Annelise Ebbe and Ila Pathak, Whither Women’s Rights? A Report from Kandhamal, WISCOMP (2009)Navanita Sinha, Democracies in Transition: Opportunities and Challenges for Nepal- A Report, WISCOMP (2010)
In keeping with the spirit of universal responsibility
and its role in facilitating active coexistence, the Conflict Transformation
Program builds a crucial interface between issues relating to conflict,
security, nonviolence and peacebuilding. As part of this Program, practitioners
and scholars engage extensively to build a synergy between the theory
and praxis of conflict transformation in South Asia. Training workshops
are conducted for universities, NGOs and think tanks.
The Conflict Transformation Program seeks to:
• Empower a new generation of women and men, in South Asia, with the motivation,
skills, and expertise to engage in processes of nonviolent change in
different conflict settings. These include conflicts ranging from the
intra-personal and inter-personal to those at the community, intra-national
and international level.
• Introduce Conflict Transformation as a field of study in South Asia.
• Foreground the lens of gender in the analysis of conflict and in the
conceptualization of peace initiatives.
• Provide a reflexive curriculum for peace that evolves in response to
changing regional and international landscapes. This is done through
knowledge sharing, theory-building, skill enhancement and critical reflection
on contemporary thinking and practices in conflict analysis, mediation,
multi-track diplomacy, reconciliation, justice and post-conflict peacebuilding.
• Build partnerships, mentoring relationships and a network of peace practitioners
and theoreticians who can contribute to peacebuilding initiatives in
South Asia and the world.
• Processes that encourage experiential learning and that simultaneously
address the conceptual and analytical frameworks for analysis and intervention
inform the pedagogy of this initiative.
What is Conflict Transformation?
John Paul Lederach, in his seminal book Building Peace: Sustainable
Reconciliation in Divided Societies, introduces the field of Conflict
Transformation as one that “integrates the emotional and psychological
with the substantive concerns of people in conflict, the underlying
belief being that more than realpolitik and statist diplomacy are needed
to build societies supportive of sustainable transformation”.
Conflict Transformation addresses the questions: How do we resolve violent
conflict? How do we build (or rebuild) relationships and institutions
that can support and sustain nonviolent social change?
.
Wiscomp
was established as part of the efforts of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility
to build a culture of coexistence and nonviolence that is gender-sensitive
and inclusive. A not-for-profit, non-sectarian, non-denominational organization,
the Foundation promotes universal responsibility in a manner that celebrates
a diversity of beleifs and practices, and that contributes to a global ethic
of nonviolence, coexistence and gender equity. The work of the Foundation
is global in its reach and transcends nationalist political agendas.
