Former Beirut hostage to speak at Law School Sept. 20

by Ann Marie Deer Owens

Terry Waite, who was held captive for nearly five years by Muslim extremists in Lebanon, will speak about his solitary imprisonment during an address Sept. 20 at the Vanderbilt University Law School. "A Conversation with Terry Waite," which is sponsored by the Vanderbilt Law and Divinity Program, will take place at 3:30 p.m. in the Law School's Bennett-Miller Room. The talk is free and open to the public.

Waite

Waite is the founder and president of Y Care International, an international development agency of the YMCA movement that focuses on the needs and contributions of young people in developing nations. The noted author, lecturer and humanitarian worker takes an active interest in prison reform and continues to be involved in hostage situations. He also recently returned from visiting street children projects in Colombia.

Waite, who was born in England, studied theology in college but said he had no desire to be ordained. In his middle 20s, he and his young family set sail for East Africa, where he served as adviser to the First Episcopal African Archbishop of Uganda. During that time, he founded the Southern Sudan Relief Project.

Waite later became an adviser on foreign affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and successfully negotiated the release of hostages from Iran in the 1980s. However, he was captured while trying to secure the release of hostages from Lebanon and spent 1,763 days in captivity, mostly in solitary confinement. He was released in November 1991.

Waite, who now divides his time between London and the Suffolk countryside, recently opened the Aberdeen Centre for Trauma Research in Scotland. He credits the support of trauma experts with helping him recover from the physical, mental and spiritual deprivation that he endured.