SAVE THE DATE! Next April 6-9, we will explore these important questions at an international conference in Richmond, VA. Scholars, grassroots activists, and representatives of business and government from across the US and other countries will meet to share experiences and explore the topic of Healing History: Memory, Legacy and Social Change.

Asia Plateau, Panchgani

Applications are coming in for the first Caux Scholars Program to be held at Asia Plateau, the Initiatives of Change center in Panchgani, India. Twenty scholars from across the globe will gather for this intensive three-week academic course that runs from December 28, 2014, to January 16, 2015. As well as applicants from India, there are others from Pakistan and Afghanistan who are applying for the program.

Leading the program is Babu Ayindo, a Kenyan consultant in the design and facilitation of conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes. Ayindo is a researcher and trainer in the arts, peace education and development communication. He has worked in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Mozambique, various parts of Europe, Korea and Fiji, to transform conflict in communities using the tools of theater and the arts. Ayindo was a Caux Scholar in 1999 and taught as a guest lecturer in the program in Switzerland for two summers.

The Caux Scholars Program-Asia Plateau (CSP-AP) will teach students to analyze conflicts and the factors that create and sustain them, as well as practical approaches to resolving them. Students will further develop their skills by visiting communities surrounding Panchgani where they will observe and experience peacebuilding and development work in the field. "Through interaction with a diverse array of peacebuilders and practical experience in the field of sustainable development, scholars will leave better prepared to address the conflicts that they face in their own communities," says CSP program director Jitka Hromek-Vaitla. Read more ...

John Taylor, who recently joined the team as the Hope in the Cities program coordinator, writes of his experience at the first of five weekend modules of the Community Trustbuilding Fellowship.

After months of preparation, the time has finally arrived. Richmond Hill Retreat Center is ready to welcome participants in the Community Trustbuilding Fellowship. Some come by foot as they are resident at Richmond Hill, others by car from all parts of Richmond and as far away as and Washingto,n DC, and some by plane from Austin, TX, Memphis, TN, and Dayton, OH. All 30 of us are excited but harbor feelings of trepidation. We wonder about making ourselves vulnerable enough for this program that asks participants to reach deep within and be willing to share with others.


How can such a small group represent such wide diversity? In age, from the mid-20s to the late 60s; in vocation: corporate, public service and government, nonprofit, religious work; in religious expression, Christians of multiple denominations but also Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and nearly a third of us without any religious affiliation; in income; in life experience, as well as racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. This class of 2015 has one thing in common: leadership. Leadership as traditionally recognized with CEOs, executive directors, ministers, and community leaders. However, our focus was less on the doing and more about the being, in others words our focus was on who we are as leaders rather than on job titles ...

This first weekend's module was focused on "becoming an authentic leader." Our facilitators guided us through exercises, discussions and presentations. As we met as a whole group, reflected on our own, or shared in small groups we discovered and defined our deeply held values, principles, and responsibilities as individuals and within the communities that we serve.

We came with questions and expectations:

• "I want to grow in the area of dealing with conflict, learning not to take it personally."

• "I would like to make a genuine ally of someone not part of my normal circle."

• "I want to find out where I am deep down in regard to race relations."

Read more ...  

A place at the table

Mee Moua is the president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). This is a powerful new force emerging in America's social and political landscape. Asian Americans are the nation's fastest-growing immigrant group. Rob Corcoran, national director of Initiatives of Change, got a first-hand view of this in September at the AAAJ national conference when he was invited, as one of the few non-Asians present, to be part of the opening panel. Mee Moua writes:

I was born in a thatched roof, bamboo hut in a small jungle village in northern Laos, where there was no electricity or running water. In 1978 my family was resettled in the United States as political refugees. Growing up as an immigrant child in America in a pre-dominantly white community in the mid-west, in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War, where every person of Asian descent was a "chink" or "gook" or an "enemy combatant," was hard.

I remember my mother once said to me, "These people don't know who we are or how we got here. No matter how long you live in this country...someone somewhere in this country will never like you because of the way you look. This is why you must study hard, go to college and one day be their boss. They may never like you because of the way you look, but they will have to respect you because of who you are." Her words gave me the strength to overcome the daily experiences of prejudice and bigotry-and reminded me that, compared to so many other children around the world, I was lucky to be alive, to be given a chance to go to school and to dream about a future that was beyond the next sunrise.

I reflect back on my political refugee experience and I realize that in order to taste the fruit of our family's liberation from death and warfare, I had to liberate myself and learn to insist, persist and lay claim to my identity as an American - economically, socially, culturally, and politically. I have had to acquire patience, compassion and forgiveness in the face of constant denial that I am a "real American", in the face of the perception that I am a perpetual foreigner, guest worker or tourist. Finally, I've had to learn to say "our" and "us" because if I don't constantly frame my intentions from an inclusive stance, then the one left standing outside could be me and my people.

In my quest to help re-define who I am as an American, I decided to run for public office. In 2002, I was elected as a State Senator for Minnesota where I served for almost ten years. I have reflected on that experience and realize that I learned so much.

Perhaps the most lasting lesson is that having people like you and me at the decision-making table really matters. When I first ran for office, a woman said to me, "I am so glad you are running for office. If you don't make room for yourself at the table, you will be on the menu!" I hear her voice every so often when I am able to divert a certain decision, intervene in a certain action or inform a certain audience.
Read more ...

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Beyond Forgiving

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by Rob Corcoran

 

 

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