Peacebuilder Spring/Summer 2012 - Alumni Magazine of EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

Spring/Summer 2012

CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND PEACEBUILDING

WOMEN LEADERS

EASTERN MENNONITE UNIVERSITY

Spring/Summer 2012

New Focus CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND PEACEBUILDING

On Women Peacebuilders

Leymah Gbowee, MA '07, and CJP executive director Lynn Roth

In response to requests received over many years, this summer the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding is launching a Women’s Peace Leadership Program specifically tailored to women who are oriented toward social change and who wish to develop their abilities to lead the cause of peace and justice in their regions of the world.

The women in this program will be scholarship-supported by donations and grants and will be grouped in cohorts with other women in their geographical area. The cohorts will move through the two-year program as a group, covering similar material and acquiring complementary skills while they together develop ways to maximize their impact on their home region.

This inaugural year the program will focus on women in three regions: Liberia, Somalia, and two South Pacific Island nations (Fiji and the Solomon Islands). The initiative is enthusiastically backed

by Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee, MA ’07. Her Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa secured funding from USAID for four women from Liberia to participate.

Like Gbowee herself, most of the women in the Women’s Peace Leadership Program will be drawn from civil society organizations.

They have proven themselves to be eager, intelligent change-agents, but they realize they need a better theoretical foundation for their work, as well as more tools for analysis, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, and organizational leadership. And they need each other! All cohorts will be divided into small sub-groups that will be assigned their own experienced mentor for the duration of the program. Some of the work will take place in the classroom, but much will occur in the field, in the women’s home regions.

We are very excited about the future possibilities for these cohorts, viewing them as a form of “critical yeast” to help their societies rise from conflict and from unequal treatment of women.

Though the women’s leadership program is new, women graduates of CJP have been playing leadership roles around the world for more than a decade, as will be evident from the pages of this issue of Peacebuilder. The new program is simply building on the work already being done to reduce violence against women and children and to create a more just, peaceful society for everyone.

Lynn Roth Executive Director

PEACEBUILDER is a supplement of Crossroads, a periodical published three to six times a year by Eastern Mennonite University, with the collaboration of the Development Office: Kirk L. Shisler, vice president for advancement; Phil Helmuth, executive director of development; Phoebe Kilby, CJP associate director of development.

Loren E. Swartzendruber President Fred Kniss Provost

Map: Seeds of Peace Worldwide ..............................................................................................2

Nobel Laureate Linked to CJP

Lynn Roth CJP Executive Director

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Pioneering Program Tailored to Women Peacebuilders ..............................................................................................8

Schools For Afghan Girls

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Bonnie Price Lofton Editor/Writer Jon Styer Designer/Photographer Barry Hart Valerie Helbert Maria Hoover Janice Jenner Janelle Myers-Benner Lynn Roth Carl Stauffer CJP Leadership Team Members For more information or address changes, contact: Center for Justice and Peacebuilding Eastern Mennonite University 1200 Park Road Harrisonburg, VA 22802 cjp@emu.edu 540-432-4000 www.emu.edu/cjp Contents ©2012 Eastern Mennonite University.

Cover Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee, MA '07. Photo by Jon Styer.

See story on page 4.

Date & sequence of publication This spring/summer 2012 issue of Peacebuilder is the first issue to appear in the last 12 months. There was no fall/winter 2011-12 issue.

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Photo by Howard Zehr

EASTERN MENNONITE UNIVERSITY

Sri Lankan Rotarian Heads Reconciliation Efforts ............................................................................................12

Muslim Woman Joins Jewish Man for Social Justice

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Raising Up Women and Children in Nepal ............................................................................................16

7 CJP Alumnae Went On To Earn Doctorates ............................................................................................18

Peace Women in Washington D.C. ............................................................................................19

Attorney Seeks Answers In Restorative Justice

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............................................................................................24 The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) is rooted in the Mennonite peace tradition of Christianity. CJP prepares and supports individuals and institutions of diverse religious and philosophical backgrounds in the creation of a just and peaceful world. CJP is based at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and offers a masters-level degree and certificate, as well as non-degree training through its Summer Peacebuilding Institute. Donations to CJP are tax-deductible and support the program, the university that houses it, scholarships for peace and justice students, and other essentials.

Visit www.emu.edu/cjp for more information.

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Sowing Seeds of Peace

Worldwide 2

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Masters or graduate certificate in Conflict Transformation: 396 alumni in 49 countries U.S. states (37) and Canadian provinces (4) where CJP alums live and work Academic and non-degree training at EMU SPI - Summer Peacebuilding Institute: More than 2,500 alumni in 120 countries STAR - Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience: More than 5,000 participants from 62 countries Peacebuilding institutes modeled on EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute: Located in 8 countries--Bosnia-Herzogovina, Canada, Ghana, Fiji, Japan (in 2012, this one circulates in northeast Asia), Philippines, United States, Zambia peacebuilder ■ 3 emu.edu/cjp

WOMEN!

NOBEL LAUREATE

HAS CLOSE LINKS TO CJP “EMU opened my eyes that I was not the only crazy person in the world… It brought in a perspective of global conflict.”

Leymah Gbowee and EMU president Loren Swartzendruber exactly one week after she was named one of the Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Months prior to being named a Nobel Peace laureate in 2011, Leymah Gbowee was named as EMU's "Alumna of the Year."

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Photos by Jon Styer

One week after Leymah Gbowee was named a winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, she returned to Eastern Mennonite University over the weekend of October 14-16 to be honored as EMU’s 2011 Alumna of the Year.

During that weekend Gboweee, a 2007 graduate of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), spoke frankly about her fear of losing touch with the suffering women she desperately wants to serve, as she tries to handle the overwhelming attention emanating from the Nobel Peace Prize.

She told students, staff, faculty and alumni gathered in Lehman Auditorium that she prays every morning and every night to do God’s work with humility, because that is how she will do the most good for the most people.

Since that weekend Gbowee has been a keynote speaker at major international gatherings, such as a TED conference in March 2012.

The video of her TED speech, posted at www.ted.com/speakers/ leymah_gbowee.html, had been viewed nearly 200,000 times as of April 19, 2012.

