Bradley and Hamilton Counties have been successful at recruiting German based companies to establish companies in their communities. These companies are importing employees and their families to the area in addition to hiring locals to work at their factories. This presentation will provide information on German culture in addition to sharing how these and other international influences are shaping the future of the region.

        Over 175 years have passed since a treaty was signed that began the forced removal and relocation of the Native Americans via what is known as the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. Bradley County is home of Red Clay State Historic Park which played rich and important role in this part of history. Those who attend this session will glean a deeper knowledge of the pivotal role individuals who lived in this area played in this.

        Dr. Joseph Sebarenzi, former head of the Rwanda Parliament, he has endured tragedy most of us cannot fathom. He lost both his parents, seven siblings, and numerous other relatives in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Yet, years later, as a senior government official in a position to exact revenge, he instead pushed for peace and reconciliation. "Revenge is like adding guilt to victim hood." says Sebarenzi. "It solves nothing. At some point, we have to ignore the past and envision the future." Sebarenzi tells his dramatic and historic story, and imparts a message of peace and forgiveness.

        Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar®, and winner of many international film prizes, Ajami is a bold new crime drama set on the margins of an Arab ghetto in the Israeli city of Jaffa that "could almost be in the Los Angeles of 'Boyz N the Hood,' the Baltimore of 'The Wire' or the Rio de Janeiro of 'City of God.'(New York Times)
        Teeming with Palestinian illegal immigrants, Israeli Arabs, Christians and Jews, Ajami is a cloistered urban neighborhood as treacherous and potentially deadly as the front lines of Gaza. When a Bedouin extortionist is gunned down in self defense, a teenager is mistakenly killed in retribution, and an entire Arab family faces extinction.
        Working with a cast of non-actors in the real streets, back alleys, nightclubs and rooftops of Ajami itself, co-directors Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti have crafted a "stunning" (New York Magazine) film that deftly meshes characters and conflicts with unsentimental compassion, uncompromising realism, and harrowing violence.

        Imagine you're a young boy—maybe three or four—separated from your family by civil war and forced to walk over a 1000 miles in search of safe refuge with little food or water and no protection from wild animals and enemy soldiers. To most of us, it is unimaginable, but for "The Lost Boys of Sudan," it was reality.
        Joan Hecht is the award winning author of "The Journey of the Lost Boys," as well as Founder and President of "Alliance for the Lost Boys of Sudan," a 501 C-3 foundation based in Jacksonville, Fl. and the Chair of Education for The Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan: The National Network, based in Washington, DC.
        Ms. Hecht first met the Lost Boys in 2001, when approximately 3800 were granted refugee status in the United States, 150 of whom resettled in Jacksonville, Fl. Ms. Hecht noticed within them an overwhelming desire to receive an education and in 2004, she established Alliance for the Lost Boys of Sudan to assist in that goal.

        This film is the true story of the tragic life of brilliant Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman. He managed to escape deportation to a Nazi concentration camp and instead hid out in the Warsaw ghetto from 1939 – 1945. He survived the horrors of the conditions by losing himself in his music. He is finally aided by a German officer, but he must literally use his music to save his life.