Peace Learning News - January 2010

The Peace Learning Center Youth Services team will be busy this winter, working with students at every grade level in Indianapolis Public Schools. Through the Peace School program, elementary students at IPS Schools #105 and #302-Center for Inquiry will learn more about community, peace and problem solving this month. The Youth Services works with those students both at their schools and at the Peace Learning Center. Through our partnership with IPS's Alternative Education office, PLC facilitators will help students in 5th through 8th grade explore better emotional control and awareness at four IPS schools: Arlington, George Washington, John Marshall, and T.C. Howe. Most importantly, those middle-grade students will discover how to be better members of their classroom and local community. Our anti-gang programming with Arsenal Tech and Northwest continues this month, as students explore decision-making and values.

Through our new work with middle-grade students, as well as our work with Northwest and Arsenal Tech high school, Peace Learning Center has new opportunities to provide long-term programs to students who have both a demonstrated need for conflict management skills and the potential to benefit deeply from our services. PLC's Youth Services team is able to establish stronger connections with and among these students, building community and students' interest in our core messages. Furthermore, the students served are able to build critical life skills that will support them as they work toward graduation and success in life. This work is made possible through several grants and contracts, as well as the support of individual donors to Peace Learning Center.

Corporate & Community Programs

Corporate & Community Programs has a number of relevant offerings in January and February. On January 12, George Okantey with Purdue Extension, Marion County, will lead our Tuesdays at PLC session on Working through Difficult Conversations, where participants will gain skills that encourage spirited dialogue and reduce confrontation and resistance.This session has been so popular that we quickly filled to capacity and have closed registration. However, if you wish to be placed on a wait list, please contact Nancy Larner Ruschman at nruschman@peacelearningcenter.org.

On January 22^nd, Peace Learning Center will partner with Leadership Ventures to bring the first-ever Central Indiana Board Chair Summit to Indianapolis. Although this session filled to capacity two months prior to the event, we have now secured a larger venue at the Madame Walker Theatre Center and have re-opened registration to expand this inaugural program to the many people on our wait list and beyond. The focus of the Summit is on bringing board leaders together to learn new practices and share ideas with each other. Our keynote speaker is Brian Payne, President of the Central Indiana Community Foundation; our panelists include current and past board chairs who will share their best advice for handling the role of board chair. Panelists will include Susan BrockWilliams, current president of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Central Indiana, and former Board Chairperson of the Lacy Leadership Association (LLA); Dick Hester, past Board Chair for Leadership Ventures; Robert Kaspar, Chairman of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Joseph Simpson, past Board Chairman for the American Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis. In addition, Marnie Maxwell, of Maxwell Associates, will serve as our featured workshop presenter. Click Here to register for this event. More information on the Summit can be found at: http://www.boardchairs.blogspot.com/ . A big thank you to the staff and board of the Madame Walker Theatre for generously donating their space for us to expand this very popular session!

Add more tools to your professional development tool box while donating to a great cause!

We have added two new additions to our professional development offerings in February. All proceeds from the February 3 and February 19 half-day sessions will be donated to Peace Learning Center to invest in the youth of our community.

February 3: From Resistance to Buy In: Successfully Influencing People Who Resist Change, 8:30 a.m.-12:00, $49. Session description: Influencing people who resist change in the workplace requires leaders and co-workers who have the courage to make tough, often unpopular decisions, while creating an environment that facilitates buy-in and staff commitment to change. This session will assist participants with developing an understanding of the six sources of influence and how they can be used to influence others. Peace Learning Center will offer this special half-day program conducted by PLC Associate Consultant, Debra Jarvis. Debra has offered to donate her fees for this session to Peace Learning Center. For more information and to register, click here.

February 19, Peace Learning Center board member Patti Ayars, will offer a session on The Art of Leading Transformational Change, 8:30 a.m.-12:00, $49. This session will teach participants the difference between incremental and transformational change and what it takes to lead successful, sustainable change in an ever changing world. Each participant will receive a copy of Patti's new book, The Art of Leading Transformational Change (a $29.95 retail value). Patti has offered to donate her fees for this session to Peace Learning Center. For more information and to register, click here.

February 24^th, PLC will have a fundraiser which will take place at The Center for Inquiry, IPS School #2, from 7:15am - 8:30am. Please attend this fundraiser to support the work we do and learn about all the ways Peace Learning Center has positively impacted the lives of thousands of youth and adults in our community. Register here to attend the fundraiser - this is a free event.

International Interfaith Initiative

The basic premise driving the work of the International Interfaith Initiative is that religious differences do not have to be the cause of conflicts. Religious differences can be the sources of creative solutions to difficult problems. This view informs the trips the Initiative leads to the Middle East. Jews, Muslims, and Christians from Central Indiana travel together to the Iraqi refugee camps in Jordan, to schools in the West Bank of Palestine, to constructive dialogues in Jerusalem between Muslims and Jews. The goal of III's trips is not only to place ourselves at the service of interfaith efforts to achieve peace and meet the needs of the poor in one of the world's most troubled regions ... although that is an important goal. We serve as ambassadors for American groups - for congregations, schools, and clubs - that wish to identify potential partners in the Middle East.

International Interfaith Initiative is collaborating with The Village Experience to host the second annual Middle East Journey leaving Indianapolis on December 27 and returning on January 9th 2010. Middle East Journey is a delegation of conscientious citizens from diverse faith and vocational backgrounds who are traveling to the Middle East to learn about and participate in programs that are effectively building a better future for the region. This year's delegation includes a dynamic group of individuals that represents the rich religious diversity here in Central Indiana. Among the 11 participants is the Catholic Chaplain at Butler University, the Jewish education director at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck, two members of 91st Street Christian Church, a Hindu Masters student at UIndy and the daughter of one of the leaders of Al Huda Mosque in Fishers. We are also traveling with a civil rights attorney and a woman who has dedicated her life to reduce recidivism in our community.

The goal of the journey is to continue building relationships based on mutual trust with individuals and organizations working for positive change in the Middle East. This year's Journey will take us to various sites in Jordan, Israel and the West Bank in Palestine.
�         New Year's Eve will be spent at Wadi Rum, a breathtakingly beautiful National Park in the southern desert of Jordan.
�         The journey begins with a meeting with members of the Iraqi refugee community in Jordan. The meeting will take place at the Jesuit Center in Amman where the priests have befriended hundreds of Chaldeans who fled Iraq after the war began in 2003.
�         The delegation will also meet with Professor Edward Curtis, an IUPUI professor who is on a Fulbright Scholarship teaching at Jordan University this semester.
�         In the West Bank of Palestine the delegation will participate in a volunteer project and learn about youth development programs implemented by the Holyland Trust.
�         The delegation will also hear about a "narrative" project at Bethlehem University where social studies teachers from Israel and Palestine are working to develop a common history of significant events in the region since early 1900.
�         The delegation then travels to Jerusalem to meet with members of a Jewish-Arab dialogue project organized by the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel. Leaders from this project, Rabbi Ron Kronish and Imam Mohamad Zibdeh, spoke at a conference here in Indianapolis on October 23 this year.
�         The delegation will also meet with a church in Cana, a village in the Galilee area of northern Israel, that is a partner with 91st Street Christian Church on various projects that foster interfaith understanding.
�         Follow the progress of the trip on the group's blog ... http://indymideast.blogspot.com.