118: Breaking Cycles of Genocide: Rachel Miner, Bellwether International

Crossing Faiths

In the conversation, Rachel Miner discusses her organization Bellwether International, which focuses on disrupting the cycle of genocide and creating genocide-resistant societies. She explains their approach of combining top-down systems change with bottom-up grassroots resistance movements, empowering local "bellwethers" to lead peacebuilding efforts. Miner highlights their evidence-based programming, such as trauma healing for Yazidi genocide survivors in Iraq, and their efforts to develop a predictive model using data and machine learning to identify early warning signs of genocide and devise policy interventions.

Rachel has a bachelors in economics from Brigham Young University and masters in public administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science and masters in economic and political development from Columbia University. In 2021, Rachel was named a U.S. Truman Scholar.

Rachel’s research explores the economics of religious freedom and has published in the Journal of Economics, Management, and Religion, and is a regular contributor on BBC Woman’s Hour, SiriusXM, and Newsweek. Her research also discusses religious freedom and technology, artificial intelligence, and using complex systems to model genocide. Rachel has presented at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the Global Women’s Summit, the Ministerial to advance Religious Freedom, Interfaith G20, International Religious Freedom Summit, among others.

https://bellwetherngo.org/

Special Guest: Rachel Miner.

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