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Type | Graduate education, accredited through master’s level; also offers courses for non-credit training purposes. [1] |
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Established | 1994-95 [2] |
Parent institution | Eastern Mennonite University |
Affiliation | Mennonite Church USA |
Director | Founding director, John Paul Lederach; [3] executive director since 2013, J. Daryl Byler [4] |
Academic staff | 6 dedicated faculty; 7 adjunct; 16 additional instructors at annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute [5] |
Location | , , 38°28′15″N78°52′46″W / 38.470966°N 78.879519°W Coordinates: 38°28′15″N78°52′46″W / 38.470966°N 78.879519°W |
Campus | 97 acres in semi-urban location of the Shenandoah Valley |
Website | www |
Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) is an accredited graduate-level program founded in 1994 [6] . It also offers non-credit training. The program specializes in conflict transformation, restorative justice, trauma healing, equitable development, and addressing organizational conflict. CJP is housed at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia, which describes itself as "a leader among faith-based universities" in emphasizing "peacebuilding, creation care, experiential learning, and cross-cultural engagement." One of the three 2011 Nobel Peace Laureates, Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, earned a master's degree in conflict transformation from CJP in 2007 [7] .
The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) is anchored in two currents within the Mennonite stream of Christianity:
The founding of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding grew in part out of the work of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Founded in 1920 to aid fellow Mennonites and others in Russia and the Ukraine, the organization developed a global reputation for providing assistance after natural and man-made disasters by the mid-1970s usually operating under MCC's Mennonite Disaster Service, founded in 1950. [10] [11]
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, MCC started work on establishing a better training program focusing on the peace and justice fields at a systematic level. [12] [13] [14] This was addressed first by founding the Office on Crime and Justice, with renowned restorative justice expert Howard Zehr as its first director. This office had the goal of moving the justice system away from retributive punishments toward processes that would help heal those harmed and restore communities. Zehr began the first victim/offender conferencing program in the United States during this period. [15] Two years later, MCC founded Mennonite Conciliation Service (MCS) with Ron Kraybill as its first director. The mission of this organization was to encourage Mennonites and others to pursue peaceful resolution of conflicts. These two offices later were integrated into MCC's Office of Justice and Peacebuilding. [16] Kraybill left MCS in 1989 to pursue a Ph.D. and was replaced by John Paul Lederach. [17] The tenure of Kraybill and Lederach overlapped a bit, allowing them opportunity to develop a shared vision for a new kind of peace studies program in the world of higher education. Kraybill later recalled those early conversations:
We wanted a good mix of academics via theory conceptualization, but with practice in the real world. I don’t think we were necessarily thinking of a master’s program, just some kind of situation where teaching and practice went together. Another strong desire was to work in a team with others for an institution where a faith-based perspective was valued. We were wary of desire for individual prestige and wanted to work in a setting where individuals were more committed to an institutional mission than to going to the highest ladder of individual success. [18]
The work of MCS in the late 1980s also coincided with the development of Christian Peacemaker Teams a joint effort by the two largest North American Mennonite denominations and the Church of the Brethren. Founded after a Mennonite World Conference keynote address by Ronald J. Sider author of the bestselling Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (published and republished in 1977, 1997, 2005) in which he said,
We must be prepared to die by the thousands. Those who believed in peace through the sword have not hesitated to die. Proudly, courageously, they gave their lives. Again and again, they sacrificed bright futures to the tragic illusion that one more righteous crusade would bring peace in their time, and they laid down their lives by the millions. Unless we . . . are ready to start to die by the thousands in dramatic vigorous new exploits for peace and justice, we should sadly confess that we never really meant what we said, and we dare never whisper another word about pacifism to our sisters and brothers in those desperate lands filled with injustice. Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword. [19]
In 1990, Eastern Mennonite College (EMC) hired John Paul Lederach to teach sociology and international conciliation. He continued to head MCC's conciliation work, including training MCC workers prior to their international assignments. During this time he was consulting in a number of conflicts, in the Basque region of Spain, Colombia, the Philippines, and Northern Ireland among others. [18] After an exhausting trip Lederach began talking to Mennonite opinion-leaders and conflict workers including Hizkias Assefa, Kraybill, and others about systematically educating people to do the kind of work he was doing. [18] A pair of retired educators, James and Marian Payne (both EMU alumni), stepped forward when they learned of the hope of a center devoted to peace education at EMU. They guaranteed the funds necessary to support CJP for its first year of existence, plus made CJP the beneficiary of their estate. The Paynes made an initial donation of $25,000 (by 2007, their donations totaled more than $500,000.) [20] CJP began in the fall of the 1994-95 academic year with two masters-level students: Jonathan Bartsch, an American who had studied and worked in the Middle East for almost three years and who spoke Arabic, and Jim Hershberger, an American who had spent eight years with Mennonite Central Committee in war-torn Nicaragua and was fluent in Spanish. They started their studies a year before accreditation of the program was granted. They were joined in the spring semester of 1995 by Moe Kyaw Tun, who had been involved with the resistance movement in Myanmar (Burma) before fleeing to Thailand. [21] In establishing CJP, its founders said they sought to build on the lessons learned by MCC and other Mennonites in the peace arena. Five recurring characteristics of these lessons referenced by scholars are: [22] [23]
Both Sally Engle Merry, who is a Quaker, and Marc Gopin, who is Jewish, say that the Mennonites’ "brand" of Christianity appears to play a crucial role in enabling them and those they train to persist at working at deep, intractable conflicts over many years.
