The context she’d been immersed in as a graduate student in the with the (CJP) at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” (91¶ÌÊÓÆ”) was very different than the context of the institute at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania.

“The term ‘peacebuilding,’” she said, “is used frequently at PKSOI, but primarily to refer to activities done ‘post-conflict’ during ‘reconstruction,’ not to refer to activities all through the scale of different stages of conflict. This can make it challenging for stakeholders from dissimilar backgrounds to have productive conversations.”

Monitoring semantics was just one of many skills Gehman practiced during what she calls a “cultural immersion” in the military environment. With her specific interest being the military-peacebuilding nexus in the Middle East and North Africa, Gehman was matched with a project covering the African Union Mission in Somalia. She worked under the supervision of retired Colonel Dwight Raymond, an expert on the protection of civilians in mass atrocities.

The experience gave her a better knowledge of the multi-dimensional, powerful stakeholders who engage in operations of war and peace: the U.S. military, U.S. government agencies, and multinational coalitions.

“I now have a basic familiarity with the principles and processes of United Nations peacekeeping, including issues like mandate implementation, force generation, and logistics for troop-contributing countries,” Gehman said.

The CJP Capstone Project

When it came time to choose her practicum experience, Gehman said applying to PKSOI was a good option to pursue her academic and professional interests. She had previously conducted interviews with veterans, participated in a workshop called “,” and joined veteran and fellow CJP graduate student Michael McAndrew .

Gehman also benefited from CJP’s connections to the institute. Her advisor, professor, had taken students to visit the institute. Additionally, CJP research professor has been a guest lecturer at the U.S. Army War College.

“Our faculty have strong connections with peacebuilding organizations around the world,” said program director and professor. “This helps our students find placements that fit their particular interests, and build skills and networking contacts.”

Students in CJP’s practice-oriented graduate program in conflict transformation culminate their coursework in one of three options for a capstone project. The organizational practicum, of which Gehman’s experience is an example, requires a 2-4 month commitment. A second option is the research-based practicum, which results in production of an article, book, exhibit or other project. A third option allows full-time CJP students to write a thesis. Students must make a presentation to the CJP community about their project.

2015 CJP Capstone Projects

In addition to Gehman (from Morton, Illinois, and a graduate of Wheaton College), the following graduate students presented capstone projects during the 2015 spring semester. All were awarded their degrees during the April 26 commencement ceremony.

Matt Bucher (Harrisonburg, Virginia; Messiah College, 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” MDiv ’15) researched Anabaptist responses to Christian Zionism and sought to find Christian theology that is good news for Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans. Additionally, he worked at the in Harrisonburg, connecting with local church leaders and working to understand where and how ministers have developed their ability and skills for addressing congregational conflict. Project title: Pursuing Good Theology and Best Practices: Christian Zionism, Empowering Church Leaders and Self-Reflection.

ÌęRay Garman (Ocean City, New Jersey; Haverford College) conducted independent research on the role that meaningful productivity plays in post-traumatic growth. Project title:A Predicament of Being

Fabrice Guerrier (Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Florida State University) worked in the Advocacy Unit of the United Nations Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (). He focused on research and supporting numerous outreach and advocacy strategies essential to OHRLLS’ implementation of its programs of action, as well as mobilizing international support for the most vulnerable countries. Project title: Advocating for Vulnerable Countries in the 21st Century

Tony Harris (Annapolis, Maryland; Goucher College) worked as the global education graduate associate at the . His primary responsibilities included curriculum development and program design/implementation. He was also involved in planning special events and worked on various projects related to organizational development. Through his practicum, Harris also explored explicit and implicit theories of change specific to the organization. Project title: The Global Education-Peacebuilding Nexus: Pedagogies, Programs, and Possibilities

Jacob Kanagy (Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; Eastern University​) served as a congregational consultant and member of a church governance reference team at a community mediation center. His experience led to exploration of the overlap and complexities of serving in both a secular and religious peacebuilding context as a mediator or facilitator. Project title: The Intersection of a Community Mediation Center,ÌęCongregational Conflict, and aÌęChurch Governance Project

Diane Kellogg (Staunton, Virginia; Geneseo State University) ​contributed to the development and implementation of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding’s (WPLP). Confident that WPLP was making a greater impact in the participants’ home communities than most people were aware of, Kellogg explored how that impact could be measured and evaluated. Her video production introduced the program and its participants, and reported on the community-level impact of the women’s participation. Project title: Evaluation and Promotion of the Women’s Peacebuilding Leadership Program

ÌęBridget Mullins (Hudson, Ohio; University of Notre Dame) explored the role of theater in visualizing the roots of conflict andÌęre-discovering voice, body, self and the other.ÌęIn the process, she witnessed communities, both in Harrisonburg and in occupied Palestine, rehearsing the change they want to see in themselves and the world. ÌęProject title: Beautiful Resistance:ÌęWhen Words Fail, Art SpeaksÌę

Nate Schlabach (Millersburg, OH., Ohio State University) worked in the , an organization based in Washington, DC, that promotes better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the United States and the Asia-Pacific region. He was involved in writing, researching, and editing several of the center’s newly released publications on Japan and Australia, and he provided news and analysis for the “Asia Matters For America” website. Project title: The U.S.-Asia Relationship:ÌęWhy It Matters to America

It also helped that Gbowee knew 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” well. She had earned a in 2007.

Gbowee, a social worker who led a women’s peace movement that helped end Liberia’s civil war 10 years ago, addressed a fundraising dinner for over 100 people at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” on Feb. 7. Organized by the school’s International Student Organization, the event was followed by a public address to about 200 attendees, who put contributions into baskets passed by the students.

The events raised over $4,000 after expenses for the care of children whose parents died from Ebola. The funds will go to the Nobel winner’s in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. The foundation makes grants to grassroots groups, including two Liberian organizations founded by graduates of .

The countries hardest hit by Ebola, which started in March 2014, were Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, said Gbowee in her public address. The 3.4 million people of her country had only 51 doctors. “We were not prepared for Ebola, but Liberian civil society rose to the occasion,” she said. “We didn’t wait around for the international community to come and help us.”

Gbowee told the stories of three Liberian heroes – a doctor who cared for Ebola victims in his humble clinic at the risk of his own life, a taxi driver who transported dangerously infectious patients to the hospital, and a young man with a full-time job who provides care for orphans in his off hours.

