MHCR Admin
Peer Learning: Indigenous Youth Championing ...

On November 9, 2023, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) hosted an “Indigenous Peace Building and Youth, Peace, Security Strategy Workshop” which gathered Indigenous youth leaders from around the world in conjunction with the White House Tribal Youth Forum. This event mindfully organized participants into tables with a mixture of Indigenous youth leaders, government representatives, and peacebuilding working professionals to open opportunities for dialogue on the meanings of peace and traditional resources for peacemaking within a variety of cultural contexts. Through conversation, participants were able to share stories about their communities including traditional spaces for dialogue, mediation, and decision-making. When discussing the meaning of peace, some common themes across the cultures represented included peace as being connected with community, related to nature, dignity, and compromise. Participants often discussed the importance of shared safe spaces and of collective decision-making, including centering traditional Indigenous practices.

Peer Learning: Indigenous Youth Championing Peace
MHCR Admin
Empowering Young Athletes, Empowering my ...

I recently conducted a facilitation on the ideas of resilience, being a good teammate and friend, and finding validation within oneself with some of the adolescents that play at the volleyball club I coach for. I was given this avenue through the Shinnyo-en Fellowship I received a year ago. During my time as a fellow, I also have to create an impact project that be related or unrelated to the work I do at the organization of my choosing. I had a couple ideas bouncing around for this project, and ultimately decided on facilitating a dialogue in the volleyball club I coach for.

Empowering Young Athletes, Empowering my Younger Self
MHCR Admin
What If We Supported Insider Mediators…

… in a responsive way instead of a directive one? If we approached local mediators as bearing duties and not just watchful spectators and advisers holding rights? If we supported reconciliation structures by putting insider mediators at their heart?

What If We Supported Insider Mediators…
MHCR Admin
Empowering Research and Collaboration: MHCR ...

In the Summer of 2022, all MHCR undergraduates were awarded research funds through the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) within George Mason's Office of Scholarship, Creativity, and Research (OSCAR). Expanding from this, these awardees–Hannah Adamson, Merisa Mattix, and Greta Roberson–applied and were accepted to present at the 2023 National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Eau-Claire, Wisconsin. This conference included 3,600 undergraduate students and faculty from across the country. The MHCR students reflect on their experiences presenting and participating in the conference.

Empowering Research and Collaboration: MHCR Students’ Experiences at the 2023 National Conference for Undergraduate Research
MHCR Admin
MHCR Event Recap: Negotiating with the Terrorist

On the morning of May 2, 2023, the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation (MHCR) hosted a webinar titled, Negotiating with the Terrorist: Lessons Learned from Mediation Attempts with al-Shabaab. MHCR Director Antti Pentikäinen moderated the event, and the panelists were individuals he had previously worked alongside during high-stakes negotiations in Somalia.

MHCR Event Recap: Negotiating with the Terrorist

A Self-Care Guide for Change-makers and Peacebuilders during COVID-19

Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped almost every dimension of our lives. Many of us are seeing how the severity of this crisis is impacting the well-being of our families, communities and ourselves. In this time of increasing uncertainty and instability, the work of community leaders, change-makers and peacebuilders is more critical than ever. However as front-line change-agents, how do we make sure we are also taking care of ourselves?

This “Self-Care Guide for Change-makers and Peacebuilders during the Covid-19 Pandemic” is co-authored by MHCR Program Coordinator, Annalisa Jackson and Research and Practice Fellow Nicholas Sherwood and outlines basic recommendations for change-makers and peacebuilders on how to take care of ourselves and our households during this challenging time of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A further guide is currently being adapted for peacebuilders in conflict zones. If you have feedback or specific input towards this guide, please contact Annalisa Jackson at ajacks51[at]gmu.edu

Breakthrough and Change: the Value of Peer-Training

Breakthrough and Change: the Value of Peer-Training

On Saturday, February 15, prominent indigenous representatives, rights activists and other actors from all continents gathered in Inari, Finland, to attend a peer-training workshop on Indigenous truth and reconciliation practices. The workshop was initiated as part of the partnership between the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation(MHCR) and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues(UNPFII) to support indigenous Truth and Reconciliation Processes worldwide.

