Gbowee, who shares the prize with and , earned a master’s degree in conflict transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She attended CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2004 and participated in a round-table for Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (known as “STAR”) in 2005.

Gbowee led a nationwide women’s movement that was instrumental in halting Liberia’s second civil war in 2003.

“Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections,” noted the in making the award. “She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.”

Starting in the 1990s

Gbowee’s links to Mennonites began in 1998, when she received training in “trauma healing and reconciliation” and then worked at rehabilitating child soldiers. Perhaps unbeknownst to her, the first trainings in this subject in Liberia occurred when , a Mennonite with trauma expertise, arrived in Liberia in the early 1990s, with funding from and what is now called , both based in the United States.

Hart trained Lutheran church workers who, in turn, trained Gbowee. Hart also arranged for , who became Gbowee’s friend and mentor, to earn a graduate degree in conflict transformation at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”. In 1998 Doe became one of the earliest master’s degree graduates from what is now called the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, setting the stage for Gbowee to earn the same degree nine years later.

In her 2011 memoir, “,” Gbowee says she came to 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” because it was “an American college with a well-known program in peace-building and conflict resolution. It was a Christian school that emphasized community and service.”

Responding to the Nobel announcement, 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” President said:  “The impact that Leymah was able to have, first in Liberia, then in West Africa, and now all over the world, shows that another, nonviolent reality is possible. This affirms the dreams and hopes of groups, educational institutions, and churches that are devoted to supporting peace work.”

“We plant what we call ‘seeds of peace’ as widely as we possibly can, usually through education in peace building theory and skills, and then trust that some of these seeds will bear fruit,” he added.

Seeds of Peace

The woman Gbowee calls her “true friend” and fellow founder of , Thelma Ekiyor, attended 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s 2002 Summer Peacebuilding Institute, as did Gbowee’s first champion and employer in Liberia, Lutheran Reverend “BB” Colley, who attended the annual institute in 2000 and 2001. At Colley’s urging, Gbowee read “” by the well-known Mennonite ethicist John Howard Yoder.

Gbowee, who was named , is the central figure in a documentary co-produced by , “.” Completed in 2008, the documentary is part of a “” series to be aired over five successive Tuesdays in October 2011 on public television stations in the United States.

In her memoir, Gbowee credits with introducing her to the (WANEP), an organization that he co-founded and led after finishing his master’s degree at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”. (Doe received 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s annual and now works for the United Nations. His daughter, Samfee, graduated from 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” in the spring of 2011, overlapping for one year with Gbowee’s eldest son, Joshua “Nuku” Mensah, who enrolled in the fall of 2010.)

“WANEP, based in Ghana, emphasized using nonviolent strategies and encouraged women to join the effort to address problems of violence, war and human rights abuses,” wrote Gbowee.

WANEP supported the launch of , the organization through which Gbowee and her colleagues conducted the campaigns that played a key role in ending the civil war in Liberia. (This organization is the predecessor to Gbowee’s current organization, Women, Peace and Security Network Africa.) The WANEP-launched women’s network—plus , the grassroots movement led by Gbowee—laid the groundwork for the election of fellow Nobel Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president of Liberia, the first woman president of an African nation.

WANEP is now led byof Ghana, a 2002 graduate of CJP.

CJP Teachings Credited

Gbowee’s memoir credits two of the founding professors of CJP, and , with strongly influencing her through their writings and teachings.

“I read Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi and the Kenyan author and conflict and reconciliation expert Hizkias Assefa, who believed that reconciliation between victim and perpetrator was the only way to really resolve conflict, especially civil conflict, in the modern world. Otherwise, Assefa wrote, both remained bound together forever, one waiting for apology or revenge, the other fearing retribution.”

As Gbowee began to attend international meetings pertaining to peace and feeling the need to “speak with more knowledge and authority,” she says, “I began amassing books on conflict resolution theory: ‘’ and ‘,’ both by .”

In May 2004, the summer after the Liberian peace accords were signed, Gbowee came to 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” to attend classes at its annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute. “Those four weeks were another transformative time for me,” she says in her book, noting that she studied with Assefa at the institute and with, “who taught me the concept of ‘restorative justice.’”

