Peace Fellows Dinner - Cancelled

Unfortunately we have cancelled this function as our two Guest Speakers, Rachel and Molly, are unable to confidently travel to Sydney from Brisbane due to current travel restrictions.

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Speakers on the night are two Rotary Peace Fellows currently undertaking a Masters Program at the University of Queensland

Full details for the night are expected to be available early January, with the meal cost anticipated to be about $55/60.

The two very inspiring speakers are:

Rachel Buchan is an aspiring public servant from the United States. Rachel’s passion for peace and good governance was formed while teaching English to Syrian refugees as a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey. Through her students’ stories, Rachel witnessed the power of government to inflict great harm or to protect human security. She returned to Washington, DC in 2016 to learn more about government, peacebuilding, and human rights. Rachel served in The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama, for the U.S. Congress, for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, and at Human Rights First. Most recently, Rachel was Vice President of Government Relations at Capstone LLC, a policy analysis firm that researches how geopolitics impacts large industries. Rachel owes her deep love of learning to her alma mater, Birmingham-Southern College, where she graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Religion with honours and Phi Beta Kappa. Rachel’s greatest pride is her beloved family and home state of Alabama where she was raised on delicious food, true grit and enduring joy. 

Molly Ferguson is a Class XVIII Rotary Peace Fellow from the United States, pursuing a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland. She got her BA in International Studies and Women's and Gender Studies from the University of South Carolina in 2012. After working for a small human rights organization in Boston after graduation, she went on to serve in the US Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa as a Community Health Volunteer. Molly's focus during her Peace Corps service was capacity building in regards to vaccination, maternal and neonatal care, hygiene and sanitation, and women's empowerment. Since her Peace Corps service, she worked for nearly 3 years at JSI, a global health non-profit agency in Washington D.C., supporting immunization programs mostly in Africa and South Asia. Molly spent 2019 on a short-term contract in Freetown, Sierra Leone supporting capacity development  of midwifery schools throughout the country, after the 2014 Ebola outbreak left the country with virtually no midwives. Molly is passionate about grassroots level development and human rights advocacy and cannot wait to use her Master's degree to continue her humanitarian work.