In her TED talk, Gbowee focused on her desire to educate and otherwise empower girls and women. This proved to be a curtainraiser for her announcing in early April the launching of a new non-profit organization, the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa.

At EMU’s Homecoming and at TED, Gbowee spoke of being a low-earning, single mother in the late 1990s and of having no choice but to ignore appeals to personally care for bright young

girls who hungered for education but were abused instead. She spoke of a girl raped by her grandfather for six years and of villages where nearly every girl was exploited sexually.

She referred to Liberia’s teen pregnancy rate of three out of every 10 girls. “I was at that place and somehow I am at this place, and I don’t want to be the only person at this place. I am looking for ways for other girls to be with me.”

She spoke of traveling 13 to 15 hours per day on dirt roads throughout Liberia to hold meetings with groups of girls. “We go into rural communities, and all we do — like has been done in this room [at TED] — is create the space. When these girls sit … you unlock great leaders.”

She spoke about seeing 50 girls in one village become energized to the point of launching a voters’ registration campaign, with the slogan “even pretty girls vote,” which led to the defeat of an incumbent who had disparaged Liberia’s national legislation against rape.

“I am troubled when I see there’s no hope [among village girls], but I’m not pessimistic because I know it doesn’t take a lot to get them charged up.”

With USAID funding, the Gbowee Foundation is providing scholarships to four women to be part of the Women’s Peace Leadership Program, beginning at the 2012 Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI).

The Gbowee Foundation has also secured two full scholarPhoto by Jon Styer

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WOMEN! ships for Liberian women to Vassar College and two one-year scholarships for graduate study at the University of Indianapolis.

In Liberia, the foundation is funding scholarships for four young Liberian women to study at the Mother Patern College, Cuttington University and the University of Liberia.

Gbowee shares the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with a fellow Liberian, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and women’s rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

Gbowee’s honor was in recognition of her leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that had a key role in ending Liberia’s 14 years of civil war in 2003. The movement is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and in the award-winning documentary, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.”

Gbowee’s journey from being a destitute and depressed mother of four to being an assertive campaigner for peace began in the late 1990s when she received training in trauma healing and reconciliation from Lutheran church workers in Liberia during that country’s civil war. These workers had been trained by Barry Hart, a Mennonite peace worker in Liberia in the early 1990s and now a professor at CJP. Encouraged by close colleagues in West Africa who had been educated at CJP, Gbowee first came to CJP in 2004 for SPI and returned in 2005 for a session of Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR). In 2006-07, she was in residence at EMU as she finished her master’s degree in conflict transformation.

In her memoir, Gbowee credits another Liberian, Sam Gbaydee Doe, who earned a master’s degree from CJP in 1998 – along with CJP professors Hizkias Assefa, John Paul Lederach, and Howard Zehr – with particularly influencing her journey to peacebuilding.

“EMU opened my eyes that I was not the only crazy person in the world… It brought in a perspective of global conflict,” said Gbowee. Meeting fellow students of peacebuilding from around the world “put a face to those conflicts.” She added, “It has made the world a village for me.” Now when she hears about oppression and violence in other regions, she asks herself, “How I can help and how I can get helped by some of my other colleagues in this area?”

Gbowee co-founded Women, Peace and Security Network (WIPSEN) in the spring of 2006, with a fellow SPI alumna, Thelma Ekiyor, and a third woman, Ecoma Alaga, who previously worked for an organization founded by two CJP alumni, the West African Network for Peacebuilding. Due to the growing demands on her time, Gbowee has announced that she will relinquish her position as executive director of WIPSEN in December 2012.

Gbowee is now the mother of six. Her first-born son, Joshua Mensah, is a rising junior at EMU.  For more information on Leymah Gbowee, including podcasts and video clips, visit www.emu.edu/peacebuilding/leymah-gbowee.

As a Fulbright scholar in Ghana in 2002, EMU research professor Lisa Schirch (R) interacted with Leymah Gbowee, then a protest leader.

Young fans of Leymah Gbowee waited patiently in a long line at EMU to get her signature of their copy of Mighty Be Our Powers.

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Photo by Jon Styer

CJP professor Barry Hart (L) worked in Liberia in the early 1990s.

In Gbowee's memoir, professor Howard Zehr (R) receives credit.

Photo by Jon Styer (above and lower right) by Matthew Styer (lower left)

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WOMEN!

“This program will not be merely academic study divorced from practical application.”

Pioneering Program Tailored to Women Peacebuilders In the first program in North America of its kind, 12 women from Liberia, the South Pacific and Somalia will gather as a carefully selected and wholly sponsored cohort at the 2012 Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI), with eight other fully funded women covering the same material at an East African site.

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Eleven of the 17 women who gathered in June 2011 to discuss the need for a women's peace leadership program offered through EMU (from left): Elaine Zook-Barge (US), Warigia Hinga (Kenya), Dekha Ibrahim Abdi (Kenya/Somalia), Koila CostelloOlsson (Fiji), Jan Jenner (US), Daria White (Bulgaria/US), Paulette Moore (US), Lauren Sauer (US), Alma Jadallah (Jordan/US), Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), Phoebe Kilby (US). Participants missing from this photo: Rubina Feroze Bhatti (Pakistan), Jayne Docherty (US), Abigail Disney (US), Suraya Sadeed (Afghanistan/ US), Mary Beth Spinelli (US), Sue Williams (US). CJP executive director Lynn Roth also participated.

Under the name Women’s Peace Leadership Program, the 20 selected women will begin a custom-tailored, two-year course of study and training led by the faculty and staff of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

About half of the study will occur on the EMU campus. The remainder will be strategically planned work under an experienced mentor in the women's home regions. The women will complete about 30 percent of the requirements for a master’s degree and will receive a graduate certificate at the end of the program, unless they choose to continue their studies beyond its duration.

“The goal is to develop a mutually supportive cohort of women from a particular region of the world—women who have already shown themselves to be social-change leaders or who have real potential to be,” said Janice Jenner, MA ’99, director of the program.

The idea is for these women to be resources for each other when

Photo by Bonnie Price Lofton

they are working for social change in their home regions.

“This program will not be merely academic study divorced from practical application,” Jenner said. “Each subgroup of women will develop a strategic plan for research, analysis and action, and each will have an experienced mentor assigned to them for intensive follow-up.”

