Fordham’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA) and Columbia University are co-hosting “Humanitarianism Beyond Service Delivery,” a series of lectures on issues facing organizations offering global aid. The first of the lectures to be held at Fordham, “Working with Exhumations and Families of the Missing in Latin America,” will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 12:30 p.m. in the McNally Amphitheatre, Fordham University School of Law, Lincoln Center campus.
Speakers Carlos Beristain, Ph.D., author of Humanitarian Aid Work: A Critical Approach (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), and Arancha Garcia del Soto, Ph.D., the Helen Hamlyn Senior Fellow at Fordham’s IIHA, will examine the role of exhumations as a tool for Latin American societies to confront human rights abuses.
The four-part lecture series, which alternates venues between the two universities, continues at Fordham on Thursday, April 12, with a program on “Rape as a War Crime: Gender Based Violence in the Balkans.” Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs will host “Managing the Media in Humanitarian Crises” on Thursday, March 22. Columbia previously hosted the series’ opening lecture, “Help for Helpers,” on Jan. 25.
IIHA was established in 2001 to forge partnerships with relief organizations, publish books, create training programs and host symposia relating to humanitarian affairs. It also offers an academic base for the study and development of international health, human rights and other humanitarian issues, especially those that occur in periods of conflict.