The epidemic has finally abated in Africa, she said. The Ebola clinics are emptying and students are going back to school. But, she added, the people still live in fear, the economy is ruined and orphans abound.

“We appreciate the help of international organizations,” Gbowee said. “But sometimes they didn’t bother to consult with the local people about how to fight Ebola. They thought they had the expertise, but if you don’t really listen to what the people want, then it’s not much use.”

Gbowee has a reputation for speaking truth to power, most notably when she publicly confronted the president of Liberia during the country’s civil war. Most recently she criticized the United Nations’ humanitarian aid efforts during a meeting of the UN Security Council.

During a question-and-answer session at the conclusion of her speech, Gbowee praised young people for their idealism and gave advice on how to start on the path to activism. “Ideas that are ground-breaking and keep you awake at night might seem like crazy ideas,” she said. “But write them down, tell a friend and step out boldly. Getting angry about an unjust situation is not only okay, she added, but a good thing.

The students who organized the fundraiser represented five continents: Kaltuma Noorow and Nandi Onetu of Kenya, Winifred Gray-Johnson and Gee Paegar of Liberia, Sun Ju Lee of South Korea, Wael Gamtessa of Ethiopia, Brenda Soka of Tanzania, Zoe Parakuo of the United States, Norah Alobikan of Saudi Arabia, Danika Saucedo of Bolivia, Victoria Gunawan of Indonesia, and Marcus Ekman of Sweden. , 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s director of , is the advisor for the International Student Organization.

Gbowee’s last trip to 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” was in April 2014, when she was the that included her son, Joshua Mensah. Before that she came to campus in . Just prior to her arrival, the was announced, and thus her appearance made for a frenzied weekend.

Editor’s note: Kara Lofton, a 2014 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” grad, reported on Gbowee’s appearance at the Ebola fundraiser for local public radio station WMRA; her four-minute report can be heard.

Almost 20 million people died between 1914 and 1918 in the worst war the world had ever known. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and others reacted to the carnage by embracing the idea of a “league of nations” which would settle conflicts before they escalated into wars. Wilson told a joint session of the U.S. Congress in 1919 that such a league would be a “guaranty against the things which have just come near bringing the whole structure of civilization into ruin.” This league would not merely “secure the peace of the world,” it would be “used for cooperation in any international matter,” said Wilson.

Narrow, national politics intervened – as they would henceforth – and the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Versailles peace treaty that founded the League of Nations.

In the absence of U.S. cooperation and that of other key players in the following years, the League’s impact was limited. It nevertheless took some actions from its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, that showed the possibilities for its post WWII successor, the United Nations. It settled territorial disputes between Finland and Sweden, Germany and Poland, and Iraq and Turkey. It dealt with a refugee crisis in Russia. It gave rise to the Permanent Court of International Justice.

But the League had an imbalanced structure that continues to plague today’s UN – decision-making was dominated by certain nations, namely the victors from WWI (with the exception of the United States). And the League had no power of its own to stop aggressor-nations, whether by agreed-upon economic sanctions or by military means. The outbreak of World War II marked the utter failure of the League.

In the aftermath of the Second World War

If WWI was terrible, WWII was horrifically worse, claiming the lives of more than three times the number of military and civilian people as WWI.

Again, it was a U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who pushed for the creation of an international organization to be, in fact and not just in words, a guarantor of peace.

[A]s earlier, the basic dilemmas and conundrums had not changed: How to balance national sovereignty and international idealism? How to reconcile the imbalances between countries over power and influence, over resources and commitments? How, in other words, could one draft a charter that would recognize and effectively deal with the sheer fact that some countries were, in effect more equal than others?Ìę(HanhimĂ€ki, 15)*

The answer was to entice the then-most-powerful nations into being players in the proposed organization – and into staying in the game –Ìęby giving them permanent seats at the top of the organization, with each having veto power over decisions.

To this day, 68 years since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, the five victorious powers from WWII – China, France, Great Britain, the United States and Russia – occupy permanent seats on the UN’sÌę, with each being able to block a decision by exercising a veto that cannot be overridden. For example, the inability of key players on the Security Council to agree on ways to support peace in Syria has blocked any effective UN role in Syria, except for chemical weapons dismantling. Similarly the UN was helpless when the United States ignored France’s, Russia’s and China’s dismay and unilaterally led an invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Security Council is now enlarged by 10 members, elected by the general UN membership to two-year terms, but these 10 do not have the veto power or staying power of the “Permanent Five,” dubbed the P-5.

Which part does what in the UN system?

There’s no simple way of explaining the complexity of the United Nations and its “system” or “family of organizations,” but in the next couple of dozen paragraphs we’ll make a try. The UN began in 1945 with these six components (all beginning with “The”):

1.Ìę, consisting of representatives from the UN’s member nations who deliberate policies, then make recommendations and decisions. Basically, it’s the UN version of the U.S. Congress or British-style parliaments, but with less legislative impact since the UN is a voluntary association.

2.Ìę, as described above.

3.ÌęÌę(orÌę), responsible today for some 70 percent of the human and financial resources of the UN system, including 14 specialized agencies, nine “functional” commissions, and five regional commissions.

4.Ìę, today made up of 43,000 civil servants who staff duty stations around the world and perform the day-to-day work of the United Nations, including administering peacekeeping operations, surveying economic and social trends, and preparing studies on human rights. Basically, the Secretariat services the four other organs on this list (not counting the Trusteeship Council) and administers the programs and policies invoked by them.

5.Ìę.

6.ÌęTrusteeship Council, whose historical reason for existence has disappeared, leaving it without a purpose.

The UN system has grown exponentially beyond the 1940s-era United Nations to encompass more than 50 affiliated organizations – known as programs, funds, and specialized agencies – with their own memberships, leaderships, and budget processes. For example, theÌęÌę– almost always simply called UNESCO – is a legally independent organization that is affiliated with the United Nations through a negotiated agreement. Its chief executive meets twice a year with the executives of 28 other UN-affiliated organizations, including theÌę,ÌęÌęandÌę. This group is called the Chief Executives Board for Coordination and is chaired by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

In contrast to the “specialized agencies” like UNESCO with its structural independence, the “funds,” “programs,” “departments,” and “commissions” (among other descriptors) of the United Nations are usually an integral part of the mother organization headquartered in New York City. They carry out the policies established by the General Assembly and Security Council.

