Panels & Workshops - Day 3

 

 

Peace Workshops IV: Sunday, May 15, 2011, 11:05am – 12:35pm    

•    PW 401
Sacred Relationship with the Earth that Brings Peace & Harmony with David Courchene, Leading Earth Man
Dave Courchene of the Anishnabe Nation, Eagle Clan will offer an Indigenous perspective of understanding peace through connection to Mother Earth.  He will discuss protocols followed in finding sacred connection, offer understanding of puberty rites of passage followed, and share the Seven Teachings that connect us to Nature and the land and help bring about sacred connection and peace.  

•    PW 402
Peace Through Environmental Design + Jobs with Majora Carter

This workshop observes how a prosperous democracy, like the USA, can choose to design systems that result in reduced quality of life, worse schools, dirtier air, water, and soil, unhealthy foods, and ugly surroundings for some people, but not others - and what that really costs us as a nation. Is better environmental management, that relies on local jobs with good pay, a cost-effective method of achieving positive change?  What would that look like?

•    PW 403
Where Commerce Meets Philanthropy with Donna Karan, Sean Carasso, Paulette Cole, Coppy Holzman and Jody Weiss
Donna Karan, Fashion Designer and Founder of the Urban Zen Foundation, will speak with fellow peace seekers who have created global goods that sell in order to help preserve harmony in the world. Karan has traveled the world creating partnerships with like-minded individuals and organizations and has a wealth of knowledge in leading business to marketplaces in countries focused on building peaceful relationships within their community.  Sean Carasso from Fallingwhistles.com, Paulette Cole from ABC Home, Coppy Holzman from Charitybuzz.com, and Jody Weiss from Peacemakers Causemetics will join Donna for the discussion.

•    PW 404 - This workshop has been cancelled.
Searching for Peace in Our Cities: Rutgers University Peacebuilding Institute with Aldo Civico
Peace is too big of an ideal and a project to leave it up primarily to the military and law enforcement. Peace is a project that requires civic engagement and the participation of the community. In this Workshop, several experts (TBA) will discuss innovative approaches to public policy to deal with juvenile violence. Increasingly, our cities are becoming the theatre of armed conflict, the epicenters where the tensions of an increasingly interdependent world discharge. Methods that focused primarily on repression have not shown satisfactory results in the long run. What does it mean to search for peace in our cities? How can the community be involved in lowering violence and building peace? The experience of Newark, will be compared with that of Boston as well as Medellin and Palermo. The Workshops will be moderated by Aldo Civico, founder and director of the Peacebuilding Institute at Rutgers University. He previously worked in Sicily and in Colombia on issues related to urban security.

•    PW 405
Newark Interfaith Coalition for Hope and Peace presents Support and Protect Our Children: Our Community, Our Responsibility with Imam W. Deen Shareef, Jack Farrell
Circumstances and attitudes which promote positive family and social structures, along  with building relationships and fostering partnerships, are all possibilities for creating and maintaining a safe, unified, peaceful and nurturing community.   In this workshop, we will identify methods for individual and community empowerment to effect change by pulling together youth, parents, schools, houses of worship, businesses, and community based agencies to help reduce violence and promote peace in the community through the power of nonviolence. We will explore how children and adults can both take responsibility for peace in themselves and, thus, for one another and prevent violence. Understanding our interconnectedness can be powerful in helping us develop empathy and compassion for ourselves and others. We encourage you to join us and take action in our effort to help transform negative habits and attitudes by taking individual responsibility for peace in our community.  

•    PW 406
Peace From Kindergarten to the United Nations: Practical Measures and Models for Peace in the Home, Community and World with Alyn Ware and Sara Hirsch
Conflicts are part of every-day life. We can try to ignore them, opt for aggression and war, or choose to solve conflicts in non-violent and mutually beneficial ways. This workshop will explore practical techniques and models for resolving conflicts in the home, school and community – and then relate these to preventing war and achieving disarmament.

•    PW 407
New York Zen Center For Contemplative Care with Reverend Robert Chodo Campbell
Recognized as true pioneers and leaders in the Buddhist Chaplaincy field, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care is creatively transforming pastoral care. NYZCCC is the first and only Buddhist organization to offer a fully-accredited ACPE CPE Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program in America. NYZCCC integrates Buddhist contemplative practices into the professional training, creating a dynamic program that is interfaith and experience-based, geared toward developing professionals and those seeking to deepen their spiritual, caregiving practice .NYZCCC also offers a year-long Foundations in Contemplative Caregiving Training Program, which provides the groundwork for  contemplative care practice.


•    PW 408
Reconciliation after Protracted Conflict with Leymah Roberta Gbowee
The session with look at the process of reconciling communities after serious internal conflict. It will consider the four dimension of reconcilaition; God, Self, perpetrator and Society  (put forth by Hikias Assefa in his book, Peace and Reconcilaition as a Paradigm). Questions about the role of forgiveness and who’s reposnibility it is to initiate  the process will also be examined.

•    PW 409
Disarmament for Development – the Prosperity and Security of Peace with H.E. Ana Teresa Dengo, Costa Rica Disarmament Ambassador, Allison Pytlak, Narae Lee and Jonathan Granoff.
Armed conflicts destroy communities and prevent sustainable development. Global military spending, which currently amounts to US$1.5 trillion per year, saps resources that could be used to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, i.e. to provide water, food, education and primary health care for everyone in the world. This workshop will use the experience of Costa Rica to demonstrate the possibilities and benefits of demilitarization and the promotion of security through peace. Since abolishing its army in 1949, Costa Rica has been rated as the most peaceful country in Latin America by the Global Peace Index. Costa Rica also led on many regional and global peace initiatives. With Religions for Peace they launched the Arms Down Campaign, calling for the reduction of military expenditure by 10% to fund MDGs. Costa Rica and the Peace Boat have been promoting the adoption of peace constitutions which incorporate the use of regional mechanisms (instead of war) to provide national security. With Global Security Institute and others, Costa Rica has been promoting a draft treaty to abolish nuclear weapons – now supported by the United Nations. And they have successfully used the World Court to roll-back a Nicaraguan military occupation of disputed territory and to oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

 

•     PW 410
Nourishing Peace with Elizbeth Kucinich
Those of us who strive for peace in the world understand that the outer world merely reflects our inner state of being. So too, our bodies resonate to the vibration and quality of what we nourish them with. For this and many other reasons, our choice of food not only has deep consequence on our own health, but on theentire world. Because of this, being mindful about our food choices is the most important step an individual can take to bring about peace.

•    PW 411
Inner Peace Outer Peace with Marianne Williamson
According to Mahatma Gandhi, “The end is inherent in the means.” Our inner work is intimately related to our capacity for effective social activism, as everything we do is infused with the consciousness with which we do it. An angry, cynical generation cannot bring peace to the world. This Workshop explores the interface between the inner and outer journey to peace, as Williamson brings spiritual principle to bear on the evolutionary journey to a more loving planet.  Williamson founded the grassroots campaign supporting the establishment of a United States Department of Peace, and has worked with international audiences to conceive a more enlightened global community.

 

All Panel Discussions will be held at NJPAC.