The directory of the Consortium on Peace Education, Research and Development lists over 40 colleges and universities in the United States offering both undergraduate and graduate programs in peace studies, but these programs varied widely. [32] Many focused on "dispute resolution," often viewed through a legal or business-management lens. Others centered on research into war, peace and security issues, often staffed and backed by people who viewed the military as an acceptable vehicle for arriving at peace, or at least for suppressing open hostilities. [33] Since its inception, CJP has been aimed at persons with cross-cultural or extensive domestic experience who were already working in conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, development, or social justice. As urged by founding director John Paul Lederach, CJP has sought to avoid imposing North American models on conflict resolution on the rest of the world; instead it advocates strategies suggested by "cues and patterns elicited by the culture in question," preferably by people intimately connected to that culture. [34] As part of their graduation requirements, students are expected to test their new understandings through doing "reflective practice" (also called an "internship" or "practicum"). [35]
CPJ's academic and training concentrations are: [36] [37]
The Master's program offers a graduate degree in conflict transformation and restorative justice.
CJP requires a final comprehensive exam for master's degree candidates. The exam is intended to assess these "core competencies": presentation skills; case analysis; self-management; self-care; teambuilding/role-playing; interpersonal relational skills; understanding peacebuilding theories, including conflict transformation, restorative justice and trauma healing; research and interview skills; reflective practice; cultural competency; ethical issues; social change theories; and other specific practice skills and concepts, such as principled negotiation. [38]
Each Summer Peacebuilding Institute has four successive sessions; the first starts in early May and the last finishes in late June. [39] Courses vary but can include faith-based peacebuilding, monitoring and evaluation, organizational leadership, playback theater, conflict analysis, program and project management, and reconciliation and restorative justice.
Five CJP-published booklets, issued in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, contain portrait-photos and reflections of some of the participants in that year's SPI. Predictably, many students comment on having learned much from their courses and fellow students. However, the SPI participants also refer to having fun. Babu Ayindo, a 1998 master's degree graduate from Kenya who returned to teach in SPI 2011, said: "Through song, dance, poetry, and music, people are finding another language to transcend the conflicts that they are experiencing." [40]
Several notable alumni of the program have earned their degrees primarily, or exclusively through the SPI program. Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee started formal training in peacebuilding by attending a session of SPI, as did three of her close colleagues in West Africa: Liberian Sam Gbaydee Doe, who attended in the late 1990s while earning his master's degree (’98); Nigerian Thelma Ekiyor, who attended in 2002; and Liberian Lutheran pastor Reverend "BB" Colley, who attended in 2000 and 2001. [41] Farida Aziz, the Afghan peace and women's rights activist, took three courses in SPI in 1999 and returned in 2003 for a fourth course. The eight EMU alumni from six countries of the 1,000 nominated by the Switzerland-based committee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize received training at EMU, predominantly through SPI. [42] Future President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also attended the SPI in 2001 and has emphasized the importance of the program's philosophy in his work. [43]
The SPI has 3,191 alumni from 119 countries, as of December 2008. [44]
Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience — usually called STAR — is a program that was launched at EMU in response to the events of 9/11. "STAR’s mission is to strengthen the capacity of leaders and organizations to address trauma, break cycles of violence and build resilience at the individual, community and societal levels." [45] STAR consists of a foundational five-day training seminar and STAR specialty trainings. STAR was made possible by nearly $1 million in grant money in 2002 (renewed in 2003 with another $1 million) from Church World Service to give a series of "seminars in trauma awareness and recovery" to hundreds of people from New York City following the 9/11 attacks. [46]
These seminars have gone far beyond their original NYC clientele. More than 7,000 people have taken STAR over the last decade, [47] though not always in the same format. STAR has been adapted to particular audiences. There is, for instance, a STAR for "adults who want practical skills to work with youth in addressing trauma, resolving conflict and preventing violence. It has been piloted in Palestine, Kenya, New Orleans and Northern Ireland. It is part of the curriculum in 57 high schools in Nairobi, Kenya" [48] Other variations are used for war veterans and for dealing with the continuing effects of historical harms, such as slavery. [49]
As of September 2015, 539 people have earned a master's degree (42 to 45 semester hours) or graduate certificate (15 semester hours) in conflict transformation from CJP. [50] 78 Fulbright Scholars have participated in trainings. CJP alumni represent 51 countries as of December 2010. [1]
In 2001, incumbent President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud completed three of the SPI's intensive courses, studying mediation, trauma healing, and designing learner-centered trainings. [43] Mohamud would go on to found the Peace and Development Party (PDP) and co-establish the Somali Institute of Management and Administration (SIMAD).
