Rotary Peace Centers -- creating a better world
Press Clip Source: Midland Daily News
Written By: Jeanne Lound Schaller
Date: August 16, 2015
Read Original Article: Here
“Conflict is an essential dimension of human relationships. Violence is not.”
I don’t know who first spoke this truth, but I believe it and also believe that humankind is making progress towards understanding it. Practicing it is a challenge, personally and globally. However, the overall picture inspires hope. Children are learning to handle conflict in creative ways. Adults are understanding that empowerment is far more life-giving and productive than holding life-draining power over others.
At Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University during our final three weeks, Peace Fellows will study Conflict Transformation and Building Sustainable Peace as part of Rotary’s commitment to this cultural transformation.
“What draws people to peace studies is more than an intellectual level. It is a genuine concern for problems of violence and injustice and a desire to find ways of acting on these concerns.” — Carol Rank
Recent decades have seen a marked increase in conflict prevention, resolution and peace building training on all levels involving, among others, elementary through higher education students, local activists and professionals at the state, national and international levels.
In the Great Lakes Bay Region, there are several opportunities to obtain degrees in this field. Delta College’s Global Peace Studies program prepares students for the opportunity to understand the complexity of global issues and become agents of positive change. They can earn an associate of arts degree or a certificate of achievement. I am one class short of receiving a master’s certificate in conflict resolution in the workplace from Saginaw Valley State University, which also offers peace studies abroad, as do Central Michigan University and Northwood University.
In 1980, the UN established the University for Peace. Its purpose is “... to provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful co-existence to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress, in keeping with the noble aspirations proclaimed in the Charter of the UN.”
Okay, so the UN has fallen drastically short of beating swords into plowshares. However, it’s encouraging that students in growing numbers are pursuing careers with this focus. Hopefully they’ll make significant headway in creating a culture of peace.
Peaceful resolution is happening in divorce, business, guardianship and many other conflicts. Dispute mediation centers throughout the U.S. offer hands-on learning opportunities. A Michigan Supreme Court program initiated in 1988 supports 29 offices and encompass all 83 counties. The Community Resolution Center, based in Flint, includes Midland County. Its mission is to promote more peaceful communities by helping people find positive solutions to conflict.
Many people are participating in this non-adversarial, far less costly and time-consuming process to resolve their conflicts in positive ways. There are several Community Resolution Center professionally trained Great Lakes Bay Region mediators who volunteer time facilitating this practice.
Some people, like Rotary Peace Fellows, pursue training far away and then return home. Some stay right where they are. Countless people do what they can wherever they are to build help a better world.
Jeanne Lound Schaller of Midland is a Rotary Peace Fellow in Bangkok, a member of the Helen M. Casey Center for Nonviolence in Midland, the Midland Chapter of the Nonviolent Peaceforce and is a mediator with the Community Resolution Center.