Jenner said the idea for training women as social-change agents had arisen repeatedly over the last decade at CJP. Citing a 2009 United Nations Development Fund for Women paper, Jenner said only 2.4 percent of the signatories to 21 major peace agreements were women. In a sampling of 10 delegations negotiating peace, 94 percent of the participants were men. No women have been the head mediator in UN-sponsored peace talks.

A 2005 article titled “The Role of Women in Peacebuilding”

by CJP professor Lisa Schirch and former CJP graduate student

Manjrika Sewak of India noted: “Traditionally… peacebuilding organizations have looked toward political and civil society leaders (who are usually men) as key people to include in trainings, dialogues, or other efforts to build peace and prevent conflict.”

Women, by contrast, have generally been relegated to addressing specifically “women’s issues,” if they were permitted a voice at all, the authors said.

In their article published by the European Center for Conflict Prevention, Schirch and Sewak called for an expansion in training programs specifically for women to increase their sense of empowerment in and knowledge of peacebuilding processes.

The need for women-oriented programs was a particular interest of Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, a former SPI student and instructor who died in a car accident in Kenya in July 2010, just a month after participating in a symposium at EMU on women in peacebuilding held June 9-11, 2010.

At one point during the symposium Abdi shared the stage with three other women: Koila Costello-Olsson, MA ’05, who directs the Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding in Fiji; Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee, MA ’07; and Abigail Disney, producer of peacethemed documentaries. There Abdi threw out this provocative idea: “Are we women innocent victims or are we part of the problem and perpetrators?” She noted that women do raise sons and do support their warring men in various ways. “If we contribute to war, then how do we organize ourselves to contribute to peace?”

The Women’s Peace Leadership Program is a direct result of this June 2010 symposium, attended by 17 women from eight national origins.

Jenner said Abdi’s baton is now being carried in east Africa by Nuria Abdullahi Abdi, MA ’07, a fellow Muslim of Somali ethnic origin living in Kenya, Jebiwot Sumbeiywo, MA ’04, a Christian who works for PACT International in Kenya, and Angela YoderMaina, SPI ’07 and ‘09, an American who heads the USAID program funding the Somali women.

Due to difficulty obtaining visas from the U.S. government to study in the United States, some of the Somali women will be studying together in 2012 at a site in East Africa, visited by EMU faculty members.

Four women from Gbowee’s home country of Liberia—with USAID funding secured by the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa—will be part of this first Women’s Peace Leadership Program cohort. Two women from Fiji and two from the Solomon Islands will be coming in a cohort organized by Costello-Olsson.

Funding for this group will come from Church Development Service (Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst - EED), an association of the Protestant Churches in Germany. 

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WOMEN!

Suraya Sadeed with students at Help the Afghan Children’s Jamal Agah High School in Kapisa Province at its opening in 2004.

Long Investment In Schools For Afghan Girls The plight and promise of the girls and women of Afghanistan have attracted advocates as high profile as former First Lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, journalist Christiane Amanpour, and feminist Gloria Steinem.

But for pure staying power, few can rival Suraya Sadeed, MA ’12.

Beginning in 1993, Sadeed has funneled money she has raised to relief and educational programs that have benefited an estimated 2 million Afghans to date, with girls being particular targets of her efforts.

Working through the non-profit organization she founded and continues to lead, Help the Afghan Children (HTAC), Sadeed has provided food, medicines, tents, blankets, clothing, school supplies, hygiene kits, and other necessities to the millions of Afghans displaced and otherwise affected by war.

Under Sadeed’s supervision, HTAC has built or renovated 14 model schools in three Afghan provinces since 2002. More than half of the 120,000 students who have studied at HTAC schools have been females. Nearly 3,000 females have received computer instruction and over 12,000 have gone through a literacy program with HTAC-created picture storybooks called “Read Afghanistan.” In addition, HTAC estimates that 4,000 teachers (about half of them women) have been trained and passed teacher competency tests.

From her home base near Washington D.C., Sadeed spends months each year raising money in the United States for HTAC10

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supported educational programs and humanitarian aid. She then returns for extended visits to her native country of Afghanistan to ensure that the money and supplies are being properly dispersed where most needed.

During the Taliban’s brutal rule from 1996 into 2001, women were expected to remain cloistered in the home, even in the capital city of Kabul, and to be fully covered in a burqa if they had to step outside for any reason. Sadeed donned a burqa (also called a chadri) and continued to bring desperately needed aid.

She backed 17 home-based schools, where girls forbidden to go to school could be secretly educated.

In some ways, Sadeed’s work sounds like the work of Greg Mortensen, who gained global recognition for his 2006 bestselling book Three Cups of Tea, and who then fell from his pedestal in April 2011 when the TV news show “60 Minutes” questioned his financial practices, his organizational oversight, and the veracity of some of the stories in this books.

It is a source of dismay to Sadeed that in public presentations since that broadcast she is almost always asked about Mortensen.

“I have never met Greg Mortensen, who did most of his work in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, according to his books,” says Sadeed. “But it frustrates me that HTAC’s 19 years of work may be viewed less favorably because of his stories and actions. I have always been transparent in my financial reports and my schools are regularly visited by representatives of the donor agencies and Afghan’s Ministry of Education. We have done exactly what we said we’ve done, and nobody is becoming rich from any of it.”

One of Sadeed’s long-time financial supporters has been the church-based relief organization Mennonite Central Committee, which indeed monitors and evaluates how its dollars are spent.

Photos courtesy of Suraya Sadeed

First Lady Laura Bush invited Suraya Sadeed to the White House in 2005 in recognition of her work on behalf of Afghan girls and women.

Sadeed’s own story—written in the same fast-flowing, warmly personal style as Three Cups of Tea and Leymah Gbowee’s Mighty Be Our Powers—is contained in Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse, published in 2011.

Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, gave this testimonial for the book jacket: For years, Suraya Sadeed has worked tirelessly to help the people of her war-scarred homeland. This terrific memoir is the story of her struggles, her sacrifices, and her hopes. It is the moving life story of a remarkable woman who has overcome personal tragedy [early widowhood] and has made it her single-minded mission to bring hope, relief, and a measure of happiness to the brutalized women and children of Afghanistan.