For a visual overview, locate the eight-color, 14-box chart titled “. Another handy resource isÌę. It outlines the better-known components of the UN system. A word to those who might wish to work within this system: there isn’t a centralized application process; you’ll need to search for each unit’s specific hiring requirements and procedures and be prepared to compete against many – perhaps hundreds – who are multilingual with graduate degrees.

The UN system performs work that almost everyone would agree is laudable – from supporting basic research aimed at improving food production to raising literacy levels around the world – but the United Nations’ foundational purpose of maintaining international peace resides largely with the Security Council. No use of international sanctions, no peacekeeping operation, noÌęsignificantÌęsteps for peaceful resolution of aÌęmajorÌęconflict, can be undertaken without Security Council approval.

Stemming the flood of sufferingÌęand dying people

When massive loss of life looms, whether from natural disasters or war, the UN system is positioned to intervene, if welcomed (or at least permitted) by the host state. For natural disasters, the aid typically comes quickly. For massive deaths due to human conflict, United Nations intervention gets stymied by political considerations, resulting in ineffectiveness and delay, as occurred in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Ìętypically get funded by developed nations, using personnel drawn from less-developed nations. This is why the UN’s “blue helmets” or “blue berets” are disproportionately from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Jordan and countries making up the African Union.

The Security Council also largely shapes the work of the General Assembly, which is supposed to be where democracy comes to the fore on the international level. Yes, all 193 members of the UN have one vote in the General Assembly. But, no, they can’t override any Security Council decisions. Only the Security Council can pass binding resolutions, though the General Assembly can, and does regularly, pass non-binding resolutions that at least have a moral impact.

The entire UN system is coordinated by itsÌę, currently Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, who gets into that position only if recommended by the Security Council.

Money flows into the UN system in two ways, via: (1) an assessment, like a tax, based on a country’s gross national income relative to other countries and (2) voluntary contributions. The UN’s peacekeeping operations are funded through the assessment, with a surcharge paid by members of the P-5 group.

Voluntary contributions from nations and other sources (e.g., the European Union and development banks) make up at least part of the budgets of many important organs, such as theÌę,Ìę,ÌęÌęandÌę, as well asÌę,Ìę, andÌę.

Nine countries account for roughly three-quarters of the operating budget of the United Nations: the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, Spain and China. The United States is the single largest contributor at 22 percent, but collectively, the European Union countries contribute the lion’s share of the UN’s budget, roughly 35 percent.

In 2011, theÌęÌę(UNHCR) said it needed $3.5 billion – its largest request ever – to meet the needs of the world’s growing numbers of refugees and displaced persons. It received $2.18 billion.

The biggest forced movements of humans today are in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan (and South Sudan), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Colombia, and Mali. The world has 15.4 million recognized refugees – equivalent to everyone living in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco becoming refugees simultaneously – plus twice that many displaced within their own countries.

“These truly are alarming numbers,” said UNHCR head AntĂłnio Guterres, upon releasing a report in June 2013. “They reflect individual suffering on a huge scale and they reflectÌęthe difficulties of the international community in preventing conflictsÌę[author’s emphasis] and promoting timely solutions for them.”

In mid-2013, nearly 97,000 uniformed UN personnel were conducting peacekeeping, truce supervision, or stabilization work in 16 areas, including Afghanistan, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, Lebanon, and the border of India and Pakistan, Their budget was $7.57 billion, the largest single outflow of UN dollars for anything. (Yet this is miniscule, relative to the military budgets of developed nations like France and the United States.)

Dramatic jump in peacekeeping

AÌędramatic increase in UN peacekeeping operations followed a 1992 “,” nurtured by then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The policy document was endorsed at a meeting of heads of state convened by the Security Council. It defined four consecutive stages to prevent or control conflicts: preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding (i.e., identifying and supporting ways to help strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid future conflict).

For the first time ever, the Agenda for Peace implied that the UN did not necessarily require the consent of all parties in the conflict to intervene.

One of the early success cases of the Agenda for Peace was in Mozambique, where between 1992 and 1994, about 6,000 UN peacekeepers helped oversee its transition from a state of civil war to democratic elections.

The balance sheet for UN peacekeeping in the 1990s, however, was mostly negative, with its disastrous failure to stabilize Somalia – festering to this day – and to prevent ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

Obviously, the foundational reason for the United Nations – being a guarantor of peace – is far from being achieved.

“The basic problems for the UN as the overseer of international security was and remains simple: how to deal with conflicts – be they between or within states –Ìęwithout offending the national sovereignty of its member states[editor’s emphasis],” writes Jussi M. HanhimĂ€ki, a native of Finland who is professor of international history and politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

From the beginning the UN recognized the economic roots of much violent conflict, putting these words in its charter: “to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.”

This statement reflected awareness that the global Great Depression after WWI, coupled with the punitive reparations imposed on WWI’s losers, incubated the aggressive ultra-nationalism that resulted in the next world war.

Efforts to alleviate poverty around the world, however, have been confounded (in part) by different nations’ political and economic ideologies. The United States, for instance, has always promoted global capitalism as the best way for all countries in the world to develop. But is it? If other modes of development were better in certain situations, would the UN system have room to explore them under its current funding and leadership system?

Doug Hostetter, a 1966 graduate of 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” who directsÌę, has observed over the last five years growing involvement by global corporations in UN discussions.

Viewed in the most positive light, this corporate involvement – often in the form of underwriting the costs of conferences and participating in them – shows private-public cooperation to address some of the world’s most intractable problems. Viewed in terms of vested interests, however (as Hostetter says he views matters), the corporations are mainly interested in maximizing their profits, regardless of the impact on the most vulnerable in the world.

Impact of unwieldy structure on functioning

As mentioned earlier, the UN system consists of more than 50 organizations and entities, labeled by dozens of acronyms, with the majority beginning with “UN” or “W” for “World,” plus ones like ECOSOC, FAO, GATT, IAEA, ICJ, ILO, IMF, ITU, MSC, OHCHR and ONUC.

Excluding the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the UN system has about 83,000 on its payroll, most of them working out of offices or “duty stations” around the globe. The single largest chunk of employees is within theÌę, headquartered in New York City. Secretariat employees also work from office centers in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut, Geneva, Nairobi, Santiago and Vienna.

Annual expenditures in the entire UN system, excluding the banking entities, topped $41.5 billion in 2011, according to the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination.