People who were affiliated with CJP (or SPI), as students or teachers, in earlier years have gone on to found peacebuilding organizations or programs in a dozen countries. [80]
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is a relief service, and peace agency representing fifteen Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Amish bodies in North America. The U.S. headquarters are in Akron, Pennsylvania, the Canadian in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) is a private Mennonite university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The university also operates a satellite campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which primarily caters to working adults. EMU's bachelor-degree holders traditionally engage in service-oriented work such as health care, education, social work, and the ministry. EMU is probably best known for its Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), especially its graduate program in conflict transformation.
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
John Paul Lederach is an American Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado. In 1994 he became the founding director for the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University where he was a professor. He currently works for the foundation Humanity United.
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. The process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing before, during, and after any given case of violence.
Howard J. Zehr is an American criminologist. Zehr is considered to be a pioneer of the modern concept of restorative justice.
The United Network of Young Peacebuilders is a global network of young people and youth organisations active in the field of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. UNOY Peacebuilders was founded in 1989 and is working with youth mostly in violent conflict and post war regions. The core activities of UNOY Peacebuilders are capacity building as well as advocacy and campaigning.
Marc Gopin, scholar and practitioner, is the director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC), and James H. Laue Professor at the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University Arlington, Virginia, USA. The Association of Conflict Resolution recently awarded Gopin The Peacemaker Award for his contribution to the Conflict Resolution Field. Note that, in 2008 he also received the Andrew Thomas Peacebuilder Award from the New York State Dispute Resolution Association (NYSDRA). Gopin has pioneered peacebuilding projects at CRDC and trained thousands of peacebuilders in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Palestine and Israel on strategies to address complex conflicts. He studies dilemmas of values in global conflicts and diverse contexts where religion and culture play a crucial role in conflicts and conflict resolution.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney. The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Documentary. The film had its theatrical release in New York City on November 7, 2008. It had cumulative gross worldwide of $90,066.
Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah, is a social scientist, internationally recognized mediator, facilitator and trainer, as well as a scholar-practitioner and educator with close to twenty years of experience in the field of conflict analysis and resolution, research and applied practice, peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and transformation. Since 2005, she has been the President and Managing Director of Kommon Denominator Inc., a private consulting firm.
Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's nonviolent peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Her efforts to end the war, along with her collaborator Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, helped usher in a period of peace and enabled a free election in 2005 that Sirleaf won. Gbowee and Sirleaf, along with Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."
Karuna Center for Peacebuilding (KCP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Amherst, Massachusetts. The stated mission of KCP is to empower people divided by conflict to develop mutual understanding and to create sustainable peace. The organization was named for the Sanskrit word for compassion. The organizations efforts in facilitating "post-conflict reconciliation" has led to active programs in more than 30 countries. They have co-implemented programs with the United States Agency for International Development, United States Department of State, United States Institute of Peace, and Fund for Peace, among others.
Center for Peacebuilding is a non-governmental organization based in Sanski Most, Una-Sana Canton, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The organization was founded in 2004 to address the ethnic divisions present in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Samuel Gbaydee Doe is a conflict, peace, and development professional from Liberia. Doe was a cofounder, with Emmanuel Bombande, of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), based in Accra, Ghana. This organization focuses on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention and was founded in 1998 in response to the civil wars taking place in West Africa. The organization is known for their work with several regional partners such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union’s Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).
Hizkias Assefa (1948) is a conflict mediator known widely in Africa for his non-aligned work as a consultant who has mediated in most major conflict situations in sub-Saharan Africa in the past 20 years, as well as in a dozen countries elsewhere. He is also a professor of conflict studies. Of Ethiopian origin, he is based in Nairobi, Kenya. He was one of the founding faculty members in 1994 of the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University.
Emmanuel Bombande is a conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and development professional from Accra, Ghana, and is the Chair of the Board of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is a leading Regional Peacebuilding organisation founded in 1998 in response to civil wars that plagued West Africa in the 1990s. Over the years, WANEP has succeeded in establishing strong national networks in every Member State of ECOWAS with over 550 member organisations across West Africa. WANEP places special focus on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention, and peacebuilding, working with diverse actors from civil society, governments, intergovernmental bodies, women groups and other partners in a bid to establish a platform for dialogue, experience sharing and learning, thereby complementing efforts at ensuring sustainable peace and development in West Africa and beyond.
Ali Gohar is a Pakistani noted scholar and restorative justice expert and the founder and executive director of Just Peace Initiatives.
Thelma Arimiebi Ekiyor is a, social entrepreneur and impact investor who has served in authoritative positions within many organizations. Ekiyor has focused primarily on investing in women Entrepreneurs. She started her career supporting women in peacebuilding and empowering women and youth through financial independence and educational access. She has experience with projects in over 22 African countries. Ekiyor worked in post conflict countries like Liberia with the peace activist Leymah Gbowee.
Fabrice Guerrier is a Haitian-American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is the founder of the sci-fi and fantasy production house, Syllble. The Root Magazine described the writer and founder as using "...the internet to create a social, political and intellectual explosion similar to the Harlem Renaissance."