CITIZENS FOR GLOBAL SOLUTIONS UPCOMING EVENTS:
Third Thursday Global Films Discussion – MAY
Documentary: PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE
Date: June 5, 2025
Time: noon (Central Time)
Where: Zoom
FREE and open to the public
Where to watch: Netflix and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrm2pD0qofM
Guest speaker: Aashraya Seth is a mid-career Fulbright Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He currently serves as a Policy Specialist at the Minnesota Senate, is a member of the Minnesota Menstrual Equity Coalition, a HeForShe Fellow with UN Women, and the founder of Impact91 and Happy Periods, national non-profits focused on menstrual equity, girls’ education, and gender justice.
His work has been featured as case studies on the Global South by organizations including UN Women, the Gates Foundation, and the Swedish Government. Aashraya has designed over a dozen nonprofit initiatives across education, environment, and public health—each with a gender equity lens. His multi-award-winning innovations include: developing India’s most affordable sustainable menstrual product vending machine at $25; launching a $3 menstrual cup; and creating a messenger-based chatbot and curriculum for SRHR literacy, which has reached over half a million underserved and tribal women and girls.
He studied Physics and Information Systems before earning his first public policy fellowship at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. He later held fellowships at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, the Korean Development Institute, the United Nations, and HSF Germany.
Over the past decade, Aashraya has advised and managed programs for the British, Indian, and Australian governments in science, technology, space, education, and gender equity. He has contributed to high-level policy dialogues at the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, and was recently named among the top 80 social innovators in India and the top 50 emerging policy leaders globally.
Description: From Stigma to Strength: Menstrual Rights for All. In both the U.S. and India, 1 in 4 teens—particularly those from lower-income households and communities of color—and 1 in 3 adults struggle to afford or lack access to clean menstrual products.
Join Human Rights Center Visiting Fellow and Fulbright International Fellow Aashraya Seth for an engaging session on India’s menstrual equity movement, anchored by the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary Period. End of Sentence. The film explores the stigma surrounding menstruation, the consequences of limited access to sanitary products, and how women are challenging norms and advocating for change.
This 60-minute session will include a discussion of the documentary and a presentation on menstrual equity efforts in both India and the U.S., viewed through a human rights lens. Participants will gain insights into grassroots activism, public policy interventions, and innovative solutions disrupting the menstrual health space.
Please watch the film on your own. We will not stream it in this event.
Co-sponsor: University of Minnesota Human Rights Center
After registering, you will receive the Zoom link on your email.
CGS-MN Co-sponsored event:
Genocides in Ukraine – From Stalin to Hitler to Putin
Date: Monday, February 24, 2025
Time: 7:00 - 8:30 pm CT
Description: This program remembers those whose lives have been lost since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and in the previous crises. Three brutal dictators have tried to annihilate Ukrainians.
- Stalin killed nearly 4 million Ukrainians in a genocide by starvation, the Holodomor, 1932-1933.
- Hitler’s killing squads invaded Ukraine and murdered nearly 1.6 million Jews and others in a ‘Holocaust by bullets’ in the 1940s.
- Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the third genocide in Ukraine.
Admission for the webinar:
- $10 general public; $5 seniors and students (over age 13, please).
- $25 for 1.5 CLE credits for Minnesota lawyers.
- Continuing education and 'clock hours' available for Minnesota teachers, social workers, and nurses.
- Mitchell Hamline students free – diversity credits are available.
- Qualifies as a University of St. Thomas Law Mentor Externship experience.
Registration is required by Monday, February 24, 5:00 pm CT.
CGS-MN Co-sponsored event:
”What does American Diplomacy Keep Getting Wrong?”
Date: February 27, 2025
Time: Noon Central Time
Local: O’Shaughnessy Room, at the O’Shaughnessy Library, at University of St. Thomas
Free pizza and deserts for attendees
Speaker: Thomas Hanson
Thomas Hanson served as Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State in East Germany, France, the Soviet Union, and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. He worked on the Foreign Relations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and served as Director for NATO and European Affairs at the Atlantic Council. Now, as a member of the Great Decisions advisory committee of Global Minnesota, Mr. Hanson delivers the annual US Foreign Policy Update at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Description: Whatever diplomacy is, we intuitively know it is not the imperious bullying we now see from the White House. So what then? ...a more polite form of pressure? ...a fundamentally different mission? When does diplomacy succeed? When does it fail? What are the fallacies, biases, and inherited beliefs that have prevented us, over the lifetime of our nation, from practicing diplomacy with clarity?
• Veteran Diplomat Tom Hanson leads us to radically reconsider our foreign policy assumptions.•
Co-Sponsors/Partners:
International Studies
Political Science
Justice & Peace Studies
Human Rights Professor Kathya Dawe
Citizens for Global Solutions Minnesota
The Institute of Theological & Interdisciplinary Studies