Though Sadeed lives in the United States, she is quick to point out that “all of our in-country operations officers and staff are Afghan professionals living in Afghanistan. We know the culture; we speak the language, we are in touch with the country’s ‘pulse’ and what people want and expect in bringing quality education to their respective communities. . . .

“We believe that investing in children is the best long-term strategy in ending Afghanistan’s continuous conflict, poverty, ignorance, fear and neglect and to establish peace, stability, and prosperity in Afghanistan and beyond its borders,” she says.

One of the hallmarks of her schools is a peace education curriculum. “It is a psychosocial program that could be defined as the process of acquiring the values and developing the attitudes and behaviors to live in harmony,” Sadeed explains. She is lobbying Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education to get this curriculum adopted by schools throughout the country to reach about 5 million students. 

Other Grads Working on Behalf of Afghan Women Two other Afghan women, sisters Nilofar Sakhi and Farishta Sakhi, hold master’s degrees in conflict transformation from EMU. Nilofar, a former Fulbright student who graduated from CJP in 2007, was Nilofar Sakhi the founding chairperson and executive director of Women Activities and Social Services Association (WASSA) in Afghanistan, until she came to EMU for graduate studies. Upon graduation she returned to Afghanistan where she was the Country Director for the Open Society Foundations until Farishta Sakhi August 2011. She is now pursuing a second master’s degree through Johns Hopkins University, this one in International Public Policy.

Farishta, who has an MBA, replaced Nilofar as executive director of WASSA before relinquishing the position at the beginning of 2009 to earn her own master’s degree at CJP. She graduated in 2010 and is now back living in the family’s home city of Herat, Afghanistan.

For its work of building the capacity of women to shape the future of Afghanistan, WASSA has received support from Norwegian Church Aid, four agencies of the United Nations, the United States Institute of Peace, and USAID, among other funding agencies.

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WOMEN!

Pushpi Weerakoon meets youth in a Rotary-sponsored gathering.

Sri Lankan Rotarian Heads Reconciliation Efforts Sri Lanka, the home country of several graduates of EMU’s conflict transformation program, is emerging from three decades of civil war after the Sinhalese-dominated government’s brutal defeat of the Tamil-minority insurgency in 2009.

The words “peace,” “reconciliation,” and “pluralism” are known throughout the country, but bringing these conditions to fruition remains a hope and a dream. One of the people at the forefront of making them a reality is an energetic graduate with multiple degrees, Pushpi Weerakoon, MA ’11.

In October 2011, five months after finishing her degree at EMU, Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa named Pushpi the coordinator of the Sri Lankan Reconciliation Secretariat. In an interview posted at http://reconciliationyouthforum.org on December 11, 2011, Pushpi explained that her office had no actual powers, but was mandated to advise, guide and facilitate dialogue and other moves toward reconciliation. Online photos of Pushpi at work in Sri Lanka suggest that she is often outnumbered by taller, older men in her meetings, yet she appears unintimidated.

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“When Pushpi entered our program, her commitment to peacemaking in her home country was immediately apparent,” says Howard Zehr, EMU professor of restorative justice. “In addition to her quiet confidence, I was impressed by the way that she consistently sought to apply what she was learning to the situation in Sri Lanka. Her current role therefore seems a natural fit.”

Soon after her appointment, Pushpi invited representatives from non-profits like Save the Children, Rotary and other civil society groups to meet with government officials to explore ways to integrate ex-combatants and promote respect and equality for all religious and ethnic groups.

“We have set up district reconciliation committees in three northern districts and hope to do the same in the other two as well,” Pushpi said in the December 11 interview. “We had productive input from the local officials who attended about problems and possible solutions.”

Asked about her concept of “reconciliation,” Pushpi replied: “My guru, the father of conflict transformation, Professor John Paul Lederach [founding director of CJP, now based at the University of Notre Dame] calls it ‘a meeting ground where trust and mercy have met, and where justice and peace have kissed.’

“In simpler terms, it’s about bringing people together to move them beyond the past through reestablishing trust and normalcy, [and] forgiving each other,” Pushpi said. She pointed out that such trust requires a legitimately just society based on mutual respect among ethnicities such as the Sinhala and Tamil, as well

Photos courtesy of Pushpi Weerakoon

as among different fractions of single ethnicities such as the northern and southern Tamils and Muslims.

“All communities should accept ex-combatants/beneficiaries, military and the police, war widows and disabled into their localities with open arms. There should be a positive atmosphere for the natural day-to-day activities to progress without fear and prejudice.

“Most importantly the youth who are cut off from the rest of the country for over two decades and made to think the southerners were of different nature, must mingle together and share their values and cultures to disperse the misunderstandings. Even though such a process will never be achieved overnight, even small steps taken without delay could lay a foundation for a lasting relation.”

Pushpi spoke of convening meetings of officials in education, health, agriculture, the military and the police to share their concerns and explore solutions. As a direct result of these meetings, she rallied contributors—Rotary members, private computer companies, foreign colleges and Sri Lankans in diaspora—to refurbish a rundown building to house an educational and vocational training center that will serve ex-combatants, among others.

Pushpi also called attention to the urgent need for “safe houses for young unmarried mothers, education on sexual and reproductive health, and income-generating activities for war widows,” in addition to more English and math teachers, vocational training

for youths, and extracurricular activities and cultural exchanges in the schools in the language of each population group.

In an interview posted April 3, 2012, at www.dailynews. lk/2012/04/03/fea03.asp, Pushpi noted that “the root cause of the ethnic conflict could lie in the failure of successive governments to address the genuine grievances of the Tamil people,” but she added that every Sri Lankan “should individually take it upon ourselves to contribute in whatever way we can [to the solution].”

“Every little bit adds up,” she said. “A collective peace achieved would have a longer life span since the many stakeholders having a sense of ownership would also be the guardians of it.”

Pushpi has frequently turned to fellow Rotarians in Sri Lanka to provide the funding and volunteer assistance necessary for many of her initiatives, such as exchange programs between ethnically diverse young people living in different areas of the country. She was a Rotary Peace Scholar in 2007, Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in 2009, and National Peace Award recipient in 2011 from the Rotary Club of West Colombo.

