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Summary:

The Summer Professional Training Institute focuses on various approaches to mediation, negotiation, facilitation, reconciliation and dialogue, particularly in conflict-torn and developing regions.

Web link www.american.edu/sis/peacebuilding

The Summer Institute

The Summer Institute is a unique training program designed to give foreign aid workers, government officials, and conflict resolution and development practitioners, practical skills to complement their daily work in conflict affected areas. The Peacebuilding and Development Summer Institute is one of the first academic programs specifically organized to bridge the two issues of peacebuilding and development. The Summer 2004 institute welcomed 170 participants from 27 countries that spanned all continents and many conflict areas. The participants came from varying backgrounds ranging from international agencies such as the UN, CARE, USAID, World Vision, Mercy Corps, teachers, and small non-governmental organizations. They were joined by master’s degree students from the International Peace & Conflict Resolution and the International Development programs at the School of International Service at American University.

The summer institute engages participants in a wide variety of social and academic events in Washington, DC, bridging cultural gaps and establishing a dynamic community in the process. Last year’s summer institute provided the opportunity for participants to get involved with some extracurricular activities such as: a networking reception, 4th of July celebrations, a grant writing workshop, storytelling, panel discussions, and dinner/social gatherings. The participant evaluations have expressed their appreciation of the cultural and intellectual diversity in the classroom.

Certificate in Peacebuilding

Participants in the Summer Institute may also register to complete a 15 credit hour graduate Certificate in Peacebuilding, with concentrations in Conflict Resolution, Conflict and Development, or Human Rights, which is designed to illuminate the interfaces among these important fields of professional practice. Please visit the Institute website for additional information about this exciting opportunity.

SUMMER 2005 Courses

Week I: June 27-July 1, 2005

Course 1: Religion & Culture in Conflict Resolution with Mohammed Abu-Nimer This course focuses on the impact of cultural and religious factors in peacebuilding processes. Participants explore the role of cultural and religious identities in peacebuilding, and gain concrete skills and approaches to integrate with their ongoing work.

Mohammed Abu-Nimer, an Associate Professor at American University, has intervened and conducted training workshops in many parts of the world, among them: Egypt, Turkey, Ireland, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and the United States. He recently authored Reconciliation, Justice and Coexistence: Theory and Practice (Lexington, 2001) and has a forthcoming book on nonviolence and peacebuilding in Islam: Theory and Practice (University Press of Florida, 2003).and peacebuilding in Islam: Theory and Practice (University Press of Florida, 2003).

Course 2: Applied Conflict Analysis and Resolution with Ronald Fisher and Brian Mandell

This interactive course provides an overview of 1) useful conceptual tools (models, concepts, theories) for understanding violent and protracted conflict between racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and other identity groups, and 2) constructive methods (negotiation, mediation, consultation, dialogue) for addressing such conflicts. Through a combination of lecture/discussions, analytical exercises, role plays and simulations, participants will come to appreciate the dynamics of destructive conflict and learn practical approaches for its de-escalation and resolution. Ron Fisher, Ph.D. is a Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University, where he teaches courses in approaches to peace, conflict resolution, and third party intervention. He is a social psychologist, who has been published in many of the interdisciplinary journals in peace studies and conflict resolution, and who has twenty-five years of training and consultation experience at the domestic and international levels. In 2003 he received the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award from the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence, a Division of the American Psychological Association.

Brian Mandell, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in Public Policy and Executive Director of the Negotiation Project at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, where he teaches courses in conflict resolution and negotiation. His emphasis surrounds facilitation and consensus building in addressing protracted policy disputes, at both the domestic and international levels. He is a political scientist and international relations specialist, who studies contentious and protracted conflicts with a view to integrating theory and practice in his teaching and writing, and who has provided training to a variety of audiences in the United States and abroad.

Course 3: Political Negotiation in Latin America with Graciela Tapia

The course will focus on the nexus between democratic governance, peaceful approaches to conflict resolution, and development in Latin American and Caribbean contexts. The course is geared towards individuals from government and civil society who are positioned to play important roles in managing and resolving complex political issues in their countries.

Graciela (Gachi) Tapia is a lawyer and a mediator from Argentina and until recently was the Executive Director of Partners for Democratic Change National Center in Argentina. She comes to the Institute through a partnership with the Organization of American States and has conducted high level trainings throughout Latin America.

Week II: July 5-July 9, 2005

Course 1: Training for Trainers in Peacebuilding & Development with Mohammed Abu-Nimer

This course utilizes training approaches and explores their practical applications in peacebuilding and development contexts. It focuses on skills and approaches for designing, implementing, and evaluating effective training courses in conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, and democracy and governance.

