More than 114 million individuals are currently displaced worldwide because of war. Many more are trapped in dangerous conflict zones. A Night for Peace will centre around two fireside conversations with women who know exactly what it feels like to watch their home, community and country be ripped apart by war.

Speakers:

Leymah Gbowee is a Nobel Prize Winning peace activist. Leymah was seventeen years old when the Liberian civil war started and turned her, in her own words, “from a child into an adult in a matter of hours.” While the conflict raged, she became a young mother and eventually trained as a social worker and trauma counselor, working with ex-child soldiers. Leymah is best known for leading a nonviolent movement that brought together Christian and Muslim women to play a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s devastating fourteen-year civil war in 2003. This historic achievement paved the way for the election of Africa’s first female head of state, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. It also marked the vanguard of a new wave of women emerging worldwide as essential and uniquely effective participants in brokering lasting peace and security. We will sit down with Leymah to discuss her historic achievement and the importance of placing women at the centre of peace negotiations.

Waad Al-Kateab is a BAFTA winning and Oscar nominated filmmaker. In 2011, when protests against the Assad regime swept across Syria, Waad taught herself how to film and became a citizen journalist, determined to document the horrors of the war. The reports she made for Channel 4 News on the conflict in Syria became the most watched pieces on the news programme – and received almost half a billion views online.  Waad documented her whole life, creating the film ‘For Sama’ which won best documentary at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Best Documentary at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards in 2020 and received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 2020 Academy Awards. Waad will join us to discuss For Sama, as well as her latest documentary, We Dare to Dream, which tells the stories of refugees competing in the Olympic Refugee Team and why journalists and filmmakers are so crucial in raising awareness of conflict globally.

Moderator

Hannah Ajala is an international journalist and presenter currently specializing in remarkable storytelling and podcasts for organizations like the BBC and CBC. She has spent over three years traveling across Africa, working on a range of stories and broadcasting for international organizations. Hannah is an alumna of Creative Access, a charity organization working towards the initiative of having more Black and minority individuals in the media. In 2018, Hannah founded We Are Black Journos (WABJ) after her years of experience working at the BBC and seeing a lack of societal representation in the newsroom. WABJ is a platform aimed at highlighting and celebrating the brilliant work of Black journalists in the UK, who make up 1% of the population. Through this platform, she has built, WABJ has collaborated with renowned news and media organizations including Financial Times, BBC, Marie Claire, PinkNews, Bloomberg, and more. WABJ has a growing online network of over 5000 journalists, executives, and those working in the media.

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