The International Peace Conference 2025
​Sint Jan's Church & UWCM

February 14th

Arrival of guests 19:15 - 19.30
Event                 19:30 - 21:00
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 Our guest speakers:

Peter Verhille

Peter is the Senior Adviser, International Fund Development at UWC International.  He develops and oversees major philanthropic partnerships that underpin UWC’s global scholarship programme which enables young people from diverse communities around the world to attend one of the 18 UWC schools and colleges. Peter has stewarded the landmark EU Scholarship Programme for Cypriot Youth at UWC – which engages students and their families across this divided island - since its inception in 2018. Peter’s previous career included diverse senior international leadership roles as a consultant in corporate communications and public affairs, and as an entrepreneur. He co-founded the first “think-do tank” in Brussels, The Centre, combining a consulting firm with a not-for-profit forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogues and engagement. Peter attended UWC Atlantic and was later for many years engaged as a volunteer with the UWC Belgium National Committee. He was also a member of the Fundraising Task Force for the UWC Maastricht College prior to its launch in 2009. He holds degrees in Political and Social Science, Media and Communications Studies (Ghent University, Belgium) and Communications Policy (City University, London).




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​Lia
​Lia Da Giau is a UWC Maastricht Alumna, currently studying Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews (Scotland). This is Lia’s second time on stage at St Janskerk, after giving the IPC 2020 opening speech as an IPC team member. She is now back to deliver a speech titled ‘What do Peace and Peas Have in Common?’. Very captivating prompt, but also a strategy to distract you from the semi-academic content of her presentation. She will be sharing insights on her work as a researcher for the Visualising Peace project, focusing on inner, local and global dimensions of peace education.  
The Visualising Peace Project was established in January 2022 by Dr Alice König, senior lecturer in the School of Classics at the University of St Andrews. The Visualising Peace project contributes to reframing how we study and understand peace and conflict, by exploring such themes through the lenses of the various connotation that peace acquires on an individual, societal and academic level. Their proposition is simple: we often understand peace in relation to conflict, but what would happen if we put peace and its implications at the centre?   
During the years, the scope of the project expanded according to the input of the student researchers involved. We have been carrying out an extensive literature review on how peace is conceptualised in different fields of study, and made these resources available to the public through the Visualising Peace Library. To facilitate a better understanding of what it could mean to ‘visualise peace’, we curate a virtual Museum of Peace, collating a series of resources under broader thematic groups.