Course 2: Development in Conflict: Practical Approaches to Recovery with Kimberly Maynard

This course is designed specifically for the individual and organization working in conflict-affected and structurally violent developing countries. It is aimed at those interested in acquiring analytical and practical skills in helping countries overcome the social, physical, and economic destruction of violence. With an emphasis on practical application supported by conceptual and theoretical foundations, it centers on operational considerations and approaches, strategy and goal development, program design methods and skills, and various types of analyses. It will include such conceptual approaches as community-driven development, do no harm, human security, and conflict impact mapping as well as draw on the practical experience of both the participants and the professor. Kimberly Maynard, has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private foundations on disaster and humanitarian issues for 23 years. Her fieldwork includes such complex emergencies such as Bosnia, Burundi and Kosovo to name a few. She has written on such issues as community participation in post-conflict settings, grassroots psychosocial recovery from conflict and the healing process in post-conflict settings.

Course 3: Linking Human Rights with Conflict Resolution & Development with Julie Mertus This workshop builds the participants' understanding of human rights as it relates to conflict intervention and international development. Participants are introduced to the values, norms, techniques and processes used by practitioners in these three fields, and have an opportunity to reflect on what each field can contribute to the other. Julie Mertus, in an Assistant Professor at American University’s School of International Service and co-director of the Ethics and Peace M.A. program. She was formerly a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Fulbright Fellow (Romania) and Counsel to Human Rights Watch. She has extensive field experience in the Balkans and has worked on human rights projects in over a dozen countries worldwide.

Course 4: Media and Peacebuilding: Concepts, Actors and Challenges With Ross Howard

This course will delve into the destructive role media has played in many conflicts such as in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. NGOs are realizing the crucial role media plays in peacebuilding and understands that the potential is present for them to influence the outcome. The course aims to present a clear picture on the concepts; provide an overview of the strategies applied by different actors; and highlight the actual trends and future challenges of the media’s involvement in conflict resolution. Ross Howard is a Canadian journalist and advisor on media in conflict and democratization. An Associate of IMPACS - the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society, and a journalism faculty member of Langara College, Vancouver, he has trained journalists and conducted media assessments in countries including Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Nepal, Rwanda, Burundi and Canada. He is co-editor of The Power of Media (European Centre for Conflict Prevention); and author of Conflict Sensitive Journalism, a handbook (International Media Support-Denmark), and An Operational Framework for Media and Peacebuilding (IMPACS-CIDA), and Media&Elections, a handbook, (IMS-IMPACS), and co-author of Gender.Conflict.Journalism. (forthcoming: UNESCO/NPI). He is a former Senior Correspondent for The Globe and Mail newspaper and a former Vancouver television editor.

Week 3: July 11- July 15, 2005.

Course 1: Arts Approaches to Peacebuilding & Development with Babu Ayindo In what ways can we accentuate the power of art to transform conflicts and enrich peacebuilding work? How can the arts contribute to social justice, healing and dialogue? This course explores various arts approaches to peacebuilding, drawing from a variety of traditions. Emphasis is given to integrating Story-Telling, Photography, Image Theater and Forum Theater. Participants will engage in skills practice to enhance imagination and creativity in exploring arts approaches to peacebuilding. Babu Ayindo is a Lecturer at the Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation Program, Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation in Zambia. He is the founding artistic director of the Amani People's Theatre in Kenya. He has conducted trainings in art and peacebuilding throughout Africa, Austria, UK, US, and Australia. He has facilitated, Apublished and performed in many theatre productions on art and healing. As an international trainer and practitioner, he has bridged the fields of theatre, reconciliation and peacebuilding through Theatre and other mediums of creative expression.

Course 2: Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding & Development with Claudia Liebler This interactive and practical course is for participants who enjoy a creative learning environment that encourages “out of the box” thinking and experimentation. The course will introduce participants to some of the most innovative approaches for change of our times that have application for both peacebuilders and development practitioners. It will draw on the newly released book: Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding: A Resource for Innovators. Positive approaches are having success in building a common vision among diverse stakeholders, mobilizing elements of a community, building improbable partnerships, eliciting cooperation where none has existed before, and focusing participants on the ability of positive change existing within every human system.

Claudia Liebler, has been involved with international development for 30 years, with experience in 28 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She was co-founder of the Global Excellence in Management Initiative of Case Western Reserve University, which for seven years provided training and consultation in Appreciative Inquiry for development NGO’s worldwide.

