(left to right) Father Patrick Desbois & Lieutenant-General The Honourable Roméo Dallaire
WINNIPEG, MB – The University of Winnipeg will award Honorary Doctorates to two renowned champions of human rights: Lieutenant-General The Honourable Roméo Dallaire and Father Patrick Desbois in a Special Convocation ceremony to be held on Friday, May 3, 2013. In the days leading up to the Special Convocation, three additional events featuring the honoured recipients will take place.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2013
12th Annual Holocaust Symposium
Keynote Speaker Father Patrick Desbois
Duckworth Centre, University of Winnipeg
9:30 AM
Father Desbois will address close to 2,000 students from all over the province. He will discuss his work to uncover the atrocities that took place in Eastern Europe during WWII by the Nazi mobile killing units, the Einsatzgruppen.
Voices of Courage and Survival – Moderated by Dr. James Christie
Duckworth Centre, University of Winnipeg
1:00 PM
Five panelists — two Shoah* survivors, two survivors of African genocides and a residential school survivor — will share their individual stories. Dr. Christie will moderate a discussion on the idea of integration (or re-integration) into society after experiencing such trauma, as well as lingering feelings towards the perpetrators. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions.
*Shoah, meaning “calamity” in Hebrew, has became the standard term for the 20th century genocide of the Jews of Europe.
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013
Indifference – The Fragility of Civilization
Lt. General Roméo Dallaire and Father Patrick Desbois in Dialogue
Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, 561 Wellington Crescent
7:30 PM
The Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, together with UWinnipeg’s Ridd Institute for Religion and Global Policy, Global College and Shaarey Zedek Synagogue are co-sponsoring a panel discussion. Naomi Azrieli will be moderating the discussion. This will be open to the public and free of charge.
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013
Special Convocation
The Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex
Power Corporation of Canada Atrium, University of Winnipeg, 599 Portage Avenue
9:30 AM
This will include addresses by the recipients: The Lieutenant-General The Honourable Roméo Dallaire and Father Patrick Desbois.
Lieutenant-General The Honourable Roméo Dallaire
Dallaire has witnessed and tried to prevent the unspeakable: the massacre of 800,000 people in Rwanda. As Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda in 1994, he refused orders to leave the country and remained to protect those trying to escape the genocide. It was a mission that left Dallaire with deep emotional scars and a fierce determination to advance global human rights, most notably, ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers around the world.
Father Patrick Desbois
The distinguished Father Desbois, renowned for his work in the areas of conflict resolution, reconciliation and restorative dialogue, has devoted his life to confronting antisemitism. As co-founder of Yahad–In Unum, an organization that promotes dialogue between Jewish and Catholic people, Father Desbois has earned international respect as a humanitarian.