In 2009-10, Pushpi combined her master’s degree studies at EMU with mediation training at Harvard Law School. She holds an undergraduate law degree from the University of Buckingham and an MBA from the University of Cardiff, both in the United Kingdom. She has a diploma in conflict resolution from Bandaranaike Center for International Studies in Sri Lanka, which is affiliated with the UN’s University for Peace in Costa Rica.  More information about Pushpi’s work can be found at: www.peaceinsrilanka.org www.reconciliationyouthforum.org twitter: @rcncilesrilanka Facebook: Sri Lankan Reconciliation Youth Forum.

Pushpi Weerakoon shares her thoughts with D.M. Jayaratne, the prime minister of Sri Lanka.

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WOMEN!

Muslim Woman Joins Jewish Man for Social Justice “We are different in every possible way,” says Huda Abu Arquob, MA ’06, about the man she has worked alongside for the last five years in San Francisco.

Abu Arquob is a Muslim woman on the short side of average height whose extended family lives in Hebron, Palestine. She works with Aaron Hahn Tapper, a 6-foot-6-inch Jewish-American man with a PhD in comparative religions. Together they co-lead Abraham’s Vision, which encompasses several academic programs aimed at getting young adults to understand and change the patterns of conflict that have shaped their lives.

“We give each other the space to disagree and to be honest and passionate about our disagreement,” says Arquob, adding in the next breath that she loves Hahn Tapper's two young children and is close friends with his wife. “If we (Abu Arquob and Hahn Tapper) never disagreed, we would never really know each other!”

As if they themselves do not represent enough religious diversity, Abu Arquob and Hahn Tapper do much of their educational work through a Jesuit university, the University of San Francisco.*1 In Abu Arquob’s eyes, what she and Hahn Tapper are doing through Abraham’s Vision is similar to what CJP does: “The transformation I experienced at EMU is what we see happening with young people as they move through our programs.”

Abu Arquob says her story of resilience and survival is typical * In 2011, this university gave an honorary doctorate to Isabel Castillo, a 2007 social work graduate of EMU, in recognition of her role in campaigning for undocumented young Latinos in the United States.

Abraham’s Vision runs three distinct programs, all accredited through the University of San Francisco. Based on the Abraham’s Vision website, www.abrahamsvision.org, the programs consist of the following: 1. Unity Program is held throughout a school year and is designed to educate high school students about Muslims, Jews, Islam, and Judaism while strengthening the relationships students have to their own communities and religious traditions. Participants examine issues within North American Jewish and Muslim communities, the historical relationship between Muslims and Jews, and the relationship between Judaism and Islam. Each of these components deepens students’ understandings of their individual and group identities in the contemporary world as well as the textual, ideological, and historical relationship between and within each community.

2. Vision Program confers 10-month fellowships on JewishAmerican, Palestinian-American, Israeli, and Palestinian university students. Fellows explore the Israeli-Palestinian

Huda Abu Arquob, MA ’06, on a 2011 visit to Eastern Mennonite University

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Photo by Jon Styer

of her Palestinian people. Though college-educated, her parents were often forced to find employment in foreign locales, separated from their loved ones. Abu Arquob is the oldest of 12 children born to her parents, and all the children managed to get an education under extreme hardship. Abu Arquob, a former teacher on the West Bank, won a Fulbright scholarship to study at EMU. Abu Arquob refers proudly to her feisty, self-sufficient paternal grandmother—“an illiterate woman who saw that all of her kids, three daughters and four sons, were educated.” Her grandmother accomplished this by excellent management of the family’s land and marketing of its produce, despite her husband’s imprisonment for seven years.

At Abraham’s Vision, Abu Arquob has seen sea-tide changes among the participants, such as a young man majoring in physics at Stanford who switched to addressing human rights through a law degree. And then there was the formerly bitter law student who ended up in Egypt training electoral workers and monitoring elections. Abu Arquob said many of the students who arrived feeling suspicious of “the other” end up staying in touch with the members of their cohort long after their program has concluded.

“Unlike some programs that mix Israelis and Palestinian young people, we don’t believe that just having contact with each other is transformative—we don’t sweep our differences under the rug,” said Abu Arquob.

“We believe it is important to understand social-identity and power dynamics of people in conflict. We put a huge amount of effort into healing collective and individual traumas before we position people to work together to resolve their conflicts.”

Ultimately, at least some of the students who come through an Abraham’s Vision program will move into leadership positions throughout society, says Abu Arquob. That is when she and Hahn Tapper expect to see fundamental breakthroughs in seemingly intractable conflicts.  conflict academically, utilizing comparative conflict and social justice analysis, as well as personally through individual and group processes. Using the Balkan wars of the 1990s as a starting point, participants embark on a four-week educational trip in June and July through Serbia, Kosovo, and BosniaHerzegovina. After returning to the United States, fellows engage in two weekend conferences to help participants to articulate their views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using a social justice lens.

3. Under the Beyond Bridges Program, university-age students go to live among people in conflict to listen to their stories and to experience their fears and suffering first hand.

The two current destinations are (1) the Balkans and (2) Israel and Palestine. The students also explore the role of the United States in international conflicts. ”We give students a chance to examine the root causes of conflicts through social justice lenses and to understand that conflicts are part of our lives and there is no one dominant narrative in any conflict,” Abu Arquob says. When they return to the United States, the students work together to transform conflicts.

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WOMEN!

Raising Up Women and Children in Nepal At the end of 1995, years before Anjana Shakya (MA ’02) arrived at CJP as a Fulbright scholar, she gathered representatives of nongovernmental women’s groups in Nepal and founded the Beyond Beijing Committee to lobby for women’s rights and inclusion as equal participants.

Earlier, in September 1995, Shakya had the Nepalese women’s delegation to the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing. Participation in this conference “started the trend for the first time in the history of Nepal to be inclusive of its multicultural heritage and minorities and rural population,” Shakya told Peacebuilder.

“We find that after four or five days in our program, the participants recognize that revenge or other forms of violence only perpetuates further violence rather than peace, at both the personal and community levels.”

