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.
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.
… 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?
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.
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.
On June 4th, 2020, Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced H.Con.Res.100 to the house to create a US Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. The purpose of the US TRHT is “to properly acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst for progress toward jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of human value, embracing our common humanity, and permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities.”
On December 10th, 2020 the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation will be hosting a webinar titled Learning from Experience: Truth & Reconciliation Processes in the US highlighting past truth commissions in the US. The webinar will feature speakers from four previous Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) experiences: the Greensboro, North Carolina the Maine-Wabanaki TRC, the Truth-Telling Project, originally from Ferguson MO, and the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture.
“Can a country rebuild without dealing with the individuals that make up the country and their trauma?” MHCR Reconciliation Fellow Rowda Olad seeks to be a solution to the problem addressed by this question. Rowda Abdullahi Olad is a psychotherapist and peacebuilder whose work has led her back to Somalia where she has founded the Mandeeq Mental Health Without Borders. Rowda explains her drive and reason behind her work.
Last year the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation began as a small, committed team with ambitious goals to contribute to global reconciliation efforts. Now, just one year later in the midst of a global pandemic, this budding organization has provided psychosocial support to peacebuilders during COVID-19, supported the Sami people of Finland with indigenous reconciliation processes, launched a Transformation and Reconciliation Lab, been recognized at the UN Security Council, and so much more. On October 14th MHCR virtually celebrated this incredible journey with key team members, supporters, and community members. This event offered an both an opportunity for reflection and for envisioning the years to come.
Come join us on October 14th from 7 - 8pm EST to learn more about MHCR’s work through the past year. You will have an opportunity to hear about projects such as our assistance with forming a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission in the United States, support of peacebuilders' mental health, launch of the student-led Transformation and Reconciliation Lab, and more! Register here.
“Inequality was woven into our country’s DNA.”, said Shelly Marc, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Her words opened the webinar on Truth-Telling and Transformation, an event convened during #TruthWeek by MHCR along with Rep. Barbara Lee’s office, #BreatheWithMe, +Peace, and the John Michell Jr. Program. The goal of #TruthWeek was to raise awareness and build a movement behind Barbara Lee’s bill H.Con.Res.100 which would establish a US Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. As of now (Sept. 23, 2020) the resolution has gained 163 co-signatories in the Congress. #TruthWeek was part of a larger effort to promote this important bill which could lead to much needed transformation in our country and MHCR was glad to play a role in convening leading international experts to share best practices in reconciliation process design and implementation. The purpose of this exchange was to hear from individuals who had contributed to the complex process of planning reconciliation processes in South Africa, Canada, and South America, learning from the challenges that they endured and bringing their lessons learned to this critical moment in the United States.
On Friday, September 18th, the final day of #TruthWeek, the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation will convene with #breathwithme to facilitate an interactive exchange among speakers from South Africa, Canada, and South America who will share their experiences and lessons learned from national truth-telling and reconciliation processes in their own contexts.
What does it mean to take up space for peace? Monica Curca, an affiliate of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, found herself mulling this question over during her participation in the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of June.
As the interim director of +Peace and the founder of Activate Labs, Curca was at the forefront of efforts between nine D.C.-based peace organizations to create a model for what would become a series of “peace activations” within the broader protest movement taking place at Black Lives Matter Plaza.
Her efforts were supported by Elicia Yoffee, a master’s student at the Carter School and Project Manager with the Mary Hoch Center, and by Clara Debman, a D.C. artist and co-host of The Hive, a digital gathering space for peacebuilders and changemakers.
Peace activations are experiential co-design processes that integrate art, music, and festival-like elements in open spaces, often alongside larger policy or narrative change efforts.
MHCR’s Learning Exchange on Supporting Peacebuilders During COVID
On 26 May 2020, we convened a Learning Exchange for Providing Psychosocial Support to Peacebuilders during COVID-19. The Learning Exchange featured representatives from nearly 40 peacebuilding NGOs, academic centers, and peer networks; each representative possessed first-hand knowledge and exposure to the impact of COVID on the lived experience of peacebuilders operating in conflict zones around the world.
MHCR and Activate Labs are collaborating to launch the Hive, a digital space to create peace and justice in pandemic times. The Hive is place for peacebuilders, creatives and change-makers to belong, co-create, and grow.
Coming to the Hive, we engage our creativity as we share skills, facilitate conversations, and connect with each other to find hope and joy as we walk together in this time of great uncertainty, pain and social isolation. Join our Facebook group and Zoom calls as a participant, creative facilitator or small group facilitator. Whether it’s poetry, a story circle, comedy, visual arts, or a facilitated conversation on local creative responses to Covid-19, you are invited to share your talent, skills and passion with a global community.
Visit http://www.activatelabs.org/thehive to join and learn more!
