Badger Alum Brings Awareness To World Hunger

Chenoweth Inspires UW Students

from Channel 3000 WISC-TV

MADISON, Wis. — Florence Chenoweth, who has been a Badger alum for nearly four decades, is the focus of WISC-TV’s Inspiring Women series.

After getting her Masters in agricultural economics In 1970, Chenoweth went back home to Liberia to serve as the country’s Minister of Agriculture.

Civil war in Liberia left her a refugee in Sierra Leone, but that didn’t stop Chenoweth from returning to Madison.

Her work has helped shape policies for agencies such as the World Bank and the World Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations.

But as global as her life has become, “I went back home in 1970 after my Masters feeling like a Badger, and I still do,” Chenoweth said.

News Three’s Andy Choi reported why Wisconsin is still on the map of this well-traveled Badger.

Chenoweth spoke with the world’s most powerful people about the world’s most important humanitarian issues, and this past semester, she brought that dialogue to the University of Wisconson-Madison.

Chenoweth featured on WISC-TV

We are delighted to announce that Channel 3 (WISC-TV) news will run a feature this evening on our distinguished international visitor and UW-Madison alum Florence Chenoweth.

The feature, which is part of WISC-TV’s “Inspiring Women” series, will appear during tonight’s 10 o’clock news. The clip will later be posted on the Channel 3000 Web site.

Florence Chenoweth was the United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) representative to the UN and executive director of the FAO Liaison Office in New York. Originally from Liberia, Chenoweth earned both her master’s degree in agricultural economics (1970) and her doctorate in land resources (1986) at UW-Madison. She became Liberia’s (and Africa’s) first female minister of agriculture at the age of 32, serving from 1977 to 1979.

While at UW-Madison, Dr. Chenoweth is working with Professor Scott Straus as part of the Human Rights Initiative. This initiative coordinates diverse, interdisciplinary human rights activities on campus, fosters new research and education on human rights, enhances existing studies, and promotes dialogue with the community.

The Distinguished International Visitor program regularly brings international practitioners to UW-Madison. Past visitors have included former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to the European Union Stuart Eizenstat, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Jessica Tuchman Mathews. Dr. Chenoweth’s visit to UW-Madison is supported by the Chancellor’s Office, the Division of International Studies, the School of Medicine and Public Health, and the College of Agriculture and Life Science.

Human Rights International Book Series features Leigh Payne

The International Institute’s International Faculty Book Series
(formerly the World Beyond Our Borders Book Series)

on Human Rights around the World

presents

Leigh Payne (UW–Madison, Political Science)

discussing her new book

Unsettling Accounts: The Politics and Performance of Confessions by Perpetrators of Authoritarian State Violence (Duke University Press, 2007)

Tuesday, May 6 at 7pm
University Bookstore in the Hilldale Mall (702 N. Midvale Boulevard)

Payne draws on interviews, unedited television film, newspaper archives, and books written by perpetrators to analyze confessions of state violence in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and South Africa. Each of these four countries addressed its past through a different institutional form, from blanket amnesty, to conditional amnesty based on confessions, to judicial trials. Payne considers perpetrators’ confessions as performance, examining what perpetrators say and what they communicate non-verbally; the timing, setting, and reception of their confessions; and the different ways that the perpetrators portray their pasts, whether in terms of remorse, heroism, denial, or sadism, or through lies or betrayal.

Migration and Human Rights Workshop

The Human Rights Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Presents:

The Migration and Human Rights Workshop

with Professor Zolberg and Mr. Ndjankou

Thursday April 24, 2-4pm
206 Ingraham Hall

Professor Zolberg presentation will be entitled: “Moving Beyond Nation-Based Human Rights”

Professor Zolberg is Walter A. Eberstadt Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Faculty of New School University in New York City and director of its International Center for Migration, Ethnicity, and Citizenship. Currently, he is a member of the Social Science Research Council’s Committee on International Migration, as well as of the editorial board of International Migration Review; of the advisory boards of Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales (Paris), Politique (Quebec), and Journal of Refugee Studies (Oxford). He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch / Africa. He was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Republic as well as honored by the New York Association for New Americans, and has served on the board of the American Political Science Association.

Mr. Ndjankou’s presentation will be entitled: “ILO’s Perspective on International Labor Migration, Decent Work and Human Rights”

Mr. Djankou Ndjonkou is Representative to the United Nations and Director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Office for the United Nations. In 1988, Mr. Ndjonkou was assigned to the ILO Office in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) as Regional Adviser for West Africa. He returned to ILO Headquarters in 1991 as a staff member of the Office of the Director-General. In 1995, Mr. Ndjonkou was given the responsibility to open and manage a new ILO Office in post-apartheid South Africa, a task he completed by the end of 1996, when he was appointed Director of the ILO Office in Beijing (People’s Republic of China) with responsibility for Mongolia, Hong Kong SAR (1997) and Macao SAR ((1999). On September 1, 2004, Mr. Ndjonkou was transferred to the ILO Office for the United Nations in New York as Representative of the ILO to the UN and Office Director.

