Faith and International Development Conference Ends
Musician and thought-leader Jason Pemberton helps facilitate a Q&A at FIDC.
The 11th Annual Faith and International Development Conference (FIDC) took place February 11-13, 2016 at Calvin College and addressed such topics as the empowerment of women, mass incarceration and world hunger.
This conference is run by students for other students, with the goals of educating, inspiring, and equipping students to love and serve God globally, and connecting students with Christian organizations that care about holistic transformation of communities.
“We explored what it meant to live a life of Christ-filled love wherever we are through this year's theme, ‘Agape: Awakening Sacrificial Love in the Everyday,’” said JD Croft, co-director of the event.
About 300 students, professors, organization representatives, and community members from across the United States registered to engage with plenary speakers, participate in a fair trade fair, interact with each other through workshops, and do much more, said Croft.
“One of the highlights included seeing the performance of the play Seven, directed by Emily Wetzel, and its message of global women's empowerment,” said Comfort Sampong, the other co-director of the conference.
“Whether someone cares about anti-human trafficking, microfinance, sustainability, mass incarceration, we hope attendees were inspired to dig deeper and listen for God's leading at the FIDC.”
Among the speakers were Faistine Wabwire, Bread for the World Institute’s Senior Foreign Assistance Policy Analyst, based in Washington, DC.
At the Institute, Wabwire provides policy leadership on global poverty, hunger, climate change, trade, and the role of effective U.S and multilateral assistance in providing solutions.
She recently worked with institute staff on the 2015 Hunger Report, which explores why women’s empowerment is essential to ending global hunger and proposed practical and achievable policy changes to improve women’s economic, political, and social status.
Another speaker was Jeremy Konyndyk, a Calvin College graduate who is the Director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).
In his position, he is the director of the lead federal office responsible for coordinating the U.S. government’s response to international disasters. His office oversees OFDA’s global programs and the office’s responses to an average of 70 disasters in 50 countries every year.
Since assuming his position, Konyndyk has led the U.S. government’s humanitarian responses to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the Iraq crisis, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the resurgent conflict in South Sudan, and the ongoing war inside Syria, among other crises.
Those who are interested in attending the conference next year can like FIDC’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CalvinFIDC
