform. This spectacular celebration will also include the stunningly gifted dancers from both Jo Ann Warren Dance Co. and Ritmos Academy-Latin Cultural Dancers. The Seven Hills Show Choir and Worcester Childrens Chorus will share their extraordinary talent with their artistic contributions of song to this showcase of talent. The Worcester WAIT Team will provide genius break dancing and the Seven Hills Stomp Team will delight you with their award winning display of rhythms. The Massachusetts Beijing Chinese Language Schools students will round out this event as they feature creative songs and dances that will add to the musically enchanting performances of the afternoon.

This display of talent will surely highlight some of the spectacular talent of Worcesters youth and the diversity and richness of our community.

Sponsored by: Worcester Arts Council, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Telegram and Gazette, Massachusetts Beijing Chinese Language School, Mechanics Hall and Seven Hills Charter Public School
For more information, e-mail kholton@sevenhillscharter.org or call 508-799-7500x1011.

17th Latino Film Festival - Viva Cuba (Cuba)
Tuesday, 3/27/2012 7:30 PM-9:30 PM
Clark University: Jefferson Academic Center, Cinema 320, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA - $6.00 Adults; $4.00 students/seniors
Viva Cuba - Cuba 2005 - Drama
Directors: Juan Carlos Cremata and Iraida Malberti Cabrera
In Spanish with English sub-titles
Shown again on Saturday, March 31 at 7:30 PM Cinema 320

Malú is from an upper class family, and her single mother does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background is coarse and common-place. Jorgito's mother, a poor socialist proud of her family's social standing, places similar restrictions on her son. What neither woman recognizes is the immense strength of the bond between Malú and Jorgito. When the children find out that Malú's mother is planning to leave Cuba, they decide to run away and travel to the other side of the island to find Malú's father and persuade him not to sign the forms that would allow it.

Sponsored by: Centro Las Americas, Clark University, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, QCC, Fletcher Foundation
For more information, e-mail dollyvaz@hotmail.com or call 508-798-1900x229.

17th Latino Film Festival - Los Colores de la Montaña (Colombia)
Thursday, 3/29/2012 7:30 PM-9:30 PM
Clark University: Jefferson Academic Center, Cinema 320, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA - $6.00 Adults; $4.00 students/seniors
Los Colores de la Montaña - Colombia 2010 - Drama
Director: Carlos Cesar Arbelaez
In Spanish with English sub-titles

Manuel, 9, has an old ball with which he plays football every day in the countryside. He dreams of becoming a great goalkeeper. His wishes seem set to come true when Ernest, his father, gives him a new ball. But an unexpected accident sends the ball flying into a minefield. Despite the danger, Manuel refuses to abandon his treasure. He convinces Julián and Poca Luz, his two friends, to rescue it with him. Amid the adventures and kids' games, the signs of armed conflict start to appear in the lives of the inhabitants of 'La Pradera'.
Sponsored by: Centro Las Americas, Clark University, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, QCC, Fletcher Foundation
For more information, e-mail dollyvaz@hotmail.com or call 508-798-1900x229.

17th Latino Film Festival - America (Puerto Rico)
Saturday, 3/31/2012 1:00 PM-3:00 PM
Clark University: Traina Center for the Arts, Razzo Hall, 92 Downing Street, Worcester, MA - $6.00 Adults; $4.00 students/seniors
America - Puerto Rico 2011 - Drama
Director: Sonia Fritz
Sonia Fritz will be present during this showing and will do a questions/answers session after the movie.
In Spanish with English sub-titles

America, a 30-year-old mother who lives in a remote Caribbean village has an abusive lover, but she suffers the hardest hit when he takes their daughter from her. Fury and fear push her to run away. In her new life as a nanny in New York City, with support from relatives and other Latinas, America finds comfort and hope. When she dares to dream of a life without violence, however, reality hunts her down.
America is based on the novel America’s Dream, by Esmeralda Santiago.

Sponsored by: Centro Las Americas, Clark University, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, QCC, Fletcher Foundation
For more information, e-mail dollyvaz@hotmail.com or call 508-798-1900x229.

