Illinois Young Voters’ Congress: A Forum for Peace and Social Justice

Illinois for a World BEYOND War, the Illinois chapter of the global World BEYOND War organization, is sponsoring an Illinois statewide “Young Voters’ Congress: A Forum for Peace and Social Justice” on Saturday, October 17 from 10:00am-2:00pm at the Institute of Cultural Affairs in Chicago.

The Congress aims to enable young people, first time voters, college students and Zoomers from Illinois to declare what issues are important to them as they become involved in upcoming elections. Their declared aspirations will be widely shared with elected officials, candidates for office, media, and electoral campaigns in Illinois and beyond.

Register to attend! Lunch will be provided. This is a hybrid event with an option to Zoom in if you can’t join us in-person in Chicago.

Endorsed by Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Chicago, Black Lives Matter Chicago, Chicago Area Peace Action, CODEPINK, Nonviolent Cities Project-Joliet, Pax Christi Illinois, and Youth Healing Chi.

Event Program:

• 10:00AM-10:20AM: Tabling, Networking, Coffee & Tea
• 10:20AM-10:40AM: Welcome Address by WBW Illinois Chapter Intern Annie James and WBW Board President Kathy Kelly & Spoken Word Performance by 3x Emmy-nominated poet Trey Baker
• 10:40AM-11:15AM: Keynote Address (To be announced!), moderated by WBW Illinois Steering Committee Member Madonna Wojtaszek-Healy
• 11:15AM-12:00PM: Panel: Militarism, Racism, Inequality, & Climate Collapse: The Tentacles of the War Machine, featuring Tree Palmeras, Director of Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Henna Ayesh, media liaison during DePaul University’s student encampment for Palestine, moderated by CODEPINK National Co-Director Danaka Katovich
• 12:00PM-12:45PM: Lunch, Tabling & Networking
• 12:45PM-1:45PM: Discussion Session: Declaring Our Aspirations: Envisioning a Peaceful & Just Future – Facilitated by Jerica Arents, Professor of Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies at DePaul University
• 1:45PM-2:00PM: Closing Words by Annie James and Kathy Kelly

Speakers:

Jerica Arents teaches in the Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies program at DePaul University. Her ongoing research is on Buddhist anti-nuclear activism and the ways we might foster hope and agency in our classroom spaces to create the change we hope to see in the world. She studied and worked in solidarity with young peacemakers in Kabul and survivors of torture in Chicago. Jerica teaches courses on activism, social movement theory, whiteness studies and transnational solidarity. She lives in Chicago with her wife and two small kids, who repeatedly remind her of the responsibility we have in building a better world for them to inherit.
Henna Ayesh is a recent graduate of DePaul University, where she studied Political Science with minors in International Studies and Public Policy. During her time at DePaul, she served in leadership with Students for Justice in Palestine and as a media liaison during the university’s student encampment for Palestine. Her work has centered on Palestinian activism, student organizing, and community engagement throughout the Chicagoland area.

Trey Baker is a 3x Emmy-nominated and award-winning spoken-word artist. He performs around the country and internationally while leading storytelling campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, and national civic organizations. Trey has been a featured spoken-word artist at the Logan Center for the Arts, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Allstate Foundation’s National Youth Service Summit, and has opened for Mary J. Blige and Larenz Tate’s 28th anniversary of the Love Jones film. His poems and research on Social Poetics have been featured in several publications, including his poem, “You, Me, and The Message,” which was published by the National Alliance on Mental Illness for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s World Poetry Day. Additionally, Trey has performed for and been awarded by President Barack Obama for his work within the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance Leadership Network in Chicago and for his activism and leadership in storytelling. In his practice, Trey partners with school districts and youth correctional agencies across the country as a resident teaching artist to develop and facilitate culturally sustaining education frameworks, driving healing-centered learning and transformative education through the power of spoken word poetry. With Scholastic, he serves as the Rising Voices mentor for the collection Rising Voices: Honoring the Richness of Black Stories, the teaching artist for his Our Greatness Is Our Story Spoken Word Program, and the author of his debut children’s book, When I Look Up, available now. Trey graduated with his Master’s in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), where he was also an HGSE Empowerment & Impact Fellow.

Annie James is a senior at DePaul University in Chicago majoring in Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies. She also holds a certificate in Disability Justice, Rights, and Policy. Annie’s research focuses on pragmatic nonviolent action exercised in the midst of sectarian violence. Annie has been working with World BEYOND War to connect students and Gen Z peers with each other as well as local Chicago activist organizations.

Danaka Katovich is CODEPINK’s National Co-Director. Danaka graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science in November 2020. Since 2018 she has been working towards ending U.S. participation in the war in Yemen. At CODEPINK, she oversees all advocacy campaigns and facilitates local organizing in the Midwest and in Europe. Her writing can be found in Jacobin, Salon, Truthout, CommonDreams, and more.

Kathy Kelly is Board President of World BEYOND War. From 2022 to 2024 she co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul. With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 – 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions and remaining in Iraq throughout the Shock and Awe bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank’s Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense. Kathy has been an educator for most of her life, but she believes children of war and those who are victims of violence have been her most important teachers.

Tree Palmeras (Us/We/She/Her/They/Them/He/Him): Called Big Tree by many in the justice movement is a proud Pisces, mother of dragons, poet, photographer, artful dodger, orca lover, healer, storyteller, base builder, amateur comedian, and water bender. Tree is a mother of social justice leaders and a long time Chicago community & now global organizer, having learned & developed community with organizations, in Cuba, Brasil, St. Maartin & Cuba. Big Tree is the director of Black Lives Matter Chicago which helped to secure the first murder conviction of a white police officer who killed a Black child, in history in the US. Black Lives Matter Chicago also stands in support of Black Trans women who have been murdered by demanding justice for them. We successfully advocated for Strawberry Hampton a trans woman be moved from a men’s prison where she was being tortured to a women’s prison. We’ve held vigils for Black trans women and held a combined vigil for a Cisgender Heterosexual Black man and a Trans Black woman together, uniting those families in solidarity. We’ve held events to raise awareness about the transmisogyny, and also created space for Queer Black joy in our own Queer Black family with most of our leadership being queer femmes. Big Tree is also a co-founder of Ujimaa Medics (UMedics), a Black collective focused on health justice and self-determination for Black people. Tree was also a lead organizer of the Mental Health Movement Organizer for Southsiders Together Organizing for Power (STOP). To date, Umedics has taught over a thousand, predominantly Black, directly affected people, first responder skills for gunshot wounds.

Madonna Wojtaszek-Healy, Ph.D. is a member of the Illinois for a World BEYOND War steering committee and also belongs to Pax Christi Will County. She is trained to help young men declare conscientious objection on their Selective Service registration forms and visits high schools with the Militarism Education Project to help students obtain honest information about military service that military recruiters tend to distort. A retired educator, she has also been an advocate for persons with disabilities in schools and community life.

Parking and Transportation: The Institute of Cultural Affairs is a 5 minute walk from the Red Line Lawrence Station, and is accessible by both the Sheridan bus (151) and the Lawrence bus (81). Parking in the area is limited and largely paid, with a two-hour limit. If you are driving to the event, we encourage carpooling and all are welcome to utilize free parking apps (ex: SpotAngel or SpotHero) to find spots.