Shakya launched HimRights in 1998, not long after Nepal descended into a war lasting from 1996 to 2006. Her organization continues to monitor, document, mediate, and rescue people suffering from violence. Today the program is focused on reconciliation work, based on peace and compassion rather than revenge and anger.

A major component of the program is a workshop lasting four to six days in which traumatized women and children, in separate sessions, are helped to work through their grief and anger and to move forward. “We find that after four or five days in our program, the participants recognize that revenge or other forms of violence only perpetuates further violence rather than peace, at both the personal and community levels,” said Shakya.

In a June 2011 interview with the alumni magazine of Smith College—where Shakya earned her undergraduate degree and currently serves as a board member of the alumni association— Shakya spoke of the value of art therapy for traumatized children.

Their art has been the basis of comic books and art exhibitions that graphically show how these children experienced Nepal’s war.

“A lot of them [the children] had been child soldiers,” Shakya told Smith magazine. “They saw a lot of torture, a lot of killing;

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Anjana Shakya in a photo taken in 2011 for the Smith College alumni magazine. She is on the Smith alumni association's board of directors.

they themselves had to go through a lot of torture. They have lost their parents in the conflict. And for women, some of them have been soldiers themselves as Maoist insurgents. Some of them have been tortured and raped. They cannot sleep. They cannot think straight. They still live in fear.”

Yet Shakya has been heartened to see how even highly traumatized women and children have responded positively to the workshops sponsored by HimRights. “[In most cases], they go through an amazing change. On the first day, they’re really mad and they say something like, ‘I want revenge.’ The anger that comes out is unbelievable. And we would gradually see each day how they changed. By the fourth

day, they will stand up and say, ‘I don’t want revenge. It just doesn’t help. It will only instigate more violence.’ [Usually, by the end] there is so much compassion and understanding for each other.”

HimRights (www.himrights.org) also hosts public hearings in which local policy makers, along with representatives from both sides of the conflict, hear testimony from women and children on how the violence affected them firsthand. In the Smith article, Shakya said she hopes that dialogue will ultimately translate into policies based on mutual understanding, with an eye to reconciliation and lasting peace based on social justice.

Beyond Beijing (www.beyondbeijing.org), also chaired by

Shakya, consists of established female leaders in the fields of women’s rights, social justice, media, political empowerment, law, and community development in Nepal. It has a network of 182 committee members, plus 625 affiliated members, at the national, regional, district, and village levels. “From the beginning, Beyond Beijing embraced marginalized women in Nepal, notably dalits and indigenous women in remote regions, and ensured that they were represented at all levels of the organization,” said Shakya.

Shakya, who is married with two adult sons, told Peacebuilder that her long-term goals are “to change societal attitudes toward women and children. Unfortunately, the patriarchal value system will not go away easily.” 

Photo by Beth Perkins

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WOMEN!

7 CJP Alumnae Went On To Earn Doctorates The seven women listed here earned doctoral degrees after their graduate studies in conflict transformation at EMU. There are at least nine other women graduates who were enrolled in doctoral programs as of May 2012.

If you have finished your doctorate, please let us know at www.emu.edu/peacebuilder/update so that we can include your information in subsequent announcements.

Priscilla Adoyo, MA ’03, Doctor of Missiology 2008 from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Dissertation title: “The Application Of Biblical Principles Of Conflict Transformation In Ethno-Religious Situations In Jos And Kaduna, Nigeria.” Current work: Director for Centre for Peacebuilding at the Institute for the Study of African Realities, a constituent school of Africa International University in Nairobi, Kenya. “The Centre’s agenda is to address conflict in Africa at all levels—family, interpersonal, in churches and organizations, between communities, and at national levels. The Centre teaches the Bible’s vision for justice and ‘shalom’ and equips persons in diverse arenas to intervene with skill and discernment in conflict situations and building deep-rooted peace.”

Kaushikee, MA ’02, PhD in Political Science 2004 from Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India. Thesis title: “Refugee Problematic and Regional Security in South Asia.” Current work: Assistant professor in the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Kaushikee’s online curriculum vitae list dozens of seminars given, workshops led, conferences organized, and papers, monographs and a book published, both in India and in other countries, notably the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United States. Her range of interests is wide—from human rights to conflict resolution—but she has demonstrated a particular interest in the Gandhian approach to peace and conflict resolution.

Florina Immaculate Mary Benoit, MA ’04, PhD in Social Work 2008, Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. Dissertation title: “A Study of the Quality of Life of Sri Lankan Refugees Living in Camps in Tamil Nadu.” Current work: Chief Zonal Officer in CASA (Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action). “We work in the villages of India. I coordinate development efforts in the four southern states of India. Our focus is on poverty alleviation and political awareness and empowerment of the oppressed classes, particularly the dalits, tribals, women and backward castes.”

Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04, Doctor of Letters (D.LItt.) 2012, Drew University in New Jersey. Dissertation title: “On the Survival of Mennonite Community in Modern-Day America: Lessons from History, Communities and Artists.” Current work: Editor-in-chief at Eastern Mennonite University, including writing and editing Peacebuilder magazine. “The Mennonite church-community offers the world a distinctive and much-needed minority voice on behalf of living peacefully and helping people who are suffering. I hope this community will resist the historic trend of the assimilation of minority communities into the dominant culture.”

Laura Brenneman, MA ’00, PhD in Theology 2005, University of Durham in the United Kingdom. Dissertation title: “Corporate Discipline and the People of God: A Study of 1 Corinthians 5.3-5.” Current work: College and seminary professor of religion and a mediator in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Previously Brenneman was an assistant professor of religion and the director of peace and conflict studies at Mennonite-affiliated Bluffton University in Ohio. “My dissertation was a study of community discipline in the ancient church in Corinth, with implications for churches today.”

Jujin Chung, MA ’02, PhD in Peace Studies 2008 from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. Dissertation title: “A Transformative Approach to Public Dispute Resolution: A Study of the U.S. Model and the South Korean Case.”

Current work: Education and publication, including book writing, focusing on peacebuilding and conflict transformation; lecturer at universities, special events and workshops for different groups. “I published a book titled Conflict Resolution in Korean Society in 2010. I also translated a book entitled Managing Public Disputes. Both books are my efforts to introduce conflict resolution/transformation to Korean society and encourage people to take different approaches to conflict based on dialogue and collaboration.”

