Virginia Friends of Mali

The  Women, War and Peace  conference is over but you can review the program and papers at  www.vcupeace.net .

Please keep our friends and colleagues, neighbors and survivors in your hearts as residents from Bamako, Mali's capital city, are dealing with the terrible flooding that took at least 23 lives on Wednesday and left potentially thousands homeless. Here are a few links to news reports:  http://www.aljazeera.com/news/ africa/2013/08/ 201383015847117114.html?utm_ source=twitterfeed&utm_medium= twitter http://www.reuters.com/ article/2013/08/29/us-mali- floods-idUSBRE97S00I20130829 http://www.france24.com/en/ 20130830-killed-floods-mali- bamako-deaths-mud-houses ------------------ CPEL Segou has a new website Djibril Guisse, member of the Council for the Local Economic Development of Segou (Conseil pour la Promotion de l'Economie Locale de Segou), has written to announce that our sister city's equivalent to the Chamber of Commerce  has just relaunched website: www.cpelsegou.org. This is the organization that partnered to produce the first...

The two candidates are  Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta  (Rally for Mali) and  Soumaïla Cissé  (URD - Union for the Republic and Democracy). You can follow the voting process for today's polling on Mali Vote 2013,  http://malivote.com . So, here's a little music from the VFOM Mali INdependence Day celebration from 2012. Cheick Hamala Diabate and his band and dancer lit up the VCU Commons Ballroom that night! CHD's full band returns to Richmond on Friday, Sep. 20, to perform for the Women, War and Peace Conference. Special guest artists include Malian griotte Aissata Diabate and local Hotel X sax player, Tim Harding. This is video one of two. Click the Culture tab above to see both.

Films on Women, War & Peace Key Portion of the Women, War and Peace Conference 2013 (Sep. 20-21, 2013) The conference title is inspired by the 2011 PBS series of films on Women, War and Peace , in particular the documentary film on the women’s peace initiative in Liberia, entitled Pray the Devil Back to Hell . It is the story of Nobel Prize winners Ellen Johnson Sirleaf  (current president of Liberia) and Leymah Gbowee (founder of the Gbowee Peace Foundation) who peacefully took on the warlords and the regime of dictator Charles Taylor during a devastating civil war and brought an end to the conflict. This film will be shown during the conference, and esteemed film producer Abigail Disney will provide the Friday evening keynote address. She will discuss the film itself and the work of the Gbowee Peace Foundation USA . The Foundation facilitates international engagement with the vision and work of Leymah Gbowee and organizations working in Liberia, West Africa, and globall...