Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive Framework

Summary
Americans are experiencing a period of change of historic magnitude. Political, business, social and community leaders are struggling to develop strategies and alternatives to address our severe economic decline and the degradation of civility in our public spaces. This struggle is also pursued by everyday citizens who are seeking opportunities to establish safe, healthy and sustainable communities in which people are able to live with dignity, free from violence, with assurances of the basic requirements of their security. In response to this urgent need to devise and advance the changes that may lead to these goals, the National Peace Academy is offering its first Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive.

The week-long Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive is designed for individuals and organizations who hope to launch new peacebuilding and change initiatives or enhance existing efforts. Participants will be coached in the design and development of a strategic peacebuilding plan that they will take back to and implement in their community or initiate in an organization they already work with. The plan will be assessed and evaluated by instructors and peers, and the National Peace Academy will provide ongoing guidance for project development after completion of the Intensive.

The Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive is intended to advance the development of the full spectrum of knowledge, skills and capacities of the peacebuilder – inner and outer, personal and professional. In doing so it will provide a holistic introduction to the theory and practice of peacebuilding and will engage participants in cooperative learning experiences designed to empower citizens to critically inquire into what needs and conditions are necessary for assuring a sense of security personally and socially; to envision, plan and strategize for the establishment of a just and sustainable social, political and environmental order that assures each and every citizen is safe, secure and able to live with dignity; and to facilitate the individual and communal learning required to make such transformations possible.

Intended audience
The Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive is open to all citizens seeking to establish a humanly secure, democratic, just, healthy and sustainable United States. Business and government leaders, social entrepreneurs, community organizers, educators, NGO and non-profit professionals, UN officials, activists, university students, and parents are encouraged to enroll.

Diverse teams from organizations and communities are especially encouraged to apply, as teams provide a greater opportunity for effective, sustainable application of the learning beyond the Intensive.

Minimal background requirements
A minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent is required; beyond that any and all education and community action experience is relevant to eligibility. Applicants should be able to indicate relevant personal, professional and civic action experiences and/or demonstrate the strong desire to engage in future peacebuilding work.

Prerequisite knowledge, skills, and sensibilities

• ability to express ideas and participate actively in group discussion
• willingness to reflect on personal and collective bias and prejudice
• a willingness to listen actively, reflectively and respectfully toward authentic understanding of diverse opinions and perspectives
• openness to listening to and learning from other cultures, people and political perspectives

Outcomes
Participants will prepare a strategic plan for introducing a peacebuilding initiative to be implemented in their community or enhance an existing peacebuilding project.

Knowledge to be gained
Participants will be introduced to and develop an awareness and understanding of:

• violence, its various forms and their interrelationships, and its underlying conditions and causes
• peace as an active, ongoing social dynamic through which political and communal goals may be identified and pursued
• theories and strategies of personal and social change
• education approaches to facilitating change and learning for change

Skills and capacities to be nurtured
Participants will be introduced to and practice skills of:

• personal peacebuilding practices and capacities
• skills of reflection
• non-violent and reflective communication skills
• transformative teaching and learning methods
• practices of healing, reconnecting, and forgiveness

In addition, participants will be able to consider and develop strategies and approaches for:

• building deep, trusting, mutually enhancing relationships within communities/organizations toward empowering communities/organizations for change
• engaging stakeholders from disadvantaged neighborhoods with government and business leaders to nurture partnerships and collaboratively design change initiatives
• increasing community volunteerism and civic participation
• engaging people in dialogue around difficult issues, especially distrust, injustice and violence

Rationale and problem statement
The United States is troubled with a trillion dollar war, collapsing housing and financial markets, soaring energy prices, a homicide rate ten times that of other leading industrial nations, and a prison population that includes 1 in every 100 citizens. The nation is seeking solutions that are just and sustainable and address root causes rather than merely symptoms. The politics of change in America have been far too long conducted in a mode of competition, of winners and losers. The more polarized and more entrenched we become in our political positions, the less likely it is that we will come to equitable solutions that are sustainable as well as equitable and ethical. The current debate on healthcare reform epitomizes this situation. Everyone is in agreement that change is needed; but the political process has left America stuck in the mud.

The changes we desire are achievable; however, changes of this magnitude require learning, commitment, and action of equal magnitude, both personal and collective. Addressing these issues calls for collaboration; the nurturing of new forms of relationships between and among civil society, business, government, faith communities, and educational institutions; taking risks; openness to new possibilities; and courage.

