Sponsored by PEACE Iowa, Physicians for Social Responsibility, other local organizations, and Friends Peace Teams African Great Lakes Region.

Health is a human right. When this right is truly respected, there is hope for long-term sustainable peace in Burundi.

After 13 years of civil war, Burundi is working to heal itself and move towards a more peaceful future. Yet healing from such devastating violence cannot just take place at the political level, efforts to heal and rebuild must take place at the grassroots because that is where violence was most often experienced.

In this talk, Dr. Alexia Nibona reflects on growing up in Kamenge, Burundi—one of Burundi's deadliest warzones and an area which has the country's highest HIV/AIDS rate—and her decision to pursue her medical degree so that she could return to work with women, HIV+ people, and trauma survivors in her community. She argues that health, which is not just the absence of physical disease, but the whole wellbeing of body, mind, and spirit, is the basis of peace. Thus to achieve peace, you must also achieve health. And the achievement of health requires access to quality and dignified healthcare, clean water, nutritious food, shelter, and trauma healing. Dr. Nibona then tells the story of the Friends Women's Association and their work to provide comprehensive community-based health care to women and their families, especially those women who are HIV-positive, to reinforce women's capacities to achieve their wellbeing, and to work towards the recovery of peace and health in Burundi.

About Dr. Alexia Nibona

Dr. Alexia Nibona is the medical and executive director of the Friends Women's Association, a grassroots women's clinic focused on HIV/AIDS, sexual violence, and post-genocide trauma in Kamenge, Burundi. Being from Kamenge herself, Dr. Nibona grew up knowing the devastating effects of war, poverty, and HIV/AIDS on her family and community. This inspired her to pursue her medical degree at the University of Burundi where she specialized in the psychoses (trauma) resulting from the 1993-2006 Crisis (the term Burundians use to describe the 13-year civil war that followed the death of President Melchoir Ndadaye). She is also certified in HIV/AIDS physical and psychosocial care, trauma healing and conflict mediation, and community-based development. Dr. Nibona is a member of the Kamenge Friends Church, where she recently served as clerk.

Women for Peace Iowa Announcements

Contact information is at www.womenforpeace-iowa.org/contact_us.htm

• Alternative Book Discussion Group
  Thursday, March 11th
  7pm
  Wendy's
  1316 1st Ave NE, Cedar Rapids
  (One block north of Coe College)

  The Alternative Discussion Group will be discussing Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel—Chapter 2.
  E-mail Dr. Bob <dr_pac-man[at]mchsi.com> for more information.
  

• Potluck dinner and movie, "Rendition"
  March 12th
  Paul Engle Center, 1600 4th Ave SE
  Potluck at 6:30, movie at 8pm

  A high-paid, young professional, father and husband, and 20-year resident of the US, Egptian Anwar el Ibrahami on a business trip is asked to come with 2 security guards, overpowered, hooded and chained, and after a brief ( but still reasonably civil) interrogation is to be rendered! His is a story of pain and torture. It's one of several story lines. One follows his wife's attempts to get information. One follows the bureaucrats behind the rendition. Another story deals with the family of the man who leads the interrogation of Anwar el Ibrahimi. Though the more famous actors like Reese Witherspoon (as the distraught pregnant wife) Jake Gyllenhaal (as the CIA rookie forced to watch the interrogation in Northern Africa) and Meryl Streep (as CIA hotshot Corine Whitman), it is really the lesser known actors that carry the story and give it its heart, especially the actor playing the unfortunate Mr, el Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally). Also Israeli actor Yigal Naor was very impressive as the part worried family-man and part extremely cruel chief of torture.

  Winner Mill Valley Film Festival Award: Best Narrative Feature

  For information, contact:
  John Shumaker
  Arts Cinema - Free Friday Night Flicks
  (319) 247-2612
  

• WFPI General Membership Meeting
  Paul Street (Iowa City Activist and Author) to speak:
  "Building the Left in the Age of Obama"
  Tuesday, March 23 - 7pm
  Mount Mercy College
  Busse Library Viewing Room (lower level)
  

• Vigil every Friday until the wars are over.
  4:30 to 5:30 pm
  1st Avenue & 1st Street NE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Across from the Federal Building at the Tree of Five Seasons

  March 19th this year will be a Friday, the day we vigil on the corner of 1st and 1st downtown. March19/20 is the anniversary of the start of the invasion and ongoing violent occupation of Iraq. Seven years of a most outrageously unjustified war that Americans will be paying for in national debt and restraints upon the social safety net for longer than the veterans will live, if such a debt-ridden and morally adrift nation survives that long itself. Of course, the costs in dollars are nothing to the costs in lives, but with 45,000 Americans each year dying who would live if we have a universal health care system, this war is killing far from those hot Iraqi sands. Please make a special effort to join us on March 19th to protest America's habit of war-making! Bring your own sign or hold one of ours. 4:30-5:30, First Avenue and First Street NE, Cedar Rapids. Spread the word!

  Contact Dr. Bob at 319-360-5119 for more information.