Eastern Mennonite University

Related Organizations

Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute:

Organizational Goals:

To educate, train and develop individuals as justice and peace builders and as catalysts for social transformation while providing an experience that deepens commitment to justice and peace; increases tolerance for differences; expands respect for human rights; and creates new relationships among participating individuals from Southeast Asia.

Objectives

  1. Provide intensive in-depth training and education on various approaches, theories and praxis in the fields of conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
  2. Increase analytical and practical skills, and thereby the capacity of over 100 individuals and their institutions as effective justice and peacebuilders.
  3. Bring together people from diverse sectors of society who are involved in the promotion of just and lasting peace in order to build community life through sharing experiences, learning from and challenging one another, and creating alliances and networks in the attainment of a common goal, namely, transformed societies in each respective country represented.

Background:

For the past four years CRS and MCC have been involved in sponsoring people to attend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute of Eastern Mennonite University in the United States. To date more than fifteen people, involved in peacebuilding work in the Philippines, have availed of this valuable and deeply enriching experience. In order to offer this experience to a much larger number of people involved in the pursuit of just and lasting peace in the Philippines --and the wider region of South/Southeast Asia-- including such countries as Burma, Indonesia, East Timor, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, CRS, MCC and CAFOD intend to host a similar intensive interactive training institute based in the Philippines.

This institute, as envisioned, would provide a unique experience in that it would bring together a wide range of people with vast experience, knowledge and skills in peace-related work. Intensive training in areas such as religious peacebuilding, mediation, trauma healing and conflict transformation would hopefully increase such skills, drawing on the shared knowledge of both the participants and the facilitators. Participants of the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute will come from a wide range of academic and practical backgrounds, all active in the field of peacebuilding. The aim of this institute is to build upon their commitment and strengthen their capacity and hence that of their organizations in this field.

Integral to the whole approach of the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute is its intent to draw upon the experiences of participants from multiple settings and contexts, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious. The bringing together of participants for a three-week period will maximize the opportunity for interaction, networking and building linkages between the participants.

2002 Mindanoa Peacebuilding Institute runs from May 1 to May 19, 2002. The Institute will be held in Davao City, Philippines and is being sponsored and organized by: Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), and Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD). CORDAID, Manos Unidas and Misereor are co-sponoring the institute. For additional information contact: Catholic Relief Services, Mindanao Regional Office, 2 North St., DBP Village, Ma-a, 8000 Davao City, Philippines, Tel: 63 (82) 297-1761, Fax: 63 (82) 299-2480, E-mail: mjleguro@crs-mindanao.org.ph

Restorative Justice Initiative/RJI:

Focuses on the harms of wrongdoing more than the rules that have been broken. Works toward the restoration of victims, empowering them and responding to the needs as they see them. Supports offenders while encouraging them to understand, accept, and carry out their obligations. Provides opportunities for dialogue, direct, or indirect, between victims and offenders as appropriate. Involves and empowers the affected community through the justice process, and increases their capacity to recognize and respond to community bases of crime.

Nathan Barge (Masters, 1999) and Tim Ruepke (Masters, 1999) founded the Restorative Justice Initiative which is a program of the Community Mediation Center/CMC in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Nathan continues as the director of RJI. Tim is director of Mediation Services at the Community Mediation Center (CMC). Another CTP alumni, Jeff Heie

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding/WANEP:

Is an enabling and a facilitating mechanism for cooperation amongst peacebuilding practitioners in West Africa and the framework through which these practitioners and organizations will regularly exchange experience and information on issues of human rights, conflict resolution/ transformation, social, religious, and political reconciliation and peacebuilding.

Their goals are:

The Executive Director, Sam Doe and Program Coordinator, Emmanuel Bombondi (June 2002) are alumni of the Conflict Transformation Program. Thelma Ekiyor, Women in Peacebuilding coordinator is accepted in the masters' program and will begin her studies in the summer 2002. Lisa Schirch, Associate Professor of Conflict Studies in the Conflict Transformation Program, currently holds a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct a comparative study of training programs for women in peacebuilding in East and West Africa for the next year.