Course 3: Islam and the West: Strategies for Peace With Nathan C. Funk and Meena Sharify-Funk This course explores the relevance of peacebuilding as a framework for policymaking vis-à-vis the Islamic world. Readings and lectures will cover a variety of topics pertinent to American relations with Islamic cultural groups. Particular emphasis will be placed on intellectual debates and sociopolitical conflicts within the Islamic world that have a direct bearing on the quality of Muslim-American relations. While conducting independent projects on specific cases of conflict and/or peacebuilding, participants will develop analytical schemata suitable for understanding the diversity of approaches to Islamic interpretation, the historical contexts of contemporary events, and the complexity of relationships between culture, religion, communal identity, and politics. Special attention will be devoted to global trends as they relate to internal dynamics of social change and political contestation. In addition, strategies for resolving deeply rooted conflicts through democratization, negotiation, and intercultural peacebuilding measures will be targeted.

Meena Sharify-Funk is a Ph.D. Candidate in International Relations at American University’s School of International Service, where her areas of specialization are International Peace and Conflict Resolution and Islamic Studies with a particular focus on the status of women in the Islamic world. She has written and presented a number of articles and papers on Islamic conceptions of peace and of nonviolence, and co-edited the book, Cultural Diversity and Islam. She has also coordinated three international conferences: one at the Washington National Cathedral, entitled “Two Sacred Paths: Islam and Christianity, A Call for Understanding”, one at American University, entitled “Cultural Diversity and Islam”, and another at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt entitled, “Contemporary Islamic Synthesis”. She is currently co-teaching a course on Islam and Democracy at American University (Fall 2004).

Nathan C. Funk is Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Waterloo’s Conrad Grebel University College. Dr. Funk received his B.A. in Global Community Studies from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1994 and his Ph.D. in International Relations from American University in 2000. He has authored or co-authored writings on international conflict resolution, the role of cultural and religious factors in peacemaking, and United States foreign policy, including two edited volumes, Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam (University Press of America, 2001) and Ameen Rihani: Bridging East and West: A Pioneering Call for Arab-American Understanding (University Press of America, 2004), and a forthcoming book entitled Making Peace with Islam. He has lived in the Middle East and South Asia, designed an internet course on conflict resolution, worked on research and training projects for the United States Institute of Peace, and participated in efforts to develop the Academic Consortium for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, which supports conflict resolution capacity building and curriculum development in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq.

Course 4: Design, Monitoring and Evaluation for Peacebuilding and Coflict- Sensitive Development With Cheyanne Church & Mark M. Rogers

This introductory level course combines presentations and interactive, experiential learning methods. The major themes to be covered include: project design, monitoring & evaluation, theories of change, indicators, evaluation criteria, methods of data collection, working with external evaluators and the newest thinking on effectiveness in peacebuilding. There will be an opportunity to apply learning to participant’s current programming.

Cheyanne Church is the Director of Institutional Learning and Research at Search for Common Ground, an international conflict transformation NGO in Washington, DC, USA. She has published on evaluation and conflict resolution, single identity work and most recently co-edited NGOs at the Table: Strategies for Influencing Policy in Areas of Conflict. She was a member of the Advisory Group for the Reflecting on Peace Practice Project, during her tenure as the Director of Policy and Evaluation at UNU/INOCRE in Northern Ireland. Cheyanne received her MSc from The London School of Economics.

Mark M. Rogers is an experienced facilitator, trainer, mediator, program designer and peace builder. He served as the Country Director for search for Common Ground in Burundi. Previously Mark was a mediator, trainer and service coordinator with Mediation Services, Inc., in Upstate New York. He holds a Masters in International Administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont and has over two decades of field experience in Central and West Africa, Asia, Central America and the Balkans working with several organizations including PLAN International, the International Rescue Committee and the International Medical Corps.

Tuition and Fees Non-credit Tuition: $735 per course. Credit Tuition (2 Credit): $1,860 per course.

International Participants

Participants who are not citizens or permanent residents of the United States are responsible for obtaining necessary visas. For more information, please contact the Program Administrator at pcrinst@american.edu

Housing

On-campus housing is available on a limited basis. Sign up early to take advantage of the on-campus housing option. The applicants are responsible for securing their own housing arrangements. For more information, please contact the Summer Housing Office directly at (202) 885-3370, or email: summerhousing@american.edu For the most complete information available for housing, please see the website located at: www.american.edu/ocl/reslife/summer_housing_conferences/intern_ housing.cfm

Financial Aid

There are four need-based tuition scholarships available. The scholarship will pay for one week of tuition, and you will be responsible for paying for the second week, at least. The Scholarship deadline is Thursday, March 31st 2005. For more information, please contact the Program Administrator at pcrinst@american.edu

To apply for the Summer Peacebuilding & Development Institute go On-line at: www.american.edu/sis/peacebuilding

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Last updated 19/01/2005 09:05:56

Media and Peacebuilding.

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