Compensation varies within the system, but at the United Nations itself, salary scales (found at theÌęÌę) for two sample locations in the fall of 2013 – New York City and Addis Abba, Ethiopia – ranged from a minimum of $77,338 for entry-level professionals to a maximum of $203,620 for senior-level professionals, including cost of living adjustments for these locations. Rent subsidies, allowances for dependents, grants for children’s schooling, extra pay for hardship and hazardous work are routinely granted in addition to salaries.

In 2005, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan sought to strengthen the Secretariat’s office of internal oversight in order “to review all mandates older than five years to see whether the activities concerned are still genuinely needed or whether the resources assigned to them can be reallocated in response to new and emerging challenges.” This is just one example of many initiatives in recent decades aimed at streamlining the United Nations, some of them successful.

“There is no point in mincing words,” writes Jussi M. HanhimĂ€ki. “The UN is a structural monstrosity, a conglomeration of organizations, divisions, bodies and secretariats, all with their distinctive acronyms that few can ever imagine being able to master.” He notes that “the UN has a tendency not to reform but to build new structures on top of already existing ones,” causing limited resources to be “squandered due to lack of operational coherence.”

Development aid in particular is subject to “duplication and overlap [that] have reduced efficiency and increased administrative costs within the UN and its sister organizations,” such as the World Bank, says HanhimĂ€ki.

Everett Ressler, a 1970 graduate of 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”, draws a different conclusion from his 40 years in international development and humanitarian work. “The UN functions as a crucible in which people from all countries strive to work together for the common good, including the resolution of differences,” he says. “What has surprised me is not that there are challenges and disappointments but that so much continues to be achieved despite them. The limited but unique role of the UN is often wrongly portrayed, and its contributions are undervalued.” (Ressler retired from UNICEF in 2008 after 14 years of what he describes as “ building capacities to prepare and respond more effectively in crisis situations.”)

Peace is central, ongoing focus

Turning to the peace field: building a peaceful world has been at the UN’s heart since it was founded, garnering its agencies or people Nobel Peace Prizes in 1945, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1981, 1988, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2013. The 1992 Agenda for Peace was endorsed at the Security Council level.

In the summer of 2005, the first “people building peace” conference was held at the UN headquarters in New York City. This conference attracted about 1,000 delegates from 119 countries, including 15 CJP students and several who are currently CJP professors, Catherine Barnes, Barry Hart, and Lisa Schirch. Sitting together in the majestic Grand Assembly room, Hart and Schirch reported being thrilled to see many CJP graduates, partners and colleagues from around the world.

In 2006 the UN formed aÌę, charged with coordinating the efforts of multiple actors, including UN agencies and international donors, in stabilizing post-conflict countries. Currently on the stabilization list are Burundi, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and the Central African Republic. The Commission has a budget titled theÌęÌęfrom which it disperses about $100 million annually for activities and projects aimed at preventing these countries from relapsing into conflict.

Burundi, for example, was one of the first countries receiving support from the Peacebuilding Fund, with an initial allocation of $35 million in 2007 aimed at “making the hard-won peace in Burundi irreversible,” said Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, referring to the end of a decade of civil war in the mid-2000s. The UN has remained in Burundi ever since, supporting security sector and justice system reforms, radical improvement in governance and human rights, and improved living conditions.

Yet the path to peace remains perilous in Burundi, asÌęPeacebuilderÌęmagazine recently learned from Jean-Claude Nkundwa, a CJP graduate student who did research in his home country in the summer of 2013. As a teenager in Burundi in the early 1990s, Nkundwa witnessed genocidal killings and lost family members to ethnic cleansing.

In an article posted atdescribed what he saw during his recent visit: muzzled dissent, the fostering of militant youth groups by the ruling regime, and discrimination against out-of-power ethnic and regional groups. He said President Nkurunziza, serving a second five-year term after being elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2010, has disregarded human rights and rule of law (including, it appears, the law barring him from running for election again).

But the last thing Nkundwa wants is for the UN to give up, as if Burundi were hopeless. On the contrary, he says:

The international community needs to play a more proactive role right now. It must assert itself and pressure the Burundian government to create political space to allow the opposition to operate without intimidation and harassment. The international indifference to the war in Rwanda in 1994 led to the genocide of one million people. Surely, there are some lessons learned, and the international community should not repeat the same mistakes in Burundi.

Realize, though, that the UN is operating in Burundi with the permission of its ruling regime. This long-standing dilemma of the UN’s – i.e., that it is supposed to be a servant of its member-nations, almost regardless of what the leadership of a particular nation is doing – began to be addressed in the early 2000s with a series of formal discussions on whether each state has a “responsibility to protect” its people.

In 2005, the UN members agreed that each of them has aÌęÌętheir populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. (It’s dubbed the “” principle.) And, when states fail to do this, the international community has the right and responsibility to act in a “timely and decisive manner” – through the UN Security Council and in accordance with theÌęÌę– to protect the people facing these crimes.

This principle has since been invoked in the cases of Libya (controversially), Cîte d’Ivoire, South Sudan, and Yemen.

The goals are worthy,Ìębut how to implement them?

Activities that the UN system undertakes without fail, year in and year out, are convene conferences, issue reports, and make heartfelt declarations on what the world needs to do to move closer to most people’s desire for justice, peace, and prosperity (or at least a chance at decent survival) for all.

Terminology has changed over the years at the United Nations. “Human security” is the latest term referring to the right of people to live in safety and dignity and earn their livelihood – which, of course, is what long-standing UN units concerned with poverty reduction, education, health, agriculture, peace, and so forth have been trying to do for decades.

TheÌę, declared under former Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000 to guide the UN through 2015, called for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, better health, environmental sustainability, and “a global partnership for development.”

“We have to connect the dots [between] climate change, [the] food crisis, water scarcity, energy shortages and women’s empowerment as well as global health issues,” says Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-Moon. “These are all interconnected issues.”

Except for the emphasis on environmental sustainability, Annan’s and Ban’s stated aspirations for a better world can be found in the 1945Ìę, its 1948Ìę, and its supplemental 1966Ìę.

It’s the implementation of these grand goals that continues to bedevil the UN system.

Look at the work of the Office of theÌę, for example. In a given week, it may hold meetings on: who is using torture for what purposes; the rights of indigenous people in the face of gold prospecting, lumbering, ranching, and drilling for oil; abuses endured by women in the Middle East and Africa; and legal protections that developed countries should extend to their migrant workers. Yet, to the dismay of its staff no doubt, the human rights commission is basically toothless. It can make recommendations; it can try to shame entities into making changes. But it lacks implementation tools.