Antti Pentikäinen, director of MHCR and research professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, soon to be the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, at George Mason University, was invited to co-facilitate the workshop alongside independent expert on indigenous truth and reconciliation processes and recent MHCR affiliate, Eduardo Gonzalez. The workshop served as a peer training in truth and reconciliation processes for mainly Nordic Sámiparticipants, including representatives of the Nordic SámiParliaments and prominent Sami rights activists. The 25 participants included 14 UNPFII board members as well as a number of people directly involved in Sámi issues.

MHCR’s First Handbook: A Self-Care Guide to Surviving and Thriving During COVID-19

The onset of COVID-19 has reshaped almost every dimension of our lives: 

Most workspaces are closed. Public spaces are shuttered. Taking care of the ‘essentials of life’, like going to the grocery store or the bank, is an obstacle course. Perhaps most frustrating, of course, is the fact that none of us know when ‘life-as-we-know-it’ will resume.

However, despite the many challenges posed to us by COVID-19, we also have at our disposal many resources to build psychological resilience: the process and ability to transform moments of adversity into opportunities to thrive. Resilience comes in many forms in our lives, from daily habits we can nurture, to the relationships that give us joy and fulfillment. Each of us must now ask ourselves: what sources of resilience can help me survive and thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic?

To help answer this question, MHCR Research & Practice Fellow Nicholas (Nick) Sherwood authored A Self-Care Guide to Surviving and Thriving During COVID-19. This text empowers readers to build a specific, achievable, and manageable plan of action to cope with the ongoing realities of COVID-19. MHCR is proud to offer this handbook to help each of us take care of ourselves, our households, and our communities during these challenging times.

Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped almost every dimension of our lives. Many of us are seeing
how the severity of this crisis is impacting the well-being of our communities. In this time of increasing uncertainty and instability, the work of peacebuilders and reconcilers is more critical than ever. 

Keep an eye on this space – more updates to come!

Launch event for S-CAR’s newest center highlights the importance of healing in reconciliation processes

Launch event for S-CAR’s newest center highlights the importance of healing in reconciliation processes

Despite heavy rain and thunderstorms, an enthusiastic crowd gathered at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City on October 16, 2019, to celebrate the launch of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation (MHCR). The event brought together New York-based friends and partners of the center and was moderated by MHCR director Antti Pentikäinen and Pat Drew, a friend of MHCR and consultant to the New York Times and other news agencies.  

The Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation, which is based at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, is committed to bringing scholars and practitioners of reconciliation together to both research reconciliation practices and develop the impact of ongoing and future reconciliation processes. MHCR will give special focus to supporting and enabling grassroots communities within conflict zones, connecting them with national and international efforts. Specifically, MHCR will study and promote ‘insider reconciliation’ facilitated by locals who are able to adapt reconciliation techniques to their region’s cultural context and utilize their status as trusted members of the local community to create an environment of mutual trust and understanding.

Healing the past for the future: The Sámi in Finland -- A model for reconciliation?

Research Professor Antti Pentikäinen, director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation (MHCR), has been assisting the Government of Finland and the Sámi Indigenous People in launching a Truth and Reconciliation Process. The Sámi are the last living indigenous people in Europe. For centuries, they have been subject to colonial policies and assimilation.

A new documentary video speaks about the importance of the process and outlines the uniquely designed three-track approach, which aims to address legacies of intergenerational pain. The work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be complemented with the training of insider reconcilers and the advancement of trauma healing. The insider reconcilers will receive academic training on reconciliation practices and lead intra- and inter-communal reconciliation efforts. The trauma healing will be equally led by a Sámi specialist. 

The Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation is partnering with the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) to continue these training sessions in Inari, Finland, in February 2020 for mainly Sámi and Inuit participants. Pentikäinen will be providing these training sessions with Eduardo Gonzalez and Anne Nuorgam, the latter of whom is the Chair of the UNPFII. 

