Ambassador Lectures

Jeffrey Sachs’s academic work revolves around tackling the challenges of globalization, such as the resource curse, public health, climate change and the end of poverty. He has been considered the leading academic scholar in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and his work as chairman of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics has been invaluable to the scaling up of the financing of health care and disease control in low-income countries.

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Sara Mardini and her sister Yusra fled the Syrian civil war in 2015 to seek asylum in Europe. The perilous journey of Sara and Yusra made international headlines as they pulled a sinking boat of refugees to safety on the Greek island of Lesbos. After their heroic act Sara volunteered as a spotter and rescuer for the Greek Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI), which provides emergency response and humanitarian aid to refugees in high risk situations. In August 2018, Sara was arrested for illegally aiding migrants and spent 106 days in pre-trial detention in a maximum-security prison before eventually being released on bail in December 2018. 

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Amanda Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Rise, a US civil rights nonprofit. She penned her own civil rights into existence and unanimously passed the US Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights after having to navigate the broken criminal justice system after her own rape. 19 bills protecting sexual violence survivors have been created modelled off of her federal law. The federal law was the 21st bill in modern US history to pass unanimously on the record.

She graduated from Harvard, was a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and has been named a Forbes 30 Under 30, by Foreign Policy as a Top 100 Leading Global Thinker.
 
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Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programm discussed the end game of the 2030 Agenda, that is to create a better world for everyone: ending poverty and hunger, improving education and healthcare, while taking action on climate, peace and justice. With 17 goals, 169 targets, and over 230 indicators, it is one of the UN’s most ambitious initiatives. 

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H.E. Haim Divon, Ambassador of Israel to the Netherlands, and H.E. Dr. Nabil Abuznaid, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the Netherlands discussed the past and present aspects of the conflict between the countries, with a main focus on possible solutions. The Ambassadors shared their vision on how they see a possible roadmap to peace.

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Former IRA member Patrick Magee visited Maastricht University and talked about how his involvement in the Brighton bombing changed his life! He planted a bomb in a hotel missing his target PM Thatcher, but killing 5 others. After 14 years in prison, he was released in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement. Reflecting on the bombings he strongly regrets that people were hurt, but asks: 'Did the Tory ruling class expect to remain immune from what their frontline troops were doing to us?' While in prison Magee completed a PhD BA. 

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