As for peace work, when is the Security Council going to respond to early signs of an impending conflict and authorize preventive measures before it’s a full-fledged crisis, with tens- or hundreds-of-thousands or millions dead?

Why we need the UN system

Despite the weaknesses of the UN system, it is the place in which the world places its hopes when the going gets really tough. Every day the UN system directly helps millions of people, at the comparatively modest cost of about $6 annually for each of the world’s inhabitants.

AÌęÌęfound that a strong majority of Americans support the UN system and its efforts to end global poverty, provide humanitarian relief after disasters, and lay the groundwork for peace around the world. Specifically, the UN system:

1.ÌęArticulates important objectives for the world. It thus raises consciousness everywhere on issues like the abuse of girls and women and the rights of indigenous peoples.

2.ÌęFeeds the hungry and houses the homeless when they are recognized as groups of displaced people or refugees from conflict, abuse, or natural disaster. Tries to get them back to their homeplaces whenever it can.

3.ÌęDispatches well-qualified advisors – in almost any humanitarian, educational, cultural, security, governance, or developmental field you can name –Ìęin response to invitations by governments. Designates UNESCO World Heritage sites.

4.ÌęIssues educational materials and underwrites trainings that are especially valued by governments that have few resources.

5.ÌęActs as a moral counterweight to reprehensible acts around the world, calling individuals and governments to be accountable.

6.ÌęSponsors cross-national biomedical, environmental, and scientific initiatives aimed at reducing preventable diseases and improving living standards.

7.ÌęRemains the only globally recognized organization that aspires to recognize and uphold the rights and needs of one and all, mediating between those who come into conflict. As such, it is an essential instrument for global peace.

In a June 2013 interview, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said:**

My answer to those who criticize the UN is that the UN is as strong as the member states want it to be. The UN is a reflection of the world as it is, whether you like it or not. Democracy is not everywhere, human rights violations take place, wars and huge inequalities exist. But if we forget the UN Charter, if we forget the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, if we forget what our work and the world should be, then we have failed. My job as well as yours at the Alliance for Peacebuilding is to reduce the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. It is relevant for the UN and for the Alliance for Peacebuilding. This is what we are fighting for, every day.

# # # #

Hostetter is not on the payroll of a UN agency, but he is a familiar figure at United Nations headquarters in New York City as a result of his eight years of leading . Staffed by three, including Hostetter, this office has “consultative status” with the .

Hostetter has access to some UN facilities and all open meetings, enabling him to present the views of MCC and its partner organizations on humanitarian, human rights, and peace issues. He sometimes arranges for off-the-record meetings where people who might not ordinarily meet can talk to each other.

This is round two for Hostetter with the UN. From 1971-80, he served the United Methodist Office for the UN as their resource specialist on peace, Asia, and Latin American issues.

Early in October 2013, Hostetter met with the editor and designer of in his small office – where he sits less than 10 feet from the office intern –Ìęin the basement of the Church Center for the United Nations, a 12-story building across First Avenue from the iconic UN building.

Injustice of SecurityÌęCouncil set-up

Hostetter spoke of the frustration of seeing cynical, self-serving and narrowly nationalistic considerations – especially at the UN Security Council level – block steps to mitigate violent conflict and address suffering, as he feels has been the case in Syria since March 2011.

“One of the problems with the UN is that it was set up by the victors of WWII, and they gave themselves a privileged position [in the Security Council],” he explains. “Almost all the resolutions that come before the Security Council are drafted in closed door sessions and through ‘horse trading,’ where the Permanent Five work out deals to suit themselves.”

Nevertheless, Hostetter sees value in what MCC seeks to do – “to bring the voice of people at the grassroots to the UN system.”

Several weeks after this interview, Hostetter conveyed a message from leaders of the Syrian Orthodox Church to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, containing an appeal for the UN to negotiate safe passage for the Red Crescent (similar to the Red Cross) to reach the wounded and safely evacuate families from several war-zone communities in Syria where MCC had been providing humanitarian assistance.

MCC, through Hostetter, pointed out that this appeal was in line with a UN Security Council presidential statement earlier that month, which included this sentence: “The Security Council calls on all parties to respect the UN guiding principles of humanitarian emergency assistance and stresses the importance of such assistance being delivered on the basis of need, devoid of any political prejudices and aims.”

Foundational lessonsÌęlearned in Vietnam

Hostetter has a long history of advocating on behalf of those suffering from war. He began as a conscientious objector in the late 1960s, opting to do alternative service with MCC in Vietnam rather than being drafted into a military role there.

In an October 2011 talk at 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s , Hostetter spoke of his evolution as a young man in Vietnam from feeling that anybody not belonging to his stream of Anabaptism was not a true Christian to appreciating and loving the Catholics, Buddhists and other non-Mennonites with whom he did humanitarian work in Vietnam. He stopped trying to be an evangelist using words –Ìę“language is misunderstood but lives are very seldom misunderstood.” And he developed awareness of the understandable socio-economic motivations for conversion to privileged religious groups.

“In Vietnamese, there is a saying,” Hostetter told the Interfaith Engagement group. “When your rice bag is empty, adapt your religion to feed your children.” Hostetter expressed understanding of this survival strategy: “It’s very pragmatic and it works.” Thus, he noted, many Vietnamese became Catholics under French rule, and many became Protestants when they realized the dominant role of Protestants in the U.S. military system.

In response to this awareness, Hostetter started focusing on living his faith: “If you live with love and compassion, it is understood across cultures and religions.”

Trying to uphold nonviolent alternatives to war and oppression, Hostetter went from Vietnam to working in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. He has been heavily involved in reconciliation, citizen diplomacy, work camps and people-to-people exchanges with citizens of the former USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bosnia, and Israel/Palestine. He has been employed by the , the , and Mennonite Central Committee. In 2003 he was ordained as Peace Pastor at .

Support for HelpÌęthe Afghan Children

, an Afghan-American graduate of CJP and author of Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse (published in 2011), credits Hostetter with displaying cultural and religious sensitivity when, immediately after 9/11, he accompanied her to Afghanistan on a relief mission with her organization, Help the Afghan Children (HTAC).

“We carried $130,000 from HTAC, AFSC, MCC, and the that we used to purchase 239 tons of food and blankets in Tajikistan,” recalls Hostetter. “There we hired 23 10-ton trucks that we accompanied across the Amu Darya River to deliver the lifesaving supplies to refugees living in camps in Takhar Province in northern Afghanistan.

