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Africa Conference to tackle domestic violence in Sacramento and more

A roundtable discussing conflicts and domestic violence cases involving African families in the Sacramento area will be a focus of the 15th annual African/Diaspora Conference from April 27 to 29 at the University Union.

The roundtable grew out of a landmark town hall meeting held in November last year on campus where African community organizations and social services agencies discussed mediation and conflict resolution. The purpose of the roundtable discussion is to create a plan to implement recommendations made at the town hall meeting. The discussion will take place at 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., Saturday, April 29 in the University Union Redwood Room.

The theme for this year’s conference, “Indigenous African Institutions/Systems in an Era of Globalization,” will feature panel discussions from experts from across the United States, Nigeria, Kenya, Canada, Denmark and the United Kingdom. The conference is presented by the University’s Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution and Pan African Studies Program.

Sacramento State Professor Lila Jacobs will lead a discussion on women, the law and indigenous justice on Thursday, April 27, with experts from institutions like the Center for Development and Empowerment in Kenya, the Women’s Aid Collective in Nigeria and several African universities.

The second day of the conference will open with African drumming by Kamau Mensah on Friday, April 28, followed by a keynote address by Professor Chudi Uwazurike from the City University of New York who will discuss the conference theme. Uwazurike holds a doctorate from Harvard University and specializes in the political sociology of comparative development.

Uwazurike is a novelist-playwright whose dramas have been performed in New York and he is a senior fellow at the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean at the City University of New York.

Three concurrent panels on global values and local youth, women’s rights and Africa development, and the role of indigenous institutions in peace, democracy and health will follow. African culture and family-building, indigenous conflict management institutions and human rights will be covered in two panels, as well as the roundtable on domestic violence, on Saturday, April 29.

The conference will close with the annual Peace Awards ceremony and dinner at 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 29 in the University Union Ballroom. This year’s award recipients are Barry Loncke, retired Sacramento Superior Court Judge; Joy Ezeilo, Women’s Aid Collective, Nigeria; Isaac Albert, University of Ibadan, Nigeria; and Adam Sterling, Jason Miller and Adam Rosenthal of the UC Sudan Divestment Task Force.

A complete conference schedule is available at www.csus.edu/org/capcr.

More information on the conference is available by calling (916) 278-6282.