Everyone is invited to hear the acclaimed African peace activist Leymah Roberta Gbowee speak at UMass Lowell on Monday, April 4, at 12.30 pm, in the O’Leary Library Auditorium, Room 222, 61 Wilder Street, on UML’s South Campus. Parking is available in the Visitor Lot on Wilder.  She is the keynote speaker in the Day without Violence program of the UML Peace and Conflict Studies Institute.

Leymah is the 2011 UMass Lowell Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies. In 2003, she organized a peace movment led by women of Christian and Muslim faiths. Ms. Gbowee is executive director of the Women’s Peace and Security Network of Africa, based in Ghana. In 2007, the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government honored her with the Blue Ribbon Peace Award, and in 2009 she and women from Liberia collectively received the Profiles in Courage Award of the Kennedy Library in Boston. She is the central character in the award-winning documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” She will be at UMass Lowell for the first three weeks in April, meeting with students and faculty on campus and speaking to community groups in the region. For details on her events, visit uml.edu/artsandideas or the website of the UMass Lowell Peace and Conflict Studies Institute, which hosts the Greeley Scholar each year.