“I remember how pleased I was to be a part of an interfaith relief effort organized and funded by U.S. citizens to help the citizens of Afghanistan, even while my government was raining destruction on Taliban front lines just four miles south and on Afghan cities throughout the country. As the plumes of smoke rose, and the ground shuddered, I wondered what was happening to the Afghans living on the other side of the Taliban lines.”

Hostetter was able to find out – witnessing the aftermath of the horrific destruction of Kabul –Ìęin a later trip to Afghanistan with the AFSC.

At an age when many people would be thinking about retirement, Hostetter can’t imagine stepping away from the work he has done in some form for more than 40 years.

Returning recently to Vietnam, Hostetter saw that the damages of a war that officially ended decades ago – damages from the rockets, bombs, and Agent Orange that the U.S. military used to try to “win” the war –Ìęwere still visible on the land as well as on the bodies and in the minds of the Vietnamese people.

Yet Hostetter also felt hope and love when he visited Tam Ky, the village where he had been an MCC volunteer in the late 1960s. “It was a wonderful reunion, and reminded me that in peace work, where our weapons are love and truth, there is no collateral damage. The children that we helped educate and the refugees we taught barbering or tailoring, benefited at that time, but also became lasting friends, regardless of which government ‘won’ the war.”

– Bonnie Price Lofton

But the tough part of returning Nepal to some semblance of normality had just begun. Jha found himself responsible for the social re-integration of the Maoists’ 3,000 child soldiers (i.e., those under age 18) slated for release under the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord.

To Jha’s surprise, many of these youthful soldiers didn’t want to be freed. “They didn’t see it the way the international community did – they wanted to stay with the Maoists; it was a source of identity and pride for them,” said Jha.

In hindsight, Jha wishes the UN had been able to have access to the child soldiers long before the Maoists released them into civilian life. With more time, he and his colleagues might have been able to address their concerns.

As it was, Jha’s team was under pressure – other aspects of the peace process hinged on the release of the child soldiers – so they had to push the young people into deciding among 40 UN-sponsored options, including training in a healthcare profession, starting small businesses with micro-loans, and vocational training (to be, for example, electricians or cooks).

Jha thinks the reintegration package was one of the most comprehensive that the UN has ever put together, but the years of child soldiering had not prepared these young people to be receptive to what they were being offered.

Every action has unintended consequences

Six years later, sitting in a spacious waterfront room used for informal conversations at UN headquarters in New York City, Jha ponders the gap between the ideal application of peacebuilding principles and the realities that peace practitioners often face.

“There is no action that does not have unintended consequences, no matter what you do and how well intentioned you are,” says Jha, who moved in 2010 from Nepal to NYC, where he now works on issues related to children and armed conflict, with a focus on Africa.* “The UN’s efforts to free and rehabilitate child soldiers in Nepal were perceived as coercive by many of theÌęsoldiers – causing them to feel unsettled and full of anxiety.”

Jha looks burdened by this memory, adding: “It’s a struggle toÌęput theories into practice. You try to make the best choice at that time, at that moment. The peace process will never be perfect.” Jha derives satisfaction from interactions with his colleagues, whom he describes as highly intelligent, multilingual people from around the world, who often bring special expertise to their UN work. But he adds that the overall system tends to be characterized by a “culture of competitiveness,” based on jostling for funding, authority and responsibilities.

Reflecting on his CJP years, Jha says he values the theoretical frameworks he gained, giving him an ability to analyze conflicts and to identify what part of a theory is useful and applicable in a given situation. “I’m better able to look at a situation and make sense of it.”

Jha says CJP’s emphasis on building and bridging relationships in any situation is one of his biggest take-aways; he credits “the culture and values of Mennonites” for inculcating a particular style of leadership in himself and other graduates.

Likes Mennonite way of empowering others

“CJP taught us to be self-reflective and to recognize that it’s never one person who has transformed something – hundreds of people contribute. And the more you acknowledge that and expand theÌęcircle, the better the outcome will be.”

In the Mennonite tradition, he says, “the emphasis is on enabling others, empowering others, encouraging others.” He adds that students sense Mennonites promote and teach peacebuilding because of their long-standing values, not just for professional reasons. (Jha, a Hindu, is married to a 2010 CJP graduate, Jill Landis, a Mennonite. They have two daughters.)

“It’s distressing for me to see people who act as if they have all the answers. It’s harmful. It’s very difficult to do this peacebuilding work in a way that isn’t damaging. The need to be humble, that’s one of the most important lessons I got at CJP.”

Article originally published in magazine, Fall/Winter 2013.

His journey with the began soon after receiving his master’s degree as a Fulbright Scholar at CJP. Ramiah joined the in late 2002 as a peace and development analyst in his home country, as it moved toward a bloody end to its civil war in 2009.

In 2010, the UNDP shifted Ramiah to its headquarters in New York City, where he started as the conflict and preventionÌęspecialist for Asia and the Pacific and is now a team leader for the .

Walking toward his office in the Secretariat building diagonally across First Avenue from UN headquarters, Ramiah pointed at door after door and named some of the countries representedÌęby his colleagues: Egypt, Somalia, Gambia, Colombia, Finland, Canada, Kenya and Serbia. During an elevator ride, warm pleasantries were exchanged and visitors introduced. … All of which lent support to Ramiah’s characterization of his colleagues as being committed, hard-working people who do an amazing job of working well together despite cultural, linguistic, and religious differences.

In a speech to attendees at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”’s 2012 , he assured them “you are in the right place,” and encouraged them to master written English, if they had not done so already. He said he felt ambivalent about native speakers of other languages, like himself, having to embrace English for formal communication, but in UN circles where employees have hundreds of native languages, a shared language is necessary.

Among the lessons Ramiah offered from his UN work are:

1. Relationships are essential both for sustaining oneselfÌęas a peacebuilder and for doing the work of building peace. He advised his SPI audience to use the CJP network for feedback and support. And he stressed the importance of remembering the humanity and needs in each person, no matter how much one disagrees with his or her actions and viewpoints.

2. Conflict analysis and conflict sensitivity are critical in this field. Doing a proper analysis at the front end, based on being sensitive to ways in which conflicts might be sparked or worsened, before planning interventions is in keeping with the “first do no harm” principle, and it allows one to identify and build upon peacebuilding work that is already on the ground.