Human Rights International Book Series features Robert Skloot

The International Institute’s International Faculty Book Series
(formerly the World Beyond Our Borders Book Series)

on Human Rights around the World

presents

Robert Skloot (UW–Madison, Theatre and Drama, Jewish Studies)

discussing his new book

Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Armenia (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008)

Tuesday, April 8 at 7pm
University Bookstore in the Hilldale Mall (702 N. Midvale Boulevard)

In this pioneering volume, Robert Skloot brings together four plays—three of which are published here for the first time—that fearlessly explore the face of modern genocide. The scripts deal with the destruction of four targeted populations: Armenians, Cambodians, Bosnian Muslims, and Rwandan Tutsis. Taken together, these four plays erase the boundaries of theatrical realism to present stories that probe the actions of the perpetrators and the suffering of their victims. A major artistic contribution to the study of the history and effects of genocide, this collection continues the important journey toward understanding the terror and trauma to which the modern world has so often been witness.

Questions? Please contact Masarah Van Eyck, Director of Communications, Division of International Studies: mvaneyck2@international.wisc.edu or 608 262-5590

More information is available on the entire series here.

International Faculty Book Series Features Human Rights Around the World

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Wendy Christensen, Communications, Division of International Studies, UW–Madison, communication@international.wisc.edu, 608 262-5590

UW­–Madison’s International Institute Faculty Book Series Features Human Rights Around the World

Celebrating the contributions that UW–Madison faculty bring to the study of human rights, this semester’s book series offers diverse perspectives and voices to shed light on these complex issues.

This popular and long-running book series, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Division of International Studies, the International Institute, and the University Bookstore, brings together avid readers and UW–Madison faculty for public, lively discussions about topics from around the world.

All the talks take place at 7pm at the University Bookstore in the Hilldale Mall (702 N. Midvale Boulevard).

They are free and open to the public.­

Tuesday, April 8
Robert Skloot (UW–Madison, Theatre and Drama, Jewish Studies)
Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Armenia (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008)

In this pioneering volume, Robert Skloot brings together four plays—three of which are published here for the first time—that fearlessly explore the face of modern genocide. The scripts deal with the destruction of four targeted populations: Armenians, Cambodians, Bosnian Muslims, and Rwandan Tutsis. Taken together, these four plays erase the boundaries of theatrical realism to present stories that probe the actions of the perpetrators and the suffering of their victims. A major artistic contribution to the study of the history and effects of genocide, this collection continues the important journey toward understanding the terror and trauma to which the modern world has so often been witness.

UN liaison promotes health care [The Badger Herald]

by Ken Harris, The Badger Herald, Thursday, March 6, 2008

Former United Nations Food and Agriculture liaison told a group of University of Wisconsin students and faculty Wednesday the nation has an obligation to provide health care to poor nations to protect their basic human rights.

As the keynote speaker to kick off the Global Health Symposium, current managing director of the UW Human Rights Initiative Florence Chenoweth said the right to health is the most basic human right in her presentation titled “Health Care and Human Rights: The World Cannot Wait.”

She added health and human rights are inexorably linked because it is health policies that help protect those rights.

According to Chenoweth, the right to health “does not mean the right to be healthy,” but means governments are responsible for putting into place laws that lead to access to health care.

Fourth Annual Global Health Symposium: Global Health and Human Rights

Fourth Annual Global Health Symposium

“Global Health and Human Rights” (pdf)
Keynote Speaker: Florence Chenoweth, MS, PhD

“Health Care and Human Rights: The World Cannot Wait”

Managing Director, UW Human Rights Initiative
Former U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Gambia and South Africa
Former Executive Director of the FAO Liaison office in New York

Wednesday, March 5
5:00-9:00pm, Health Sciences Learning Center room 1306

Following the keynote address participants may choose from:
25 presentations in 5 concurrent panels (pdf)

A lively celebration with refreshments and entertainment will follow

Refugee Health Awareness Week

Refugee Health Awareness Week

3/3/08 - 3/7/08

Hosted by the Global Health Interest Group, MEDiC and Physicians for Human Rights

All talks are at the Health Sciences Learning Center. Lunch provided for all noon talks

Monday 3/3, 12-1pm, Room 1325, Garret Bucks: Searching for Shelter: The Refugee Experience from Camp to Chicago

Mr. Garrett Bucks is a former language and job training teacher at the Heartland Alliance for Human Rights and Human Needs, one of Chicago’s largest refugee resettlement agencies. He currently works for the educational non-profit Teach For American in Madison.

Tuesday 3/4, 12-1pm Room 1325, Rebecca Gilsdorf: “Crisis in Darfur: Health and History”

The Human Rights Initiative Spring Lecture Series: Health as a Human Right

The Human Rights Initiative Spring Lecture Series

“Health as a Human Right: The Right to Health in Theory and Practice”

Professor Stephen Marks
François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights
Director, Program on Human Rights in Development Harvard University

Thursday, March 6, 2008
2-5pm
1325 Health Sciences Learning Center,
750 Highland Ave

Respondents:

Professor Cindy Haq (School of Medicine and Public Health, Director, Center for Global Health)

Assistant Professor Richard Keller (Medical History and the History of Science)

Assistant Professor Scott Straus (Faculty Coordinator of the Human Rights Initiative)

Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Health

Panel Discussion: Crisis in Kenya

The UW-Madison African Studies Program with the UW Human Rights Initiative

presents a panel discussion

“CRISIS IN KENYA”

 

Panelists:
Michael Schatzberg, Professor, Political Science
Thomas Spear, Professor Emeritus, History
Scott Straus, Assistant Professor, Political Science

 

Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 7 PM

Great Hall, Memorial Union

800 Langdon Street