More Information - Practitioners / Peace Workers

We’re looking for people involved directly in peacebuilding work at the community level, in particular from the Great Lakes region of Africa and other parts of Africa, the Balkans, and diaspora communities, but others are welcome too. People with interest and experience in one or both of the themes of the symposium - "Diaspora Dialogues" and "Cultural Approaches to Peacebuilding"- are especially welcome.

We are looking for participants who are interested in sharing their experiences with those doing peacebuilding work in other situations. People interested in looking at the connections between theory and practice will find the symposium especially useful.

Before the symposium: We invite you to send your stories and case studies related to the symposium themes as background materials. (These may or may not be what you present at the symposium). We encourage you to reflect on issues before coming to the symposium so you’ll be in a good position to discuss your own ideas and experiences and learn from others’. We’d like you to think about theories you’ve tried out in your own work, as well as theories you may have developed yourself, coming out of your experience. We’d also like you to think about the questions that you have about the conference themes in particular and community-based peacebuilding more generally. We plan to begin the dialogue by sharing background documents and responses to the questionnaire prior to the symposium and setting up a discussion forum through the website and/or listserv.

At the symposium we’d like practitioners to present their own experiences in ways that can be taken up in a dialogue with others, including other practitioners, theorists and policy-makers. (Please review the philosophy of the symposium). We are looking for presentations that generate ideas and questions for the other participants and the presenters themselves. We also encourage you to bring relevant materials (e.g. training materials, photos, videos and activities) to the ”marketplace of ideas”, an informal, interactive session where people can walk around and see what others are doing.

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