3. Bridging the divide between theory and practice. Ramiah noted that UN personnel struggle with bridging the gap between great projects on paper that aren’t implementable in reality. “Are there capacities on the ground to implement this project?” is a question that always needs to be answered. “Sometimes we design a space craft and give it to a bicycle shop to implement,” RamiahÌęsaid wryly. CJP, however, does a good job of showing how to bridge the gap, he added.

4. Genuine change comes from those who own it. The international community too often takes a “tool kit” approach, bringing in the same set of tools to each setting, rather than recognizing and working with the actual capacity of people in a given setting.

5. Systemic change requires some trained peacebuilders to work within large bureaucratic structures such as the UN, but there is also the occupational hazard of settling into being the “quintessential bureaucrat and becoming arrogantly egotistical without realizing it.”

When UN officials travel around the world, they are often kept “in a bubble” with armed protection against assaults. Ramiah offered two remedies: (1) returning to work in the field, at the grassroots, at regular intervals; (2) making a point to step back, to think, to reflect, to ask sympathetic outsiders, “Am I – are we in my group – on the right track?”

Article originally published in magazine, Fall/Winter 2013.

It’s because he had to leave his home country of Ethiopia when his friends and relatives were being killed or imprisoned during the Derg’s 13-year military dictatorship.

He got to the United States on a student visa in 1973 and kept plowing through a succession of degrees while his parents were telling him: “Stay out. Stay where you are, or you will be killed.”

Assefa was able to return safely to Ethiopia in the early 1990s. By then he was married to a U.S. citizen, with two daughters.

In hindsight, Assefa treasures the breadth and depth of his formal graduate studies – law, economics, public management, and international affairs. “The more I learned, the more it whet my appetite to learn more,” he told magazine.

“I realized the benefit of this broad background when writing my dissertation. Every discipline gave me a different lens for looking at conflict and peace, and it was most useful to integrate them together and come up with a multi-disciplinary approach.”

Before coming to the United States, Assefa practiced law briefly in Ethiopia. “There was not a lot of integrity in the profession. It was competitive, and I felt like I was a hired hand for the elite. I felt co-opted into the system.”

Later in Chicago, when he again was part of a law firm, he felt the same discomfort. “The lack of integrity wasn’t as blatant as it had been in the Ethiopian judicial system – it wasn’t as crude – but it was there.” These experiences weren’t a waste – he believes studying and practicing law sharpened his analytical capacity and enriched his later work in the peace field.

Assefa turned to economics, earning a master’s degree in the field, in an attempt to understand poverty. He found economists have “fantastic ideas” – “great insights” – but offered little in terms of addressing poverty. If one tries to understand “economics without politics, it’s like clapping with one hand,” he says. “You need to understand politics to understand the role of power in economic systems.”

Outside of formal graduate programs, Assefa has delved deeply into psychology, philosophy and religion, subjects he needed to “put it all together.” As the “icing on the cake,” Assefa turned to studying peace and conflict transformation, plus practicing in the field, for 30 years now.*

“The kind of knowledge needed to be a peacemaker is not easy to define – I feel it more than I can talk about it. I think we have to start by reclaiming our humanity. Who are we as human beings? What is our place in the universe? What is life itself?” he asks.

“Human beings are not separate from everything in our environment. We cannot treat our environment as a group of objects to be used as we wish. We are part of an interdependent whole. If we can come to recognize this reality – that our survival, our well-being, derives from the healthiness of this interdependence – our attitude will change towards other humans, indeed towards all life and every aspect of living in this world.”

As Assefa gropes for words to describe the lack of awareness among humans about their place in the web of life, he explains that the English language limits his ability to articulate his feelings on this subject. “I am writing a book in Amharic now – though I stopped using it [his native language] 40 years ago – because it lets me touch on ideas that I can’t explain in English well. It lets me be less inhibited, less apologetic for exploring [in his book] the non-cognitive aspects of life and being that go beyond regular social science academic discourse.

“Some of what I want to say is beyond the intellect – in fact relying on the intellect alone can become a hindrance. It is part of the problem with discourse in the Global North: the main framework is intellectual, with very little room for the affective and spiritual.”

Assefa says there is wisdom in the perception of some indigenous elders that the so-called developed North tends to function as an immature child within the family of humankind, acting impulsively and without much self-reflection. “I hope the family will survive the growing-up stage of the child,” Assefa says wryly, adding that socio-economic and military practices of the so-called developed world underlie much suffering in the world today.

When Assefa feels tempted to succumb to despair, he calls to mind miraculous, heart-to-heart moments, like a time in 2006 when he was one of two with whom Joseph Kony agreed to meet in a remote area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kony, known to have used tens of thousands of children as soldiers and sex-slaves, had been indicted the previous year by the UN’s International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“After being lured into the bush, we were surrounded by armed people. I thought we were being kidnapped,” says Assefa. But when he finally met Kony face-to-face and spoke gently with him, Kony met Assefa’s eyes and said, “I never knew my father. Can I call you my father?” The question touched Assefa to his core – not that it diminished the enormity of the harm that Kony had set in motion for millions.

“I felt moved to see a flicker of humanity and vulnerability in this incredibly cruel and overtly invincible human being,” says Assefa. “It made me realize that compassion ought to be the starting point for peacework. The work of peacemaking is to nurture these little glimpses, however faint, and bring them out so that they can shine more and light up the darkness in our humanity.”

# # # #

Article originally published in magazine, Fall/Winter 2013.

has taken steps to supplement its material aid (food, diapers, blankets, school kits, hygiene kits, etc.) with trainings aimed at easing growing tensions, understanding the impact of trauma, and transforming conflicts productively.

“Many arrive traumatized by the violence they have witnessed in Syria,” says , the MCC program co-director for Jordan, Iraq and Iran. “The influx of refugees is straining Jordan’s budget and infrastructure and, in some cases, increasing social tensions between the refugees and Jordanian host communities.”

Can these social tensions be addressed in a non-destructive way? This is where alumni of the at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” have come into play. Emil El Dik, SPI 2000 and 2001, was one of three leaders of a series of six-day workshops between Dec. 18, 2012, and Feb. 16, 2013, training a total of 83 Jordanian and Syrians in peacebuilding concepts and skills, conflict resolution, trauma healing and needs assessment.

The project was envisioned by Omar Abawi, SPI 2006, a senior staff person with Caritas Jordan. Nader Abu Amsha, SPI 2009, director of the , is expected to be involved in future workshops.

