GIP International Women’s Day Event: Stories of Women in the Field featuring Jane Olson

Wednesday, March 8, 6-7 p.m.
Polytechnic School, location sent with RSVP 
 
Please join us on March 8 to commemorate International Women’s Day with the UNA Pasadena and Polytechnic School communities. Humanitarian and author Jane Olson will share powerful stories of women who have survived human rights abuses and other calamities caused by conflict and extreme poverty. Her talk will take the audience on memorable journeys with international human rights and humanitarian organizations and provide ways to engage as global citizens locally. Jane Olson’s most recent book, World Citizen, Journeys of a Humanitarian, will be available for purchase. This program will also spotlight the exciting work of young chapter members to promote gender equality (SDG#5) here in Pasadena and beyond. Registrants will receive information about the location and parking at least 24 hours before the event.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Jane Olson has volunteered for many decades to promote peace and justice through international human rights and humanitarian organizations. She chaired the International Board of Trustees of Human Rights Watch from 2004 to 2010 and served as co-chair of the Women’s Refugee Commission. As founding board chair of Landmine Survivors Network/Survivor Corps, she led LSN for 12 years.

Extensive travels with those and other humanitarian organizations took Jane to Nicaragua and El Salvador during the Contra Wars and to the former Soviet Union beginning with trips to Ukraine in 1989 and 1990, a time of revolution. As the former USSR fell apart and wars broke out, she participated in investigative trips to the former Yugoslavia during “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnia and to the Caucasus countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Jane is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a board member of both the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and Direct Relief, based in Santa Barbara, CA. She is a board member of The Trusteeship, the Southern California chapter of the International Women’s Forum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. A native of Iowa, she now resides in Pasadena with her husband and family.
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