Rumors of Peace - Issue 3 2006 - Nonviolent Peaceforce

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Rumors of Peace PAGE Volume VI, Issue 3 ◆ 2006 Updates from Around the World Europe Raising Awareness in the Capitals of Europe NP Europe Coordinator Alessandro Rossi and intern Jeremie Habig headed to Paris to attend the Salon des Initiatives de Paix there from June 2nd to 4th. Over ten thousand peace activists from across the globe met to exchange ideas, dreams, and experiences. Conference goers had the chance to visit a booth shared by NP and its member organisation Mouvement pour une Alternative Nonviolente (MAN) to learn about our work from displays in English and in French. A few weeks later the NP Europe team was in Brussels for Couleur Café, an annual music festival. This year’s event included a “Village of Solidarity” where NGOs working in areas of armed conflict showcased their work. Visitors to the NP exhibit were able to “feel” our Sri Lanka project and see a selection of local handicrafts. The display generated interest from many visitors and raised awareness of the work of Nonviolent Peaceforce around the world. North America A Season of Firsts in North America Nothing energizes and inspires advocates of peace more than gathering to share ideas and offer mutual encouragement. There were two such gatherings during June, both of them firsts for the North America region: a conference of the newly-formed United States Nonviolent Peaceforce Chapters Association (USNPCA), and the first regional conference of NP Member Organisations. The centerpiece of the USNPCA conference was eight hours of Nonviolent Conflict Intervention training, a program that will be available through NP Local Chapters later this fall. The rest of their agenda included the sharing of chapter formation stories and local success stories, fundraising brainstorms—and, of course, the process of becoming an official NP Member Organisation with a national committees for ongoing work. Delegates approved a provisional mission statement that will now undergo ratification by local chapters. Contact the association for further information at www.usnpca.org. The first meeting of the North America Member Organisations took place in Berkeley, California. Representatives of thirteen of the twenty NP member organisations were on hand—Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Center for Nonviolent Communication, FOR-USA, Global Peace Services, Global Exchange, Pace e Bene, Peaceworkers, USNPCA, Voice of Women for Peace, NP Canada, Tikkun, Michigan Peace Team, and CONTACT. The delegates learned about each others’ organisations and engaged in discussions about NP’s ongoing work in Sri Lanka while engaging strategic questions crucial to NP’s growth. Three Working Groups identified numerous ways that the individual member organisations and the NP network can advance each others’ work. Examples include joint fundraising and public awareness campaigns, strengthening local chapters by incorporating NP-related work, developing local peace teams together, and sharing information and work on recruitment, assessment and training regarding international peace team deployments. Mindanao (cont. from 1) are investing heavily in development projects. But what is the use of tackling poverty without peace Your organisation’s agenda of protection and peace is the most necessary but least addressed. Why are so many other international efforts blind to the reality that protection should precede development” Local groups in Mindanao are working to sustain the ceasefires, encourage nonviolence, and foster peaceful relations between communities. They also strive to make the concerns of ordinary people heard in the official peace process and to articulate the need for greater international support in pursuit of these objectives and to overcome the “culture of silence.” The Advance Team’s day-to-day association with the advocacy group that worked hard to halt the mini-war in Maguindanao has prompted serious requests from local civil society organisations for an urgent deployment of NP civilian peacekeepers. An NP presence can provide moral solidarity to the war-battered people—a much more valuable form of assistance than material aid. We hope to have found the resources to comply with this request and send a full team to Mindanao before the end of this year. Rumors of Peace is published three times a year by Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), a nonpartisan unarmed peacekeeping force composed of trained civilians from around the world. In partnership with local groups, NP members apply proven nonviolent strategies to protect human rights, deter violence, and help create space for local peacemakers to carry out their work. Send comments or questions to info@nonviolentpeaceforce.org or Editor, Rumors of Peace, 425 Oak Grove, Minneapolis, MN 55403. Visitors at the NP exhibit at Couleur Cafe, Belgium. Are you receiving our e-news Send an email to subscribe@nonviolentpeaceforce.org Include your name and address so we can match your record.