The 83 Jordanians and Syrians – men and women roughly aged 20 to 30 and representing various religious traditions in the region – are now able to assist Caritas Jordan, which has faced overwhelming demands for emergency response to the Syrian refugee situation. Caritas Jordan is a local partner of MCC, which funded the workshops.

This most recent work built upon a series of five-day trainings in 2011, when MCC partnered with 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” to bring , PhD, a native of Jordan who is an 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” adjunct professor, to Jordan and Iraq to prepare a core group of people who would, in turn, run workshops on dealing with change in those countries, especially peacebuilding.

Under the leadership of Caritas, the first group of 83 trainees has been setting up joint Syrian and Jordanian committees in three cities that host thousands of Syrian refugees – Irbid, Mafraq and Zarqa. These committees are working at spreading the concepts necessary for dealing nonviolently with the challenges faced by all.

As of early January 2013, Caritas had registered more than 69,000 individuals and had offered humanitarian, educational and medical support, according to an MCC report.

There are currently more than 350,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan, a country of 6.5 million, with a culture and tradition of welcoming those in need. More than 200,000 refugees – about three-quarters of them women and children – have registered with in order to receive assistance.

In a survey cited by Caritas, “Nearly two-thirds of Jordanians favour closing the kingdom borders to more Syrian refugees, as those are placing increased pressure on economic resources and public services, such as water and electricity, as well as posing a threat to national security and stability.”

“The peacebuilding-training effort is intended to enable Syrian refugees and Jordanian host communities to feel more empowered,” says Byler, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” and who will be of starting July 1, 2013. “It will help them to understand how to handle the current refugee crisis as positively as possible. And it will help prepare leaders in the Syrian community to play long-term peacebuilding roles when they eventually return to their home łŠŽÇłÜČÔłÙ°ùČâ.”

As of February 14, 2013, MCC had shipped 4,141 relief kits, 11,310 hygiene kits, 17,391 school kits and 19,198 blankets to Caritas for distribution to Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan. Additionally, MCC had provided $124,294 for local purchase of infant milk powder and diapers.

Now the program development manager for the Iraqi Al-Amal Association, a development, human rights and peacebuilding organization, Ali recently completed a consultancy examining Iraqi women’s roles in for the United Nations Development Programme. She has worked on similar projects for a variety of other international organizations.

As her experience has grown, so has Ali’s reputation as a leader in Iraq in the field of conflict transformation. Accordingly, Ali has been receiving an increasing number of invitations to work with various conflict transformation projects, prompting her to return to 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” to augment her practical experience with further study.

“I feel that I need to have [more] academic expertise,” she says. In Harrisonburg to take several classes at SPI, Ali is working toward a from the university. She hopes to finish the degree by attending SPI for two more years.

Since coming to SPI in 2004, Ali has also managed programs in Iraq for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the Olof Palme International Center, the International Research & Exchanges Board and the Institute of International Education. During that time, she has frequently used curriculum materials, manuals and other resources she brought back from SPI.

Ali said her admiration for her SPI instructors and university’s values and commitment to spreading a “peace culture” were major reasons why she decided to return for further study. “This is the best place for me to come.”

By earning a graduate degree, Ali hopes she can help herself and fellow Iraqis play larger leadership roles in peacebuilding work in their country.

When she attended SPI eight years ago, Ali says few foreign or Iraqi organizations were working directly on conflict transformation (an early leader in this area, she says, was the Iraq office of , which sponsored her to attend SPI that year). In the years since, peacebuilding has become an increasingly common focus of non-government organizations (NGOs) in Iraq, though they have largely relied on foreign experts for leadership.

While these organizations devote more and more energy to peace work in Iraq, Ali says that a lack of coordination and communication among them has become a challenge. If these different actors were more aware of others’ work, of unmet needs within their communities, and of how specific projects complement – or hinder – others, everyone would be able to work more effectively toward a more peaceful future.

With that in mind, one of Ali’s major goals for the future is to establish a conflict transformation center to provide various NGOs with networking opportunities, conflict transformation resources, training and, eventually, partnerships with academic peacebuilding programs at Iraqi universities.

Another challenge confronting Ali’s peacebuilding work is the large number of colleagues who end up leaving their homes in Iraq for Europe or North America, often with the encouragement and assistance of international NGO partners. By remaining committed to working for peace in the place she knows and loves best, Ali hopes to stand as a counterexample to those considering leaving.

“BłÜŸ±±ô»ć your country,” says Ali. “Change the reality of your łŠŽÇłÜČÔłÙ°ùČâ.”

The exhibit complements a major meeting of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Sept. 20, where UN officials will focus on rights and needs of children of incarcerated parents for the first time in history.

Zehr is a professor in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”.

“Despite affecting millions of children worldwide—over 2 million children in the USA alone are believed to have parents in prison— this is the first time that this neglected issue has been discussed substantively anywhere in the UN system,” said a statement issued by “NGO Group for the CRC.”

Rachel Brett of the Quaker United Nations Office added: “This is an issue where no one country or region is a clear world leader.”

Zehr’s photo-portraits originally appeared in a book issued early in 2011 entitled “What Will Happen To Me?” Co-authored by Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz ’81, the book was “intended to alleviate the sense of shame and isolation felt by the children of prisoners and to support their resiliency,” said Zehr.

“What Will Happen To Me?,” is available through or any major online retailer.

A long-time professor at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ” played a key role in the recent cease-fire negotiated in one of the most deadly war zones in the world – northern Uganda, which borders with Southern Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Hizkias Assefa, who has taught at 91¶ÌÊÓÆ”’s (SPI) for the last 11 years, co-mediated the sensitive peace talks, working in tandem with the vice president of Southern Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar.

In this region, more than 100,000 people have been killed and two million displaced over the last 20 years, currently described as the globe

The film, not yet released to the public, documents the struggle to save a “failed state,” taking the viewer back and forth between the United Nations headquarters in New York and events on the ground in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from summer 2002 until spring 2004.

Organizers say the documentary screening and public discussion come at a critical time in the U.S. relationship with the United Nations. On Mar. 21, 2005, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presented a new report for sweeping reform in the United Nations, “In Larger Freedom.” In his report, Annan calls for a collective security system to fight terrorism, an enlarged Security Council, a revamped UN human rights system and new guidelines for military action.

While the reforms are critical to the U.N.