17th Latino Film Festival - Viva Cuba (Cuba)
Saturday, 3/31/2012 7:30 PM-9:30 PM
Clark University: Jefferson Academic Center, Cinema 320, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA - $6.00 Adults; $4.00 students/seniors
Viva Cuba - Cuba 2005 - Drama
Directors: Juan Carlos Cremata and Iraida Malberti Cabrera
In Spanish with English sub-titles

Malú is from an upper class family, and her single mother does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background is coarse and common-place. Jorgito's mother, a poor socialist proud of her family's social standing, places similar restrictions on her son. What neither woman recognizes is the immense strength of the bond between Malú and Jorgito. When the children find out that Malú's mother is planning to leave Cuba, they decide to run away and travel to the other side of the island to find Malú's father and persuade him not to sign the forms that would allow it.

Sponsored by: Centro Las Americas, Clark University, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, QCC, Fletcher Foundation
For more information, e-mail dollyvaz@hotmail.com or call 508-798-1900x229.

April 2012

17th Latino Film Festival - 3 Americas (Argentina/USA)
Sunday, 4/1/2012 1:00 PM-3:00 PM
Clark University: Jefferson Academic Center, Cinema 320, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA - $6.00 Adults; $4.00 students/seniors
3 Americas - Argentina/USA 2007 - Drama
Director/Writer: Cristina Kotz Cornejo
Cristina Kotz will be present for a questions/answers session after the movie.
In Spanish with English sub-titles

With summer approaching, 16 year-old América has two issues with her life in the United States, or so she thinks. She hates school, and she hates her aunt Carolina’s alcoholic husband, Joey. She passes the days shoplifting, hanging out with her friends and trying to avoid Joey. After a life-changing event, América, whose Spanish is limited, is sent to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to live with her reclusive and anti-American grandmother, Lucía América Campos. In Argentina, América struggles to find her place with a grandmother she has never known and to hold onto a friendship with Sergio, a neighbor twice her age.
Sponsored by: Centro Las Americas, Clark University, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, QCC, Fletcher Foundation
For more information, e-mail dollyvaz@hotmail.com or call 508-798-1900x229.

17th Latino Film Festival - America (Puerto Rico)
Sunday, 4/1/2012 4:00 PM-6:00 PM
Clark University: Jefferson Academic Center, Cinema 320, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA - $6.00 Adults; $4.00 students/seniors
America - Puerto Rico 2011 - Drama
Director: Sonia Fritz
In Spanish with English sub-titles

America, a 30-year-old mother who lives in a remote Caribbean village has an abusive lover, but she suffers the hardest hit when he takes their daughter from her. Fury and fear push her to run away. In her new life as a nanny in New York City, with support from relatives and other Latinas, America finds comfort and hope. When she dares to dream of a life without violence, however, reality hunts her down.
America is based on the novel America’s Dream, by Esmeralda Santiago.

Sponsored by: Centro Las Americas, Clark University, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, QCC, Fletcher Foundation
For more information, e-mail dollyvaz@hotmail.com or call 508-798-1900x229.

Sean Kingston Colleges of Worcester Consortium Spring Concert 2012
Monday, 4/2/2012 7:30 PM-10:00 PM
Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St., Worcester, MA - $15 sponsoring campuses; $25 other Consortium students; $40 general public
Ticket Info:
Available at your campus ticket sale location (or through Hanover Box Office online or call 877-571-SHOW)
-$15 students at sponsoring campuses (AC, Becker, Clark, Holy Cross, WPI, WSU--Best seats at the best price if you buy on campus)

-$25 non-sponsoring Consortium students (See your student activities office for possible discounts or better seats.)

-General public tickets are $40 at the Hanover Box office online or call 877-571-SHOW

There will be a $2/ticket and $2.50/order fee when buying online or by phone.

FREE Transportation from sponsoring colleges. (Check with your student activities office for more information.)

Sponsored by: Assumption College, Becker College, Clark University, College of the Holy Cross, WPI, Worcester State University, Hanover Theatre and Colleges of Worcester Consortium
For more information, e-mail studentaffairs@cowc.org.