Alumnae Ballroom recently filled with the sound of music and conversation as attendees from around the world convened at the Mothers Without Borders colloquium, a 3-day event that took place at Wellesley on Oct. 3, Harvard on Oct. 4, and MIT on Oct. 5.

Dr. Hauwa Ibrahim, an award-winning international human rights lawyer and Senior International Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, hosted the colloquium on Oct. 3, bringing together human rights leaders to discuss how mothers can build peace. 

Among the Friday attendees were Her Royal Highness Princess of Emirates Dr. Nahla Al-Qassimi, Chair of the Woman Empowerment Council at Ajman University in the United Arab Emirates, Sonja Lokar, President of the European Women’s Lobby and former member of the Slovenian Parliament, and Peggy McIntosh, activist and Senior Research Scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women.

The theme of the colloquium’s first day was “Motherhood, Soft Power and Peace.” Before keynote speeches began, Wendy Wagner Robeson, Senior Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, opened the conference with announcements and intentions for the day. 

“Today is only the start of something larger. For some it will be the spark, and for others it will be [the] renewed spark to bring change and peace to our world,” said Wagner.

Various speakers emphasized the importance of mothers in building peace within the home and across borders. Many shared their own experiences as mothers and spoke about the importance of raising the next generation of empathetic children as an example of soft power, a political strategy that uses persuasion and diplomacy rather than coercion and military power. 

“From their position at the intersection of private and public life, mothers have turned personal experience into movements that reshape politics, law, and culture,” said Miranda Daniloff Mancusi, Executive Director of Wagner Centers for Wellesley in the World.

Some speakers took the stage with the intention of initiating conversation. During her speech about the importance of LGBTQ+ mothers, Emmy Howe of the Wellesley Centers for Women asked audience members to turn to each other and talk about the LBGTQ+ people in their lives.

Wellesley students were also given the opportunity to share their perspectives at the colloquium. On its second day, Inaya Raja ’27, a human rights advocate and volunteer for Dr. Hauwa Ibrahim’s Mother Beyond Borders colloquium, gave a serial testimony at Harvard detailing her identity as a Kashmiri American and what it means to be part of a culture that is actively under military occupation and at threat of cultural erasure. She offers advice for those who may be unsure about their role as youth in peacekeeping.

“It’s okay to not know everything, but the important thing is that if we can all stick together and find a way to unite through the grief and unite through the mourning of everything that’s going on, through the loss of our cultures, through the loss of cultures all around the world, then we can actually form like a very deep connection,” Raja said. 

Ibrahim expressed gratitude for all the students who helped organize the colloquium and emphasized her hope that the focus of the weekend would be on youth voices in peacebuilding.

“They can be anything, they can do everything. They can reach the highest heights,” Ibrahim said.

Friday’s event culminated with the Kenner Lecture, which is the Albright Institute’s endowed fall lecture, where Ibrahim and Wellesley College Professor Chipo Dendere delivered the lecture titled, “Leadership in a Fragmented World: The Soft Power of Mothers in Peacebuilding.”  

“If you remember anything from today, from this long conversation, it is our humanity,” Ibrahim said. 

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Lyanne Wang and Rebecca Birnach