“Restorative justice was
 something we could see as ours and not artificially imposed by Westerners. And we needed it, needed that return to tradition. A culture of impunity flourished throughout Africa. People, officials, governments did evil but were never held accountable. More than we needed to punish them, we needed to undo the damage they had done.”

Women in Peacebuilding at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”

In June 2011 at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”, Gbowee participated in a by-invitation conference on the needs of women peacebuilders around the world. Participants included filmmaker Abigail Disney of the United States, of Fiji, of Afghanistan, and , a Kenyan-Muslim woman of Somali ethnic origin who received the 2007 Right Livelihood Prize. (Abdi died in a car accident after returning to Kenya in July 2011.)

“As a direct result of this conference, we will be launching a women and peacebuilding program at our ,” says , executive director of CJP.

The announcement from 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” on the Nobel Peace Prize award can be found at .

For both Sam Gbaydee Doe and Al Fuertes, the vocation of peacebuilding was forged in the trauma of civil war. In Doe’s native Liberia, 10 percent of the population perished. For Fuertes, growing up on the Philippine island Mindanao, one of the world’s longest recent wars seemed “a given.”

Now, over more than a decade, both men have been familiar faces at Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in Harrisonburg, Va., first as students and later – including this summer – faculty.

Doe sought a place to recover from the trauma in Liberia, as well as seek ways to prevent such disasters, when he first attended SPI In 1996.

After earning a master’s from 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Doe worked with later CJP graduate Emmanuel Bombande to launch the West African Network for Peacebuilding. WANEP works with intergovernmental bodies on human rights and education while training local volunteers to spot “early warning signs” of violence.

Doe received 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002 and earned a doctorate in 2010 from the UK’s University of Bradford. He has mentored fellow-African SPI alumni including Leymah Gbowee, who organized Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace; fellow-Liberian Mack Mulbah, who established a peer mediation program; and Takwa Suifon, a research analyst from Cameroon.

Since 2005, Doe has worked for the United Nations, serving in Fiji before becoming a Development and Reconciliation Advisor in Sri Lanka in 2007. In the wake of Sri Lanka’s long civil war, challenges include resolving conflict between Tamil and Sinhalese communities.

In his “Conflict-Sensitive Development and Peacebuilding” SPI course this May, Doe had students address the interrelated problems of “Tala,” a fictional name for a country struggling with issues resembling Uganda’s.

Students find that “development” in less-powerful nations may entail profiteers exploiting a less-regulated environment: “You’re not building factories; you’re only taking the trees, taking the oil. It leaves a lot of people disempowered,” Doe says. He hopes CJP, like WANEP, can evolve to “engage on the policy level.”

Reflecting on a recent visit to his extended family, Doe says, “Liberia is on a path of healing, but healing takes a long time.”

In May, as Al Fuertes finished teaching his SPI course, “Trauma Awareness and Transformation,” he was preparing to lead a George Mason University student group to the Philippines, where he directs a global education program.

Fuertes was a youth-camp leader, organizer and pastor in Mindanao before his first visit to 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” (then Eastern Mennonite College) as an undergraduate with the 1990-91 International Visitors Exchange Program.

He has participated in SPI as a student, dorm resident assistant, and –  from 2001-04 as well as this summer – teacher.

Meanwhile, Fuertes has taught for 10 years in GMU’s multidisciplinary New Century College on topics including the refugee experience, forgiveness in divided communities, trauma healing and spirituality. He earned his doctorate at GMU, where he received the 2008 Teaching Excellence Award.

Fuertes’ book, Community-Based Warviews, focuses on displaced communities with whom he has worked: Karen refugees (many having lived 40 years in camps on the Thai-Burmese border) and those in Mindanao. He also writes about the importance of humanitarian groups asking beneficiaries what they need rather than deciding for them. He’s working on a book that draws from his popular spirituality class.

In teaching, Fuertes employs hands-on activities, storytelling and reflection. “Trauma,” he notes, is not only a clinical condition but one that affects whole communities. In SPI courses, despite the shared peacebuilding commitment, he finds, “Some members of a class may meet people there whom they believed to be their enemies.” That is how powerful learning challenges may begin.

–Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer living in Harrisonburg.