Joel Lesko will be a speaker at the 2023 International Peace Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 5 – 6, 2023. 

The event is being hosted by Rotary International District 6860 (North and Central Alabama) in partnership with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Institute of Human Rights at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The theme is “Imagine Peace. Build Peace.”

The conference will bring together people from across the globe to highlight the pursuit of peace at all levels of society. Hosted in Birmingham, Alabama, where nonviolent protesters for equality and racial justice changed history in 1963. As Ambassador Andrew Young stated in a speech at UAB in 2013, “Birmingham was the cradle of the nonviolent movement for human rights.”

This two-day immersive experience will bring together Rotarians, non-Rotarians and distinguished leaders in academia, government, public safety, religion, business and community service to share ideas and propose solutions for some of society’s most complex challenges. Programs and approaches that are already making a positive impact will be highlighted.

Joel will use the theme of peace to explore how to create a workplace culture that fosters inclusion, psychological safety and belonging. He’ll share a few of the realistic scenarios from SunShower Learning’s program, Defeating Unconscious Bias, and talk about the importance of allyship to disrupt unconscious bias, microaggressions and other personal and systemic patterns that keep individuals in the workplace from experiencing peace.

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