The peace builder Scilla Elworthy, nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, will be a keynote speaker and hold a Parent-Teacher Workshop at NYC MMUN Conference February 2018

Scilla is a world-renowned peace activist & Nobel Peace Prize nominee. In her personal biography, she describes her passion and engagement for a better world already when she was young:

“In 1956, when I was 13, I was sitting in our living room watching a grainy black and white TV. Soviet tanks were rolling into Budapest to crush the uprising. Kids my age were throwing themselves against the tanks. I rushed upstairs and started packing my suitcase. My mum came in and asked what I was up to. “I’m going to Budapest” (having no idea where Budapest was).

“What on earth for?”

“They’re doing something awful and I have to go.”

“Don’t be so silly!”

I burst into tears.

She got it, how important it was, bless her.

She said I had to get trained if I wanted to be of use and that she would help me.

And she did.

When I was 16, I went to work in a Sue Ryder home for people who had been in camps for people who had been in refugee camps since the war. Some had been in concentration camps. I listened open mouthed to those who wanted to talk about it.

In college vacations, I went to work in a camp for Vietnamese refugees in France. From there to Algiers, emerging from a terrible war, to work with orphans. My university dissertation was on refugees”.

She fights with non-violence: in her powerful TED Talk she maps out the skills we need – as nations and individuals – to fight extreme force without using force in return. To answer the question of why and how non-violence works, she evokes historical heroes – Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela – and the personal philosophies that powered their peaceful protests.

Join us at NYC MMUN Conference 2018 in February to be inspired by Scilla Elworthy!

photo credit: Darshana Borges