Peace on Earth. Image by Marie LeBlanc
The idea of peacemaking in a world that often seems to be dedicated to war and violence might seem naïve, but even small changes can make a difference when people learn to work together.
Helping them to learn to communicate differently through peace literacy was the focus of a series of workshops led by Paul K. Chappell, a former soldier turned peace educator and Peace Leadership Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
A former soldier is perhaps not the most obvious choice as a speaker for a conference on peacemaking. Yet his experience helped to give a personal twist to the Key Communication Tools for Peace Literacy workshop, the first session in a series on peace literacy held in Winnipeg starting Apr. 11, 2017.
According to Paul Chappell’s website, “Peace literacy is necessary in an interconnected world where the fate of every nation is tied to the fate of our planet.” Yet few people really even know what peace is, and still less how to implement it.
The first step is learning the techniques of peacemaking in everyday life and in the larger world, a process that can take years, and even a lifetime. Chappell’s technique for teaching people about peace includes discussions of bullying, prejudice, and discrimination, as well as other common causes of conflict between people, and is geared to people of all ages who want to learn how to bring peace to their relationships and to the world.
Paul K. Chappell with CNC reporter, Susan Huebert, at the Peace Literacy workshop.
Chappell’s vision for peace goes far beyond families and friends in their local contexts. His “peaceful revolution” calls for people to consider the possibility of world peace. People are not naturally violent, he says, but they can draw on communication and peacemaking techniques to find alternatives to the often combative methods that they too often use.
The short workshop gave participants only a taste of what meaningful peacemaking is about, but it was a start for people interested in finding better ways of dealing with others, whether at work, at home, or in the larger world. Attendance at the event was not large, but the participants seemed enthusiastic about the ideas they heard.
If even just a few of the people who attended the Key Communication Tools for Peace Literacy workshop take what they learned into their everyday lives and relationships, they might help to make their part of the world a better place.
Thank you Susan Huebert and Paul Chappell.
There will come a time when we finally realize who all controls people and remove them from their so-called “power” that makes, facilitates and encourages wreckage of our societies.
There is that generations of damage in all sorts of societies, families and community settings.
Parts of our medical systems, policing and guarding systems, many workplaces, military systems and schools may be the worst groups around the world that have bad people running them. They’ve likely all had a hand in the residential and residential / day schools and all else any person or group has and to this day still suffers from.
Some time ago, we saw Princess Diana in land mine fields and the word was these unexploded ordinances near her feet continue to maim and kill many more people after their huge destruction’s during wars. It’s said there was an effect in what she did. We can do the same with everything else.
Instead, we continue to fund through taxes and donations, many of these harmful organizations that do us little if any good and continue to be overrun by bullies.
See these links for more on gaining peace:
Read print from Reuters – Decade after Diana campaign, few use landmines – July 15 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-arms-landmines-idUSL1392037320070715
Hear audio from CBC Ideas – The Motorcycle is Yourself – April 25 2017
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-motorcycle-is-yourself-revisiting-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-1.2914205
Susan,
Thanks for the great, positive story. It is true that most people want peace, but if you watch the 6 o’clock mainstream news, it seems like the world is a horrible place. I’m sorry that I missed this event, didn’t even hear about it. Peace and love may seem like a hippy dippy ideal but people should try to stay positive. Remember the song ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love’ (written in 1965 by Hal David with music by Burt Bacharach). First recorded 52 years ago this month by Jackie DeShannon (and by 100’s of other artists since)………….
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some,
oh, but just for
Every
Everyone.
everyone.