July 9th Program: Just Peace? Or, A Just Peace?
Posted
on Jul 09, 2014
The West African country of Liberia suffered civil war almost continuously from 1989 to 2003. Then, under the leadership of Leymah Gbowee, over 3000 Christian and Muslim women came together to help force a peace agreement and bring the country's first female president to power.
Wednesday July 9, CSU Grad and Rotary Peace Scholar, Luci Storelli-Castro will share her 4-month experience providing legal education in post-war Liberia and touch on the political history, the civil war, and some of the challenges facing a post-conflict Liberia. Luci will be introduced by her former Professor, our own Dr. Bob Lawrence...
Luci Storelli–Castro is originally from Mendoza, Argentina, but grew up predominantly in Fort Collins. She obtained a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from Colorado State University, an MA in Ethics, Peace & Global Affairs from American University, and worked as a Research Assistant at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. Then, as a Rotary Peace Fellow, she completed an MA with distinction in African Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Bradford in 2013, while conducting research and publishing articles on Liberian politics and society. Her thesis, broadly defined, sought to evaluate how Liberia has fared in consolidating liberal political and economic reforms ten years after the civil war’s end.
Luci’s relationship with Rotary International spans over ten years, first as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student in Dessau, Germany, then as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of Ghana in Accra, where she documented a Rotary-sponsored borehole digging project in eight remote communities, volunteered as an English teacher at a primary school, and helped establish MAPI–Topsa, a girls’ soccer team at the Buduburam Liberian refugee camp.
In August, Luci will begin doctorate studies in political science at George Washington University in Washington D.C. Her subfield concentrations will be in Comparative Politics and International Relations.