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WOMEN FOR PEACE IN WASHINGTON D.C.

The proximity of Eastern Mennonite University to Washington D.C.—it’s a two-hour drive—enables many trained at EMU in peacebuilding, reconciliation, restorative justice, development and trauma healing to work in the heart of one of the most influential capital cities in the world. Some do practicums, internships, and further graduate study, while others do consulting or settle into paid staff and administrative positions.

The eight women pictured on pages 19-23 show the range of work and study sites available in Washington D.C. for those who hold master’s degrees from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding: Peace Corps, World Vision, World Bank, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, InsideNGO, consulting business, George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution, and John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Krista Rigalo, MA ’98, PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution 2010 from the School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Dissertation title: “The Politics Of Ritual: Exploring Discourse Regarding The Use Of Ritual In Northern Uganda.”

Current work: Chief of Programming and Training for Africa Region of the United States Peace Corps. “In this role I provide strategic oversight and guidance to the development efforts of 25 country programs in Africa. It is the largest regional program in the Peace Corps—approximately 41 percent of Peace Corps Volunteers serve in Africa. Though not the largest part of what I do, I have started a post-conflict support initiative for our programs in Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Liberia.”

PLUS: Three female graduates earned doctoral-level law degrees before enrolling in CJP: Rosario “Charito” CalvachiMateyko, MA’06, Doctor of Law 1988 from the Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador; Patricia “Patty” Patton, MA ’00, JD 1988 from George Washington University School of Law; and Brenda Waugh, MA ’09, JD 1987 from West Virginia University School of Law.

JANA EL-HORR, MA ’06 // PhD candidate at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution near Washington D.C. // In March 2012, El-Horr learned that she was one of fewer than three dozen chosen by the World Bank out of 10,000 applicants to be in its Young Professionals Program. This two-year program, which begins each September, is a stepping stone for permanent employment with the World Bank. To be considered for the program, a candidate must be fluent in English and another “World Bank language,” hold a master’s degree and have three or more years of “relevant professional experience or continued academic study at the doctoral level.” El-Horr, who is from Lebanon, previously worked with the American Islamic Congress where she was the Washington D.C. program director and an international trainer, the latter position involving conflict- resolution training workshops in Iraq.

Photo by Jon Styer

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WOMEN!

MARINETTA CANNITO HJORT, MA ’05 // Founder and president of Transforming Conflicts, Restoring Justice, LLC (www.transformrestore.com). // Through TCRJ, Hjort gives technical support and training on conflict transformation and restorative justice processes. She is multi-lingual (Italian, English, Spanish, French) and often travels from her base near Washington D.C. to conduct trainings of up to a week in Italy, Haiti, and in Spanish-speaking countries, notably Mexico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. She has also published extensively in Italian and Spanish, including a Spanish-language training manual on restorative justice. Much of her focus in Italy has been on overcoming the mafia culture and in Mexico on organized crime and corruption.

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KRISTA RIGALO, MA ’98, PhD // One of the earliest graduates of EMU’s conflict transformation program. // She came to the program with a master’s degree in agricultural education and extensive experience as a Mennonite Central Committee volunteer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia. Since November 2011, Rigalo has been Chief of Programming and Training for Africa Region of the U.S. Peace Corps. Her work runs the gamut from establishing a three-year regional performance plan, identifying and allocating resources for training and staff development to assisting with creating and managing strategic partnerships at an agency level, to providing and coordinating technical assistance to 66 projects in health, environmental/natural resource management, education, community economic development, agriculture and youth development.

Photos by Jon Styer

ROXY ALLEN, MA ’07 // Events manager at the Washington D.C. headquarters of InsideNGO (www.insidengo.com), which is dedicated to strengthening the operational teams and fostering leadership in the international non-profit sector. // Allen manages the logistics for 88 workshops in the U.S. and developing countries, coordinates the activities of the events team across the organization, does project management for the signature annual conference, and manages the Young Professionals Forum by hosting career-building and personal/professional development events. Previously, Allen taught English in Ethiopia as a volunteer with Mennonite Central Committee.

RUTH hoover ZIMMERMAN, MA ’02 // Former co-director of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding // Zimmerman now works from the Washington D.C. headquarters of the U.S. branch of World Vision (www.worldvision.org) as its country program manager for India. She is in charge of monitoring and evaluating how the nearly 15 million dollars contributed annually by U.S. donors are being used in India. More than half of the projects that she monitors are directed at reducing violence toward girls and improving their future prospects through education.

Previously, Zimmerman was regional representative for Mennonite Central Committee for India, Nepal and Afghanistan.

Before working at EMU from 1994 to 2007, Zimmerman served for eight years in southeast Asia in church administration for Eastern Mennonite Missions.

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WOMEN!

Trying to Stop Rapes Of Congolese Women In February 2009, Irene Safi Turner, MA ’08, was invited to speak at an event organized by a coalition of groups that was urging the U.S. Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA).

Turner was a featured speaker because she had spent years addressing the widespread violence (often rape) inflicted on women in her native country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Turner came to EMU after years of working for the United Nations Development Programme and for CARE International on women’s issues, with a particular focus on the brutal treatment of women in war-ravaged areas of the Congo.

IVAWA had bipartisan backing—including Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, and Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican—but despite the efforts of Turner and other eyewitnesses to the violence against women in many countries of the world, the act did not get passed before Congress adjourned in 2009. The act was re-introduced in 2010, but as of April 2012, it had not been resurrected and passed.

According to www.womenthrive.org:

Nilofar Sakhi, MA ’07 // Candidate for a master’s degree in international public policy through Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C. // Most recently Sakhi directed the Afghanistan office of Open Society Foundations (founded by George Soros).

Previously she founded and led the Women Activities and Social Services Association, based in her home city of Herat, Afghanistan. “I chose SAIS of Johns Hopkins University due to its rigorous focus on economics. In an increasingly globalized world, the knowledge of economics is a prerequisite for a better understanding of international relations and wise decisionmaking in response to political crises.”

