To commemorate the International Day of Non-Violence, 2017, the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) and the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of India to UNESCO are organising the second Ahinsa Lecture by Ms Tawakkol Karman,

recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

The theme of the lecture is: “Working Towards Peace Building and Sustainable Development.”

Ms Tawakkol KARMAN is a mother of three as well as a human rights activist, journalist, politician and President of Women Journalists without Chains.

She is the general coordinator of peaceful youth revolution council and a member of the advisory board for the Transparency International Organisation and for several international non-government organisations focused on human rights.

Ms. Karman is bold and outspoken and has been imprisoned on numerous occasions for her pro-democracy and pro-human rights protests.

Amongst Yemen’s Youth movement, she is known as “the mother of the revolution”, “iron woman”, and most recently as “the lady of the Arab spring”.

Ms. Karman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 in recognition of her work in non-violent struggle for the expression rights, safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work in Yemen.

Upon being awarded the prize, Ms. Karman became the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate, at the age of 32.

She encompasses a great deal of courage which she has shown, on countless occasions, through her perseverance to constantly confront injustice and build peace.The UNESCO MGIEP Distinguished Lecture Series invites speakers of global eminence to spark transformative ideas for our shared future.

The Distinguished Lecture Series is intended to initiate an international discourse to build a more peaceful and sustainable world.

As part of the Distinguished Lecture Series, UNESCO MGIEP launched the Ahinsa Talks last year to commemorate the International Day of Non Violence with the aim of emphasising the relevance of Gandhian principle of ahinsa or non violence in the 21st century.