Events

The Peace and Conflict Studies Department and Grebel Student Services are inviting you to participate in the Mennonite Central Committee's Blanket Exercise Event to observe Peace Week.

On Monday, Sept. 26, we’re proud to present Jani Lauzon, director and playwright, and Kaitlyn Riordan, playwright, whose co-created play 1939 is currently running at the Stratford Festival.

The MCC United Nations hosts an annual student seminar at their office in New York City in October.

This interactive exhibition features photos of street art pieces from a range of conflict-affected societies and an opportunity to leave your own ‘mark’. Street art makes an important contribution to understanding local conflict dynamics and visions of peace. Street art tells narratives about everyday concerns and opinions, where multiple and often contradicting narratives by different artists and communities can be publicly viewed. This holds value in situations of conflict and censorship, as art can talk about issues that have no space in the mainstream political discourse.

The 2022 winner, Abi, presented her speech to the audience.

The annual C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest, established in 1974 by the directors of the C. Henry Smith Trust, offers PACS students an opportunity to discuss peacebuilding and social justice issues on campus. The intercollegiate competition is administered by the Peace and Justice Ministries of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Undergraduate students from every Mennonite and Brethren in Christ college in North America, including Canada, are eligible to participate. 

Henry Smith was an American Mennonite historian and professor at Mennonite colleges and the University of Chicago. Overall, he taught history for nearly 50 years at the collegiate level. He is well-known for his numerous books on Mennonite history and his particular attention to the peace commitments of the Mennonite tradition.  

On March 8, 2023, at 7 PM in the Grebel Gallery in the Kindred Center for Peace for Advancement (CPA), PACS is organizing a speech performance and is inviting you to participate. The contest winners will be rewarded with cash prizes of $400 for first place, $300 for second place, and $200 for third place.For more information, reach out to the PACS Academic Advisor.

To learn more about the contest and meet previous PACS or Grebel resident participants, visit this link here.

Application deadline - February 28, 2023 

Our Convocation Celebration will take place on Sunday, April 23, 2023 at 2 pm at the Theatre of the Arts, Modern Languages Building. This celebration is for all students who have or are completing studies and plan to graduate in Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023 or Fall 2023.

Grebel Convocation Celebration will take place at two locations in-person. Students and two of their invited guests will celebrate at The Theatre of the Arts, this event will be professionally filmed and live-streamed back to the Grebel dining room where additional guests will take part in a virtual community celebration. The event will also be available on YouTube for those guests who wish to join from home. 

This interactive exhibition features photos of street art pieces from a range of conflict-affected societies and an opportunity to leave your own ‘mark’. Street art makes an important contribution to understanding local conflict dynamics and visions of peace. Street art tells narratives about everyday concerns and opinions, where multiple and often contradicting narratives by different artists and communities can be publicly viewed. This holds value in situations of conflict and censorship, as art can talk about issues that have no space in the mainstream political discourse.

Are you invested in supporting the social justice activities, programs, services, and advocacy groups here at the University of Waterloo? Would you like to see these initiatives and advocacies come to life through art, music, poetry, and other expressions? Come out to the Urgency of Social Justice event to support and experience the struggles and victories of social justice and advocacy groups at the University of Waterloo, and to have fun witnessing the various short speeches and performances by students, faculty, staff, and advocates. There will also be displays, information stations, research presentations, choir, and much more! This event is being hosted with the goal of sparking conversations about social issues including, but are not limited to; anti-racism, decolonization, gender and sexuality, class and economic inequality, truth and reconciliations, and human rights.

In celebration of Peace Week 2023, the PACS Department invites you to share your thoughts in response to a set of questions displayed in Grebel’s Upper Atrium. Questions will be displayed from September 21st to September 28th, 2023, inviting participants to visually and creatively represent their responses. Be part of our shared exploration of justice and peace by adding your voice.

To mark the International Day of Peace on September 21, 2023, Cesar Jaramillo, Executive Director at Project Ploughshares, will give a talk entitled From the Cuban Missile Crisis to Today: Nuclear Weapons 60 Years On. Hosted as part of the MPACS Thursday Talk: Research Series and in celebration of Grebel's 60^th Anniversary, this talk will engage important questions related to nuclear weapons and non-proliferation.