The first is a 2-day training in post-violence reconciliation for junior and mid-career professionals as part of the International Summer Academy on Peacebuilding & Intercultural Dialogue, which is being held in Vienna, Austria between 1-11 September 2013. The Academy is organized by the Institute for Peace and Dialogue. Other invited experts include peace studies specialists Prof. Johan Galtung and Prof. Dietrich Fischer, inter-cultural conflict resolution specialists Dr. Karin Schreiner and Marco Vukovic, and specialist mediator Joe Gerada. The topic of my two-day training session will be "Theories and case studies of intergroup reconciliation following violent conflict". Reconciliation between former enemy groups is a complex but important goal of peacebuilding interventions. This seminar will examine structural and psychosocial processes that support and inhibit intergroup reconciliation. Drawing on case studies from Europe, Middle East and Africa, the seminar will equip participants to plan for, recognize, and build upon reconciliation processes in their peacebuilding work.
The second training will be a 5-day on the theme of "Youth in Action for Conflict Transformation
and Peacebuilding" to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan between 15-20 September. I will be the principal trainer for 35 participants (aged 18-35 years) from across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The training is funded by the European Union and supported by the Azerbaijan Taffakur Youth Association and the Azerbaijan Youth Foundation.
The training will centre on equipping and activating youth to undertake positive social change in their communities. The training emerged from a recognition that young people in Europe, and around the world, are faced with increasingly complex social and political environments. Too often, this complexity leads to conflict and violence which further undermine the foundations of community security, prosperity, and partnership with others. One of the primary challenges that societies face is that of building social cohesion and solidarity while meeting the needs of an ever more diverse population. To meet this challenge, youth associations from across Europe and the Caucasus have joined together for this special training week to develop their competencies in intercultural communication, conflict analysis and transformation, collaborative decision-making, and peacebuilding. The week will also offer training in youth social entrepreneurship, with participants collaborating together to create social change projects involving needs and strengths matching, conflict-sensitive project planning and stakeholder management, human resources development, project evaluation, and communication. Among the objectives of this non-formal training is the aim to support the development of critical thinking among youth around intercultural cohesion, conflict and peacebuilding, to foster active citizenship, solidarity and tolerance among young people, as well as to create a network of collaboration and to promote the acquisition of skills which lead to personal, social and professional development.