Winner of Gandhi Peace Prize to speak

A.T. Ariyaratne, winner of the Gandhi Peace Prize and founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka, will offer a free public lecture at 7 p.m. Monday, May 24, at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Ave.

Hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a local interfaith coalition, he will speak on the topic “Personal Empowerment, Peace and Sustainability: A World of Communities That Work for Everyone.”

Two half-day seminars will be offered Tuesday, May 25, at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. “In the Spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King: Peace from the Inside Out” is scheduled from 9 a.m.-noon. Ariyaratne will discuss the role of meditation and spirituality in promoting health, ethnic and political harmony. In 2002 he led a peace meditation with 650,000 participants.

The Sarvodaya Movement also conducts meditation programs in prisons throughout Sri Lanka, with teams of villagers focusing on human rights, and with pregnant women. Its “village to village-heart to heart” program partners communities in the former conflict areas of Sri Lanka with villages from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The other seminar, “We Build the Road and the Road Builds Us: Community Empowerment from the Bottom Up,” is scheduled from 1:15-4:15p.m. at the Pyle Center.

To register for either seminar, call (608) 262-7942 or (800) 725-9692.

Related events will include a photo exhibit by UW–Madison participants in a recent study-service tour to Sri Lanka, an interfaith dialogue co-sponsored by local congregations.

These events are sponsored with support from the Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters and Sciences, Center for South Asia, a Title VI National Resource Center, and the Department of Professional Development and Applied Studies.

For more information, see http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/pda/public_lectures.htm.