Contact:

Robin Prest, SFU Centre for Dialogue, 778.782.7885, rjprest@sfu.ca

Scott McLean, SFU Vancouver, 778.782.5151, srmclean@sfu.ca


Photo, additional background information and event listings are available online.

World-renowned author and 2008 TED Prize recipient Karen Armstrong will visit Simon Fraser University over a 12-day period in March (19 – 30) to host a citywide conversation on compassion.

During her visit Armstrong will receive the Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue and will launch the Greater Vancouver Compassion Network, part of an international movement to build compassionate communities, inspired in part by Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion.

In 2008, Armstrong was awarded the TED Prize in support of her call to create the charter, a document now endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

“We can either emphasize those aspects of our traditions, religious or secular, that speak of hatred, exclusion or suspicion, or work with those that stress the interdependence and equality of all human beings,” says Armstrong. “The choice is ours.”

SFU’s Centre for Dialogue will host for the event and is utilizing Armstrong’s visit to celebrate Metro Vancouver stories of compassion. One such story features SFU Semester in Dialogue graduate Hussein “E.V.” Alidina, who wrote a song about the impact of schizophrenia (The Quiet Room) for a class assignment.

The video has received over 40,000 hits on YouTube, and E.V. and his group A-SLAM have since been nominated for a Juno Award.

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