Millennials and a Life of Meaning: Walking the Path of Spiritually Grounded Service

Storytelling and Reflection by Valarie Kaur

Wednesday, September 3, 2014, 7:30 p.m.
Gorecki Center 204, College of Saint Benedict

Our generation has come of age in the shadow of devastation: 9/11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great recession, and daily news of violence in our nation and around the globe," writes Valarie Kaur. "And yet in the palm of our hands we hold the power to organize, tell our stories, and call for a more just world. What happens when Millennials walk the path of spiritually grounded service - online and on the ground?" Join Valarie for an evening of storytelling and reflection on "the urgency of now."

Valarie Kaur is a national interfaith leader, documentary filmmaker, and lawyer who uses the power of storytelling for social change. She is the founder of Groundswell, a non-profit initiative with over 100,000 members that equips people of faith in social movements. Working with students and communities, she has made award-winning films and led campaigns on hate crimes, gun violence, racial profiling, immigration detention, and solitary confinement. Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School, where she founded the Yale Visual Law Project to train students in the art of storytelling for social change. She is a prolific public speaker on college and university campuses and frequent political contributor on MSNBC to the Melissa Harris-Perry Show. Her opinion essays regularly appear on CNN and in The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. In 2012 she received the India Abroad Award for Community Service and in 2013, cited as "a standout figure in the world of interfaith organizing and activism," the Center for American Progress listed her among "13 progressive faith leaders to watch." Also in 2013 she was named byAudrey Magazine as one of "eight Asian American women of influence" and delivered the Baccalaureate address for Stanford University. Melissa Harris-Perry has called her "one of the most exceptional speakers and thinkers I have ever heard."

Sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning and Intercultural and International Student Services at CSB/SJU