A World BEYOND War Australia symposium (in association with the Victorian Quaker Centre) Monday 15 June 2026 from 9:00am-1:00pm AEST (find the time in your time zone) This event will be livestreamed. Please register on this page for the Zoom link.

Between the two periods of Taliban rule (roughly 2001–2021), Afghanistan saw a dense landscape of civil society initiatives around peacebuilding, women’s rights, and gender equality, led by Afghan NGOs, informal community groups, and international partners.

Afghans who fled after August 2021 have become key actors in keeping Afghan peace, social justice and gender equality struggles alive from exile, combining direct support to people inside Afghanistan with advocacy, movement-building and institution-building abroad.

This symposium, organised by World BEYOND War Australia (the Australian chapter of the international World BEYOND War movement), will explore a number of themes related to Afghans promoting peace and social justice in new lands.

We have three impressive keynote speakers:

• Dr. Mujib Abid, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Initiative for Peacebuilding at the University of Melbourne, is an Afghan-Australian scholar of modern Afghan history, peace studies and political theory whose current work focuses on the Afghan diaspora in Australia.
• Efat Abulfazil, a peace advocate now living in Italy, has a long history of promoting mental health, gender equality, and nonviolence in communities affected by conflict and displacement. Efat is the founder of the Malika Soraa Foundation.
• Nemat Ahangosh, a peacebuilder, poet, and activist now living in the UK. Nemat is the founder of Stretch More, a UK registered charity dedicated to empowering disabled individuals in conflict zones and disaster-prone areas.

The Rotary Club of Unley, SAWA (Support Assoc. for Women of Afghanistan, Pamela Rajkowski (Afghan Cameleer historian) and GIFFA (Ghan International Film Festival Association) have collaborated to show insightful films of Afghan Culture and celebrate the arrival, in Port Augusta in 1866, of Afghan Cameleers to support drought stricken farmers.

The film will start at 6:30 and an interval will be after Echoes & Afghan Cameleers. & the raffle drawn. This will be followed by the final film And I still sing.

3 Films will be shown

Echoes- Director: Ahmad Ebrahimi, 2024, In “Echoes,” Lena, a resilient immigrant, navigates the challenges of displacement in a tent. Inside her tent, she grapples with the scars of her past, revealing the resilience and determination of those living on the margins of society.

Afghan Cameleer Documentary -Directed by Fahim Hashimy

And I still Sang- an award-winning feature documentary directed by Afghan-Canadian filmmaker Fazila Amiri. This film is noted for its raw “on-the-ground” look at the abrupt transition of power and its impact on Afghan artists and women.

Tickets include admission to the film, a nibble bag and a drink. A raffle will be held so bring coin.

All funds raised will be used for an Unley Rotary project and SAWA to empower Afghan women and girls through education and mental well- being support.

The Rotary Club of Unley, SAWA (Support Assoc. for Women of Afghanistan, Pamela Rajkowski (Afghan Cameleer historian) and GIFFA (Ghan International Film Festival Association) have collaborated to show insightful films of Afghan Culture and celebrate the arrival, in Port Augusta in 1866, of Afghan Cameleers to support drought stricken farmers.

The film will start at 6:30 and an interval will be after Echoes & Afghan Cameleers. & the raffle drawn. This will be followed by the final film And I still sing.

3 Films will be shown

Echoes- Director: Ahmad Ebrahimi, 2024, In “Echoes,” Lena, a resilient immigrant, navigates the challenges of displacement in a tent. Inside her tent, she grapples with the scars of her past, revealing the resilience and determination of those living on the margins of society.

Afghan Cameleer Documentary -Directed by Fahim Hashimy

And I still Sang- an award-winning feature documentary directed by Afghan-Canadian filmmaker Fazila Amiri. This film is noted for its raw “on-the-ground” look at the abrupt transition of power and its impact on Afghan artists and women.

Tickets include admission to the film, a nibble bag and a drink. A raffle will be held so bring coin.

All funds raised will be used for an Unley Rotary project and SAWA to empower Afghan women and girls through education and mental well- being support.