Joel Marion

Joel is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg and Menno Simons College (BA Honours, 2008), with a double-major in Politics and Conflict Resolution Studies. Joel is an alum of Canada World Youth, participating in the 2000-01 Ontario-Thailand agricultural exchange. From 2006-2007 Joel served as Deputy-Chair of the University of Winnipeg Global College Delegation of Rights and Democracy. With the Rights and Democracy Group, he helped organize a workshop with Senator Romeo Dallaire, and organized volunteers for a conference on Child Soldiers. Joel also helped plan and organize the international Human Rights and Social Justice Conference held at the University of Winnipeg in 2007. Following the conference, he produced a complete audio archive and podcast of the conference proceedings (available at Archive.org).

In 2006 Joel traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to participate as an independent election monitor in the country's first democratic elections. He stayed on after the elections to observe the post-election climate, as well as co-lecturing on conflict resolution, human rights, and democracy at the Christian University of Kinshasa.

With the gracious support of the Douglas W. Leatherdale Internship, Joel traveled to the National University of Ireland, Galway, Irish Centre for Human Rights in the summer of 2007, where he studied the International Criminal Court and Minority Rights.

Joel is the recipient of the 2004 and 2007 Millennium Scholarship, the 2006 Lloyd Axworthy Scholarship in Politics, and the 2007 Douglas W. Leatherdale Global Internship.

In addition to his work with Canada's World, Joel is the coordinator for the upcoming public engagement conference on the UN Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, entitled "Two Faces of Poverty: Making the Law Work for Indigenous Peoples and Women" at the University of Winnipeg, November 3-4, 2008 (http://twofacesofpoverty.uwinnipeg.ca).