Concordia Gears Up for Nobel Peace Prize Forum
Plans are fully underway for the 20th Annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum March 7-8 on Concordia's campus. Students, faculty and staff from five colleges, along with members of the Fargo-Moorhead community, are expected at the event, which will explore the theme of "Striving for Peace: Investing in Community."
The forum will feature the work of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, which was also a co-recipient of the prize. Yunus, who has changed the lives of millions of people through his concept of microloans, was working as a professor at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh when he first loaned the equivalent of $27 to a group of women making bamboo furniture. That 1974 loan eventually led to the 1983 formation of the Grameen Bank, a microcredit banking system based on mutual trust and accountability.
Today, the Grameen Bank has more than 2,000 branches and serves more than 86 percent of the villages in Bangladesh. It has a repayment rate of 98 percent – higher than any other banking system in the world. More than 6 million people borrow money through the bank and 94 percent of them are women. Grameen methods are applied to projects in 58 countries, including the United States, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Norway.
Yunus will be joined by two other plenary speakers – Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and Greg Mortenson, co-founder and executive director of the Central Asia Institute and Pennies for Peace.
Other key events during the forum include Friday evening's concurrent sessions on a variety of topics for small-group discussion and the World Café small group discussions in Anderson Commons. Music performances include a Friday morning Concordia Choir premiere of a Dr. René Clausen commissioned piece and an evening concert by singer-songwriter Erika Luckett.
An International Peace Fair will run throughout the event, complete with booths and exhibits from local and national organizations working toward peace.
- Back to eNews