The culture and experiences of the Sámi have recently been highlighted in the popular movie Frozen II. Disney worked with Sámi parliaments and signed a contract to respectfully portray their culture and release a version of the film with dubbing in the Sámi language.

Workshop in D.C. explores how to improve the impact of reconciliation

By Annalisa Jackson

On the morning of October 4, 2019, leading practitioners and scholars from government agencies, universities, and NGOs gathered at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., for a one-day workshop on “Improving the Impact of Reconciliation.”

During the workshop, which was organized by the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation (MHCR) with Inclusive Peace and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the conceptual frameworks of reconciliation and best practices in post-conflict reconciliation processes were discussed, highlighting the experiences of local peace activists and reconciliation practitioners from Nigeria, Colombia, and Iraq.

The workshop was the first event organized by the Mary Hoch Center, the newest center at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. As MHCR is committed to bringing scholars and practitioners of reconciliation together to research reconciliation practices and develop the impact of ongoing and future reconciliation processes, this workshop marked an exciting beginning to its activities.  

The breadth of backgrounds represented among the workshop participants reflected the many forms that reconciliation processes can take.

“It’s a relief to see that there are many variations on the definitions,” commented Beatrix Austin from the Berghof Foundation after a mapping on reconciliation was presented by Simon Keyes of Winchester University. Keyes’ mapping presented the widely differing conceptualizations of reconciliation, ranging from community to state-level and from “minimalist” to “maximalist” approaches. His presentation began the morning’s discussion on the conceptual framework of reconciliation.

“What’s necessary is not to be overwhelmed by all the definitions but actually to locate ourselves on which type of reconciliation we are working with,” Austin continued. In her own presentation, Austin highlighted that reconciliation often happens in complicated and messy contexts and requires both humility and caution. She suggested that “our intentions should be in strengthening the field and keeping reconciliation people-centered.” 

During the workshop, the presentation of case studies reinforced the need for people-centered approaches to reconciliation.

Read full article here.

S-CAR's dean briefs UN Security Council on reconciliation

S-CAR's dean briefs UN Security Council on reconciliation

What does peace look like? Is it the cessation of violence? The signing of an accord? The shaking of hands while dignitaries and media watch on as witnesses to history?

Or does it look like people in once-divided communities working together to heal their traumas, pursue justice for victims of violence, and rebuild relationships by co-writing a shared vision of the future?

Speaking to representatives of the United Nations Security Council in New York on November 19, Alpaslan Özerdem, dean of the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, said that it is “one of the tragic ironies of wars” that in order for peace to be achieved and sustained, “people on all sides must learn to live together [again].”

When a conflict comes to its end, Özerdem said that “victims, perpetrators, and others in war-affected communities [must] begin the formidable task of reconciling with one another, politically and interpersonally.”

The importance of reconciliation within peace processes was the subject of Tuesday’s Open Debate organized by the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations, which is serving as the president of the Security Council throughout November.

Özerdem was invited by Ambassador Karen Pierce, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, to brief the Security Council as part of the debate.

Training insider reconcilers to create sustainable peace

Training insider reconcilers to create sustainable peace

When Antti Pentikainen was early in his career as a peacemaking practitioner, his work assisting Nobel Peace Laureate and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari took him to conflict zones and immersed him in mediation processes.

However, as he did this work, he began to notice that something wasn’t quite right.

“Although Ahtisaari was cautious of time, I saw that these processes in general drag on,” he told S-CAR News.

He noticed that these processes seemed unable to account for “the urgency of the pain people have,” and he realized that although people affected by conflict seem to know best what the problems are and how to fix them, they rarely have access to the mediation process.

S-CAR Establishes Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation

S-CAR Establishes Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation

George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) has received a generous gift from James Hoch and his family to establish the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation. 

The center will bring scholars and practitioners together to build knowledge of reconciliation practices and apply them where needed in the U.S. and in post-war contexts abroad. The gift will fund the first years of the center’s operating expenses, the hiring of an executive director, and reconciliation research that incorporates “insider reconcilers”—people in conflict areas who understand the local context and social structures to better facilitate reconciliation.