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Lauren Sauer, MA ’08 // Program officer for Europe and Asia for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). // As an example of the type of work she undertakes, Sauer went to Papua New Guinea for three weeks in March 2012 on a project titled “Women Advocating for Voices in Government,” described on www.IFES.org as “a project to increase the participation and representation of women in politics by improving their capacity to influence decision makers and advocate for equality.” Women in Papua New Guinea have been trying to overcome a situation in which only one woman has been serving in the 109-seat Parliament. Sauer notes that the IFES is trying to improve the political and cultural situation for women in both Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands where gender-based violence is endemic, reflecting the low status of women in society.

Photos by Jon Styer

The IVAWA, if passed, would for the first time comprehensively incorporate solutions into all U.S. foreign assistance programs— solutions such as promoting women's economic opportunity, addressing violence against girls in school, and working to change public attitudes. Among other things, the IVAWA would make ending violence against women a diplomatic priority for the first time in U.S. history. It would require the U.S. government to respond to critical outbreaks of genderbased violence in armed conflict—such as the mass rapes now occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti—in a timely manner. And by investing in local women's organizations overseas that are successfully working to reduce violence in their communities, the IVAWA would have a huge impact on reducing poverty—empowering millions of women in poor countries to lift themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty.

Though Turner started her journey to peacebuilding focused on the treatment of women, she is broadening the scope of her interests as a PhD candidate at the School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution of George Mason University. She wants to explore the role of doctorate-holding leaders of society and other intellectuals in contributing to the violence in the Congo, or at least in acquiescing to it.

Irene Safi Turner, MA ’08

Turner advocating passage of IVAWA, with Senator John Kerry at her side

Photo by Jon Styer (above) and courtesy of Women Thrive Worldwide, 2010. www.womenthrive.org (below)

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Attorney Seeks Answers In Restorative Justice

'Crumbling Pillars of Old Ways' In her 2012 Journal of Law & Policy article, Brenda Waugh included an original, free-verse poem, excerpted here: Prosecuting attorney: I witnessed the destruction of multiple generations by sexual abuse within one family.

The firestorm engulfing child, mother, cousins, aunts, uncles.

Legislative lawyer: I drafted statutes that piled on punishments only to have the state plunge into debt to build more prisons, write statutes, build prisons, write statutes, et. al, et. al, et. al.

Student of restorative justice: I gained understanding of a new way to justice (peace) only to uncover promising processes blindly adhering to the crumbling pillars of the old ways . . .

Even after all of the rest (the quarter century) I’m surprised.

All in all, a struggle to define harm, name those affected, identify their role, and satisfy their needs (or their rights).

No stopping the struggle—careful hunting for answers.

Once upon a time I looked only at the facts, statutes, and precedent—giving way to theories of restorative justice . . .

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Photo by Jon Styer

Women peacebuilders met at EMU in June 2011 to discuss how CJP can support women in the field. (More on page 8.)

The world needs more leaders working for peace and justice.

Please help CJP educate, train and nurture promising new leaders, especially women.

Ways to Give: On line: emu.edu/cjp/giving By check to EMU/CJP sent to: Development Office Eastern Mennonite University 1200 Park Road Harrisonburg, VA 22802 For more information, contact: Phoebe Kilby, Office of Development 800-368-3383 Phoebe.kilby@emu.edu

Four reasons to support the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Known world-wide for educating and developing effective leaders in conflict transformation, restorative justice, trauma healing and conflictsensitive development.

Home to one of the few graduate-level programs that equips people to work for peace and justice at the community level, thereby supporting peace and justice at societal and global levels.

emu.edu/cjp/giving

Attorney Brenda Waugh, MA '09, at her home in Winchester, Va.

As a fresh graduate from the University of Virginia in 1982, Brenda Waugh headed to California where she worked as a costume designer and studio wardrobe coordinator in Hollywood.

Those early 20-something years seem eons ago.

They were before . . . Waugh finished law school and worked as a Legal Aid attorney, often representing victims of family violence.

Before . . . she was an assistant prosecuting attorney, often representing the state in cases of child abuse and neglect.

Before . . . she became interested in mediated settlements.

Before . . . her son, a former Virginia Tech undergrad, experienced the horror of a fellow student killing 32 people on April 16, 2007, leaving 25 injured before the student-shooter killed himself.

Waugh, who topped off her 1987 Juris Doctor with a master’s degree in conflict transformation from EMU in 2009, is now a supporter of restorative justice. So much so that she designed and co-taught with EMU professor Howard Zehr an online restorative justice course that attracted 14 students from four countries in 2011-12.

She also designed and co-taught a course for senior law students at her alma mater, West Virginia University College of Law, on “practice skills,” including typical interviewing and negotiating, but adding new conflict-resolution skills.

“We included collaboration, listening and mediation skills in this course, which I have come to believe are critical skills in the practice of law,” she told Peacebuilder.

In her private practice, serving three communities (and soon serving Washington D.C.), Waugh focuses on improving the ways and processes of addressing legal conflicts, said Waugh, who is married to lawyer Chris Quasebarth. “I focus my practice on cases suitable for mediation, restorative justice or collaborative law processes.”

Generating interest about the possibilities offered by restorative justice has become her passion. In the spring of 2012, she organized a continuing legal education program in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia attended by more than 60 lawyers and two judges. CJP adjunct instructor Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz also presented in this program.

In 2011 Waugh had an article published in the Journal of Law & Policy by Washington University School of Law in which she explored potential restorative approaches to the Virginia Tech tragedy. She has more articles in the works pertaining to daily applications of collaborative law and restorative justice principles for attorneys. 

Attracting many exceptional applicants who need scholarship support in order to enroll.

Sowing the seeds of peace in 120 countries through the work of faculty, staff, 396 graduates, and more than 2,500 trainees.

Join us in realizing our vision to develop leaders who will create a just, peaceful and secure world. peacebuilder ■ 25 emu.edu/cjp

EASTERN MENNONITE UNIVERSITY 1200 Park Road Harrisonburg VA 22802-2462 USA

Little Books With Big Goals

For more information, visit www.GoodBooks.com or any major online retailer.

The Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding series is a cooperative effort between the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University (Howard Zehr, Series General Editor) and publisher Good Books.

PEACEBUILDER is a biannual supplement of Crossroads, a periodical published six times a year by Eastern Mennonite University