CONTACT welcomes global peacebuilders

June 5th, 2018   |   SIT

CONTACT Summer Peacebuilding Workshop kicks off in Vermont
June 5, 2018

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont – Forty peacemakers from around the world are gathered in southern Vermont to hone their skills at the SIT CONTACT Summer Peacebuilding Workshop, June 4-22.

The participants come from 12 countries including Rwanda, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal. They work in education, development, the arts, refugee support services and community and religious organizations.

CONTACT is a three-week professional and academic training program that teaches the core ideas of conflict transformation. It’s led by internationally recognized faculty with years of experience in the field, as well as leaders from Musicians Without Borders, an NGO that uses music to bridge divides, build community, and heal the wounds of war.

“Conflict transformation training is most effective when it combines skills-based academic instruction with personal interaction between peacebuilders across ethnic, national, religious, and cultural divides,” said CONTACT Director Bruce Dayton, who also chairs the Peace and Justice Leadership MA degree program at SIT Graduate Institute.

Participants this year will explore conflict analysis, social identity and conflict, peacebuilding interventions, post-conflict reconciliation, intercultural communications, gender and peacebuilding, mediation, negotiation, dialogue, policy advocacy, peacebuilding through the arts, nonviolent social action, and monitoring and evaluation.