![]() ![]() Why did I think I could help people deal with their anger and fears, if I had never really confronted my own? I realised that the only way for me to be a peacebuilder out there was to do my own peacebuilding work in here. I remember walking home after a session on nonviolent communication, when a thought flashed through my mind: Are you applying this in your own life? Here I was, a white man, raised in the safest community on the planet, ‘lecturing’ about nonviolence in a country that my ancestors had colonised for centuries. In 2003 I trained a group of volunteers who had just joined Peace Brigades International in Indonesia to carry out protective accompaniment. No one had ever invited them to look at their own suffering, and therefore their peace activism became an extension of their suffering. But they had no idea what peace was, only their own theoretical concepts, and they didn’t have any tools to help them learn. I realized that the activists really wanted peace they were dedicating their lives to it. ![]() ![]() Current: NP Global Head of Programming | Former: NP Head of Mission (Myanmar), NP International Protection Officer (South Sudan) ![]()
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