Stellar line-up for Mary Robinson Symposium

Anne-Marie Flynn

A busy summer lies ahead at Ballina’s Mary Robinson Centre, with a varied and exciting programme of events in place for June and July. Despite the centre not yet having a presence in the bricks-and-mortar sense of the word, nevertheless the programme of activities laid out for the coming weeks shows that it is already well operational. Work is underway to establish it as an international educational facility aiming to deliver Mary Robinson’s vision of using her legacy to inspire leadership in the promotion of human rights, gender equality and climate justice.
One of the main events on this summer programme will take place on July 1 and 2 next, when the Great National Hotel, Ballina will host the Mary Robinson Centre International Symposium 2016, bringing together a number of highly regarded international human rights activists for a series of plenary sessions and discussions.
The event will take place in partnership with the NUI, Galway Centre for Global Women’s Studies, and among the 14 speakers over the weekend will be prestigious speakers such as Noeleen Heyzer, former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations; Mouna Ghanem, Syrian Women’s Forum for Peace; Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director, Amnesty International Ireland; Peter Power, Executive Director of UNICEF Ireland and Mary Robinson herself.
The conference takes place against the backdrop of the establishment by the UN of an ambitious new global framework of 17 universal, interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The goals, accompanied by targets, are designed to be implemented over the next 15 years by every country with the aim of realising the human rights of all, ending poverty and hunger and achieving gender equality, as well as implementing minimum global standards in relation to education, health, climate action, work, access to clean water and energy, and environmental protection. According to the UN, the SDGs are integrated and indivisible, and designed to balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental.
The International Symposium 2016 will focus on three themes contained within the SDGs that align with the focus of the Mary Robinson Centre programme to date: Equality, Human Rights and Peace, with a session devoted to each. This year is the important first year of the SDG implementation period, and the 14 speakers attending each hold a strong interest in the enactment of the goals, and will bring to the table their own experiences from a range of different global perspectives.
The event will aim to foster action-oriented links among policy decision-makers, in?uencers and implementers, academic and policy researchers, NGOs and others committed to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Symposium will be quite unlike any other event held in the west of Ireland to date, and is likely to attract significant international attention, particularly in the academic world.
“We have some well-known Irish people moderating, and that will make it very interesting,” said Susan Heffernan, Project Manager at the Mary Robinson Centre. “A lot of these people will be telling stories from other parts of the world that we don’t know that well, so I think it’s going to make for something very different for us to consider here.”
The Symposium takes place just after the Mary Robinson Centre’s Third Annual International Human Rights Lecture. This year’s lecture, taking place in Ballina Arts Centre, will welcome pioneering lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner Hina Jilani, a champion of human rights and leading activist in Pakistan’s women’s movement, and a member alongside Mary Robinson of the Elders, the independent group of twelve global leaders formed by the late Nelson Mandela to work together to promote peace and human rights.

Did you Know?
The Mary Robinson Centre, Ireland’s first Presidential Archive, is located at Mary’s birthplace, Victoria House on Emmet Street, Ballina, overlooking the River Moy. The Centre, which is supported by Mayo County Council, is run in academic partnership with the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUI Galway) and will comprise a museum, archive, research facility, educational centre and events centre. It is expected to generate significant economic activity within the town of Ballina, by formally establishing the presence of a second third- level institution within the town, attracting students, academics and human rights activists from all around the world, and drawing tourists eager to get a glimpse of some of the artefacts contained within the Presidential Archive, which has been gifted to the Mayo people by the former President.
Construction work is expected to begin towards the end of this year, and part of the house will be restored to its original condition as it would have been when Mary Robinson was born, with a new annex alongside to house the functions of the centre. Central to the vision for the building will be the return to the former President’s childhood home of the symbolic light that stood in the window of Áras an UachtarΡin.
“The goal for the building is that it will be the most accessible building in Mayo,” says its Project Manager Susan Heffernan, “and as green as it can be. When you’re talking about equality and human rights, we need to set the template where we can be a best practice centre, in so far as is practical.”
Though the building will not be complete until 2018, the Centre is active in the local community, and has recently organised a programme of engaging outreach sessions with secondary schools in the region, designed to bring human rights to life and engage the students of today - and leaders of tomorrow - with the importance of human rights. The sessions are designed to connect with the students’ geography and history programmes and examine patterns of migration - from Ireland’s famine to the Syrian migration crisis - and their implications for Europe.

Mary Robinson Symposium
Weekend early bird rate: €75 including Conference Buffet Dinner (register by May 31 on www.conference.ie).
Special Concession Rate of €30 for postgraduate students and others subject to eligibility.
For more information on the Mary Robinson Centre International Symposium including a full list of speakers, go to www.maryrobinsoncentre.ie.