USC Shoah Foundation Institute Partners With United Nations To Observe International Women’s Day

March 8 Roundtable at USC Highlights Women’s Responses to Mass Violence

In honor of  International Women’s Day on 8 March 2012, the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute is partnering with The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme to hold a roundtable discussion, “Strength Through Adversity: Women and Mass Violence”, in Los Angeles.

With a panel of speakers that includes women survivors from Africa and Eastern Europe, the event will demonstrate women’s capacity to overcome adversity and empower others in the face of conflict or extreme violence.

Guest speakers from around the world include Kimberly Mann, Manager, The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme in New York; Alison Dundes Renteln, Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, USC; Rose Mapendo, Survivor of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Sabina Vajrača, Bosnian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Stephen D. Smith, Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, will welcome participants; special remarks will be made by the Honorable Abdullah Aimaque, Consul-General of Afghanistan in Los Angeles; and Beth Meyerowitz, Vice Provost, Professor of Psychology and Preventive Medicine, USC, will moderate.

The event will be held from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the USC campus in the Davidson Conference Center, Vineyard Room.  To RSVP, call Judy Huang at 213-740-2950.

About the USC Shoah Foundation Institute
Established in 1994 by Steven Spielberg to collect and preserve the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute maintains one of the largest video digital libraries in the world: nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages and from 56 countries. The Institute is part of the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California; its mission is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of the Institute’s visual history testimonies.

The Institute works within the University and with partners around the world to advance scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes. In addition to preserving the testimonies in its archive, the Institute is working with partner organizations to expand the archive with accounts of survivors and witnesses of other genocides. 

About The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme
With resolution 60/7, the General Assembly established The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme in 2006 to further education about and remembrance of the Holocaust so as to help prevent future genocide. Its multifaceted programme includes online and print educational products, events and the annual worldwide observance of the Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January.

The Holocaust Programme works closely with survivors to help ensure that their stories are heard and heeded as a warning of the consequence of anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination. In all of its activities, the Holocaust Programme draws essential links between the underlying causes of genocide, the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust and the promotion of human rights and democratic values today. or more information about the programme, please visit www.un.org/holocaustremembrance or write to holocaustremembrance@un.org

Contact Jenna Leventhal, Manager of Communications, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, at (213) 740-6036, jtlevent@usc.edu or Kimberly Mann, Manager of The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, at (212) 963-6835, mann@un.org.