Forest Whitaker showcases his work and his views on refugees at the Gamechanger Festival 2017 in Vienna
Our CEO, Forest Whitaker has been invited at the Gamechanger Festival 2017 to exchange on the issue of refugees and the work of WPDI to empower young refugees in Uganda with our partner, Híkmet Ersek, CEO of Western Union, and Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s Foreign Minister
Forest Whitaker is participating in the Gamechanger festival 2017 in Vienna on 25 April to present the work his foundation, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) is initiating with the Western Union Foundation to empower young women and men residing in a settlement for refugees in Kiryandongo Uganda. WPDI and Western Union Foundation decided to join forces in the benefit of refugees in Uganda because the country is currently host to more than 800.000 people who have fled from South Sudan since 2013 – and 400.000 since July 2016, when the civil war was taken to new record levels of violence. Since WPDI already runs projects for internally displaced people in South Sudan and has youth programs in northern Uganda, it was a logical move to initiate work benefiting South Sudanese youth in Uganda, a country, which also has open policies towards refugees and favors innovative solutions in this domain.
As a stage designed to showcase innovation, notably through information and communication technology, the Gamechanger festival is a thus unique opportunity to exchange on such groundbreaking projects as the Youth Peacemaker Network, which equips young people with peacebuilding, ICT and entrepreneurship skills as well as mobile technology so they can actively promote peace and reconciliation in their communities. A key aspect of the project is indeed that young people are in the driving seat and develop their own educational and business projects to benefit other youth of their community. They are the partners, not just the beneficiaries of the program.
In Vienna, Forest Whitaker will notably hold a conversion on the issue of refugees with Híkmet Ersek, CEO of Western Union, Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s Foreign Minister, and innovators from the Austrian business scene. You can follow the live panel discussion on 25 April from 6pm to 7pm CET at 4gamechanger.com
The 4GAMECHANGER festival 2017 is the stage for webstars, the hub for future digital projects, the breeding ground for start-ups, the get-together for game changers and the show to beat all shows.