Peace​ Quartet

Check out the blog section of our page to find out more about what topics we covered during the first week of our training! Below, you'll find a short excerpt from each blog related to the first week's training sessions. 

 

So Far, So Good!

October 28, 2013, by Amos Furaha

tinyurl.com/travelsfromrwanda

 

I was nervous leaving beautiful Rwanda, my home country, and excited about the purpose of my trip.  I was wondering how long it would take me to get to Nyack, and about the process of how I was going to get to Shadowcliff, the peace house and FOR-USA headquarters. It was my first time going on a long journey and despite how long it was (the trip included staying in Doha for 12 hours) I was still happy and waiting patiently to get to JFK and head to Nyack. I finally made it there after 18 hours trapped on the plane and there was Gretchen, waiting patiently for me. I received a warm welcome at Shadowcliff, contrary to the weather that was cold but still nice and refreshing. Fresh air, sunshine and sunsets at Shadowcliff with a view on Hudson River renovates my soul every day.

Monday 21^st October- this was our first time to talk after our initial meeting, where we were all tired from our long trips. I was inspired and challenged by the determination of these folks that are called fellows. Their commitment to changing the world through nonviolent actions  was encouraging and I gladly embraced the feeling of sojourning together to create a better  path for generations to come.

These first introductions and adjustment in this new environment have gone well. I am meeting lots of fascinating people that are doing fascinating work in peacebuilding and nonviolence fields. Trainers are amazing and I am excited to be in this incredibly peaceful place learning how to advance in the area of peacebuilding and stepping into the calling of being a peacemaker and advocating for my generation and generations come.

” I don’t want to die wishing; I want to die trying “

 

FOR History 

October 29 ,2013, by Rosario Quiroz

 

During the second day of the Fellowship School, the fellows had a chance to meet with Mark Johnson, the former executive director of FOR-USA. This session focused on contextualizing the emergence of FOR-USA and IFOR by looking at injustices and devastation occurring throughout history, and FOR’s involvement and response to  the struggle for peace, justice, and non-violence. For more about FOR’s history you can go to this website- http://forusa.org/about/history. 

 

Session on Militarism Research, John Lindsay- Poland

October 30, 2013, by Nurana Radjabova

tinyurl.com/militarismresearch

 

Every year the world spends over 1 trillion dollars on militarism, which does not only come with great economic expense, but also the expense of the immense environmental degradation and of countless human lives, by damaging the physical and emotional health of people involved and affected directly or indirectly in armed conflicts.

 

Following the conception that stronger military serves for stronger security of countries, governments year by year expand their military power and expenditures on them, avoiding the fact that stronger military can be a cause of insecurity, for it provokes other countries who feel threatened by the military.

 

Thus how to deal with militarism, an issue that continually invades our life? What are the things about militarism of which society is kept uninformed? And what can we as activists do to support demilitarization in the world?! These were all the questions touched on during the two hour session for IFOR fellows led by John Lindsay- Poland.

 

The session on demilitarization was interactive and very informative for the fellows. What I especially found inspiring about the session was that John Lindsay-Poland stressed the importance of utilizing knowledge to take a certain action. In other words, sometimes, we just want to learn about things with no particular purpose, but he emphasized that whatever we learn, we need to make sure that we use it effectively in practice.

 

For learning more about militarism, please visit: www.forusa.org/tools-for-researching-militarism

 

 

Protective Accompaniment

October 31, 2013, by Andrei Trubceac

 

Despite the damaging/destructive effects of many interventionist approaches in peace and development work in developing countries, the Protective Accompaniment model strives to align itself with the “do no harm” principles and provide a viable alternative approach in supporting communities that are struggling to restore and preserve peace. Its main principles are: request based support, noninterference in the decision-making process of the community, transparency, impartiality with the conflict actors, nonviolence.

 

Despite many limitations, the Accompaniment model serves as a positive example of violence prevention work, peace support infrastructure. It signifies an important precedent which invites for the exploration of similar approaches in other peacebuilding and peace consolidation efforts that need to be tailored to different contexts across the world.