Saturday May 29, 2010
16:10 – 17:10, Main Auditorium

Despite their talent and the change they bring to the society, social entrepreneurs from developing countries are often not recognized. Local people, including those living in rural areas, know their needs and the environment in which they live and do not lack entrepreneurial skills. One of the issues in this context is how to support and develop the existing local entrepreneurial skills. Education is not only a basic human right, but also a powerful tool to foster poverty reduction and social change.

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Meet the Panel

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Ms. Joni Simpson

Specialist & Coordinator Women’s & Youth Entrepreneurship Development
International Labour Organization

Joni is the Coordinator & Specialist of Women’s and Youth Entrepreneurship Development at the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. She provides technical support to ILO constituents and Decent Work Teams in the field for the inclusion of these two target groups and promotes entrepreneurship for women and youth as part of the broader development agenda for job creation, socio-economic empowerment, gender equality and poverty reduction. Over and above her work at the ILO, she has over ten years of experience in Community Economic Development, working on building accessible and adapted resources and advocating for inclusive services in Entrepreneurship Development.  Her past experience includes work in micro-finance, social economy and youth employability. She holds a Master’s degree in Cultural anthropology and she also has an Education degree.

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Mr. Paul Moclair

Head of Programs, Aflatoun Amsterdam

I was born in Ireland in 1965, the son of teachers. Four years of Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Asia in my thirties restored my interest in education. I am particularly interested in developing participatory and child-centered approaches as an alternative to prevailing rote-learning models. A master’s degree in Theatre for Development in 1994 enabled me to pursue this interest in the field. I worked through theatre to alter relationships between adult staff and children at a street children’s centre in Sierra Leone. After graduating I took consultancy work with Save the Children UK in Kenya, training CBOs on the use of theatre to combat harmful tribal practices in the context of HIV. Following that I provided Participatory Learning and Action training on behalf of Save the Children UK in southern Sudan. I also designed and led a project for UNICEF in Sudan. This trained trainers across the country so that they could set up 500 grassroots child rights theatre companies capable of engaging communities in dialogue around key educational and development themes. From 2006 – 2008 I worked through theatre with children, social workers and teachers in Palestine. Since Sept 2008 I have been Head of Programs at Aflatoun.

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Mr. Chris Mburu

Founder
Hilde Back Education Fund (Kenya)

Chris Mburu is an international human rights lawyer from Kenya currently serving as head of the Anti-Discrimination Section at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. A law graduate of the University of Nairobi and Harvard Law School, Mr Mburu has worked on human rights, democracy, and conflict resolution issues for almost 20 years and has served in many countries including USA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Uganda, South Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea. He recently served as the Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Central Africa (ad interim), based in Yaounde, Cameroon. He also served in two UN expert panels investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity, one focusing on the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide (1997), and the other investigating violations committed during the conflict in Darfur (2007). Apart from his illustrious career with the UN, Chris Mburu also  worked with leading international organizations and think-tanks, including Global Rights, the International Crisis Group and Amnesty International.

In 2001 Mr Mburu founded the Hilde Back Education Fund in his native country of Kenya, to support the education of talented children unable to continue with school due to poverty. He named the foundation after a Swedish woman, Ms Hilde Back, who had provided similar support for him when he was growing up as an academically gifted but poor child in rural Kenya. Mr Mburu, who has worked in many war-ravaged and conflict-prone countries believes that education is the best way out of misery and hopelessness. He hopes that educated people, especially from the developing world, will be inspired to give back to their communities and uplift the lives of those left behind, and this way ensure sustainable development and durable peace.

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Moderated by:

Prof. Michel Carton

Michel Carton holds a doctorate in Educational Sciences from the University of Geneva. His academic career began at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva (until 2002) and afterwards at the University Institute of Development Studies (IUED) in Geneva, where he was director from 2004 to 2007. In 2007 he became  vice director of the Institute of International Studies and Development (IHEID). His researches and his work on the field focus on training policy and skill development in west and south Africa and in southeast Asia. He coordinates with Kenneth King the network NORRAG (www.norrag.org) devoted to the critical analysis of policies in support of education and training. In the context of NORRAG he participates in studies on the relationship between education, knowledge economy and knowledge society in the framework of the globalization process.

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IOMBA Coordinators:  Alessandro Spairani & Valentina Di Felice