Rumors of Peace PAGE Volume VI, Issue 3 ◆ 2006 Youth Conference Connects By Maya Main This summer, I interned with the Nonviolent Peaceforce as a Youth Organizer, preparing NP’s 2nd annual Youth Conference on Nonviolence. Thirteen participants from North Minneapolis and St. Cloud, ages 14-22, represented a wide range of cultures and ethnicities, with all of the students being people of color. The conference focused on personalizing the concept of nonviolence into our everyday lives, from how we communicate with each other to how we resolve conflicts. The weekend was extremely powerful and very telling. It was also a great opportunity for NP to create relationships with urban youth. While our organisation focuses on international conflict, it is important to interact with our neighbors, young people in particular, as many of them experience conflict on a daily basis. One of the most significant things the facilitators did this weekend was listen and empathize with the experiences of the participants. We did not tell the youth how they should live nonviolently because we recognized the drastic differences of our varied experiences and backgrounds. Because you cannot force someone to be nonviolent, the curriculum for the conference allowed the participants to decide for themselves how they could effectively apply the tools we learned. We role-played conflicts that we were currently experiencing. I encouraged the participants to think outside the box but also to challenge the applicability and feasibility of the tools and scenarios presented to them. Self-directed change, I believe, is the most powerful and sustaining type of change. Having made a connection with the North Minneapolis and Saint Cloud communities, we must now focus our training curricula on empowering youth to use their own stories and assist them in identifying how nonviolence can be useful in their lives. I can confidently say that each participant, including myself, walked away on Sunday morning having changed in his or her own unique way. Recently, I met with the director Urban youth at NP sponsored conference. of the North Minneapolis organisation where some of the youths were from. I briefed him on the conference and discussed next steps. He showed me an article that one of the female participants had written: she wrote about how she was now evaluating different situations where she could respond nonviolently and prevent conflicts from escalating into violence. Hearing this, even from just one participant, made me feel that we had been successful. Nonviolent Peaceforce Training for Trainers Gathering in Thailand Ten Days in July—Building for the Future by Jan Passion Nonviolent Peaceforce plans to increase our capacity so that NP could mobilize hundreds or even thousands of trained peace workers to a conflict situation. To this end, NP held our first Training for Trainers in Thailand in July—bringing together 26 peace trainers from 19 different countries and all of the inhabited continents, with a wealth of experience from many different conflict zones. NP is now ready to provide the essential “Core Training” to large numbers of field staff in multiple languages and to offer multiple Core Trainings at the same time. This is a critical step in NP’s development and our plan to grow exponentially and thus increase our impact in the field of nonviolent intervention. Working to build on NP’s experience on the ground, the training included two members from NP’s Sri Lanka Project and five previous leaders of NP’s Core Trainings. Striving to learn from similar third party nonviolent intervention organisations, two trainers from Peace Brigades International also attended. For ten days we learned about NP, shared our diverse experiences, talked about the skills needed for Field Team Members for NP and practiced the delivery of various activities. We created and participated in role plays, deepened our own practice and understanding of nonviolence, improved our intercultural communication skills and talked about the dynamics and challenges of working in intercultural teams in conflict zones. For a half-day, we participated in a simulation of life in a war zone and of how field staff work to protect civilian lives in such situations, building strong training teams and preparing ourselves to be able to deliver solid, successful Core Trainings for NP. The group included roughly equal numbers of women and men and people from the global south and the global north. The age range was from 27 through 65. The years and wealth of experience found in this group of trainers was most inspiring—a gathering of teachers, NGO workers, activists, trainers, and field workers with a passionate commitment to nonviolence, justice and peace. Together we are building viable alternatives to war. Nonviolence trainers at the opening of the Training of Trainers. Photo by Jan Passion.
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