Preventing the Unthinkable: Genocide in the 21st Century - A Reflection
A reflection by Aletia Robey
Speaker - Bellwether International, Founder and CEO Rachel Miner
Moderator - Trent Spoolstra, Senior Director of Community Relations at the Jewish Federation of Louisville
On a November evening at the University Club, our community gathered to tackle a word that carries the weight of history and the sting of the present: genocide. Too often it’s spoken as if it belongs to faraway places or distant decades. But this program, part of WAC’s Engage America Series and presented with Bellwether International, brought the conversation firmly into the 21st century and asked a more urgent question: How do we prevent genocide today?
What stayed with me most was that word: preventing. We weren’t just hearing about atrocities or dissecting past failures. We were talking about solutions - real, grounded, community-driven solutions.
Our featured speaker, Rachel Miner, Founder and CEO of Bellwether International, speaks with a clarity that comes from hard-won experience. She has spent years on the ground with the Yazidi community in Iraq and with Rohingya women displaced from their homes. Her work is not theoretical; it’s lived in the spaces where trauma meets survival and where faith communities carry both the heaviest burdens and the deepest wells of resilience.
One of the most compelling moments came during the discussion of how we define genocide. When an audience member asked whether systemic discrimination in the U.S., like redlining Black communities to underresourced parts of town, could be classified as genocide, Rachel grounded her response in the UN definition, clarifying that economic class is not a protected category. It was a reminder that the legal frameworks we use matter, even when our emotions push us toward broader interpretations. Still, rather than getting stuck in the debate, she brought us back to the central point: debating definitions isn’t the same thing as preventing violence.
And prevention, in her view, isn’t a lofty ideal. It’s a practiced discipline.
Bellwether’s approach combines cognitive behavioral therapy, economic integration, and partnerships with government. Their model trains local leaders - often mothers, youth, and religious figures, to identify trauma, break cycles of violence, and teach others to do the same. In refugee camps and communities recovering from mass atrocities, Bellwether has seen firsthand how survivors can become the architects of hope. Skills aren’t handed down from outsiders; they grow from the very people who endured the worst and still choose to rebuild.
The organization’s five-year report underscores a reality many overlook: genocide disproportionately affects people of faith. That’s not because faith drives violence, but because vulnerable religious communities often live at the crossroads of political instability and systemic neglect. Bellwether’s work reinforces that protecting religious freedom is essential as part of a wider, holistic prevention strategy. Interfaith dialogue, especially in places like Nigeria and Iraq, has been one of their most powerful tools for rebuilding trust.
What struck me deeply is how aligned this work is with the mission of the World Affairs Council. Louisville isn’t a spectator in global conversations like this. We invite international leaders into our community. We foster understanding across cultures and faith traditions. These local acts of connection, every meeting, every exchange, every event like this, are threads in the larger fabric of global peacebuilding.
And as Rachel reminded us, most of the world’s anti-genocide work focuses solely on advocacy. Very little focuses on healing trauma or building community resilience from the inside out. Bellwether exists to fill that gap.
Listening that night, I couldn’t help thinking: no faith tradition on Earth truly calls for violence against humanity. The strength already exists across our global religions, across borders, and across communities. The framework for peace is there. What remains is the commitment to align it and put it into action.
On November 20, we didn’t solve genocide. But we did something essential: we chose to understand it, to confront it honestly, and to learn what it takes to stop the unthinkable before it starts.
Sometimes the first step toward preventing the inevitable is simply refusing to accept it as inevitable.
About the Writer
Aletia Robey is the International Exchange Program Manager. She has spent her career weaving together nonprofit program management, community engagement, and a love for the arts. She began in social services and grew into the arts and culture sector, where she found her passion for using creativity as a tool for connection and learning.