Participants of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute will help the National Peace Academy to promote a new, reinvigorated, agenda for peacebuilding in the United States.

Peace, peacebuilding and peacelearning
The National Peace Academy’s understanding of peace is shaped by the definition contained in the Earth Charter: “…peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.”ⁱ

This principle of right relationships is imbedded in nearly all faith, spiritual and ethical traditions. In the Christian faith it is represented by the Golden Rule “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This ethic of reciprocity is a foundational tenet of all the world’s major religions. From a more secular, human rights perspective, the idea of right relationships is expressed in terms of human dignity. The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins by recognizing “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family (as) the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”ⁱⁱ

The National Peace Academy makes use of John Paul Lederach’s conceptualization of peacebuilding which he describes as “a comprehensive concept that encompasses, generates and sustains the full array of processes, approaches and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships.”ⁱⁱⁱ The purpose and scope of peacebuilding is oriented towards nurturing citizen capacities and the political, economic and social structures necessary for assuring the conditions for positive peace. Betty Reardon describes positive peace as constituting the conditions for the existence of “’justice,’ in the sense of the full enjoyment of the entire range of human rights by all people.”^iv Thus, the concerns and problems that peacebuilding addresses are wide ranging, including but not limited to issues of poverty, social and economic inequity, violence, environment and resource degradation, racism, and gender discrimination.

Peacelearning is the process through which the National Peace Academy facilitates learning toward the full development of the peacebuilder. Peacelearning emphasizes learning as an essential capacity of peacebuilding. As such, peacelearning is much more than simple acquisition of new knowledge and skills; it is a transformational process in which new information and ideas are integrated into the knowledge and experiences we already have. Peacelearning is directed toward both inward and outward change. It is a learner centered process that is non-hierarchal and elicitive, seeking to draw forth knowledge from the individual learner. It invites learners to engage in modes of critical thinking and self reflection that are necessary for internalizing the principles and processes of peace. It also capacitates learners to pose critical queries and questions that may lead to new understandings and possible solutions to personal, interpersonal, social, economic, political and environmental problems for which no answers currently exist. Peacelearning nurtures those capacities that are essential for learners to be agents of personal and social change.

The above understandings of peacebuilding and peacelearning, considered together with the Earth Charter definition of peace as rooted in right relationships, promote a very active conception of peace and the dynamic and transformative learning required to pursue and achieve it. Additionally, these concepts illuminate at least four spheres of peace that need to be nurtured toward the full development of the peacebuilder: the personal, the social, the political and the ecological.

The Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive will introduce participants to theory and practices for nurturing peace in each of these spheres.

The personal: In the personal sphere, peace requires that we actively strive to establish right relationship with our self. Personal peace is pursued through inquiry into how we manage and act upon our internal conflicts, attitudes, actions, and emotions toward living with integrity.

The social: In the social sphere, peace requires that we actively strive to establish right relationships with others. Social peace is pursued through inquiry into our attitudes, intentions, and actions regarding how we manage our interpersonal conflicts and differences, and how we give to and receive from others the qualities and conditions that comprise human dignity.

The political: In the political sphere, peace requires that we actively strive to establish right relationships with groups of people, communities and organizations that are supported by just, nonviolent procedures for making and implementing policy and planning decisions in government, business, and civil society. Political peace is pursued through inquiry into our attitudes, intentions, and actions regarding how we engage in decision-making processes, and how we review and assess existing institutions and mechanisms as well as those we strive to establish for assuring peace and justice.

The ecological: In the ecological sphere, peace requires that we actively strive to establish right relationships with Earth and its ecosystems of which we are a part and on which our survival and quality of life depend. Human systems are not separate from, but integral to all living systems and as such, human organization affects and is affected by all other ecological systems. Ecosystems are both resilient and fragile, and human life depends upon our respect for and stewardship of the entire planet. Ecological peace is pursued through inquiry into our attitudes, intentions, and actions regarding how we take responsibility to shift our relationship to the natural environment from one based on control over, to one based on interdependence and living with and within.

Download this overview as a pdf

PPI 2010 Flyer

Notes
i The Earth Charter http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/Read-the-Charter.html
ii Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
iii John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press) 1997.
iv Betty Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education (New York, NY: Teachers College Press) 1988.