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Additional Efforts
New Projects and Events Currently Under
Development
and Those Being Planned
Projects
"Engaging The Other": edited book on The
Other, in conjunction with our new international conference on "Engaging
The Other." The book will include contributions by authors
representing a diversity of cultures & societies around the world
to explore this fundamentally subjective phenomenon with a multicultural
eye. (The book is based on a contributed chapter by CBI's director
on this topic, titled "Psychological Concepts of The Other,"
for a book published by Preager/Greenwood publishers: "The
Psychology of Terrorism").
"Engaging The Other" training program,
in conjunction with the conference on Engaging The Other. The
training program will be intended to promote increased public awareness
and sensitivity to the dynamics of negative stereotyping, prejudice,
and fear based belief systems, and geared to the lay public (schools,
community centers, universities, etc.). Through utilizing a diverse,
multicultural pool of collaborators and consultants, the goal is to
create a program that is adapatable and that can be tailored to be
culturally sensitive and appropriate. In addition to being generally
applicable in many settings, ideally it would be conducted in and
near regions of conflict. Among individuals targeted to become trainers
in communities will be human service professionals, including psychologists,
social workers, educators, community leaders and activists, with the
intent to develop sensitivity training and awareness raising programs/curriculum
for schools and universities, community organizations, church congregations,
government workers, political groups, etc.
Public education: Concepts can also be introduced to the general
public in various "pop psychology" formats through the media
to "generic" the process within the general population and
increase wider public awareness, sensitivity, and understanding.
Children's Trauma Treatment Center: A
project to create a children's trauma treatment center in Nablus,
West Bank, including providing training and consultation to treatment
staff, treatment programs and methodology, clinical and professional
resources, organizational infrastructure, and initial seed funding
to operate for the 1st year. At this stage, the above elements have
been prepared, including a physical site at a local pediatric center
in Nablus that has been pledged as the 1st site of this trauma center,
and we are seeking operating funds for the direct services. Currently
there is no such trauma treatment service available, particularly
for children, in the Nablus region.
Iraqi Trauma Treatment Training: A project
to provide training, professional resources, and the organizational
infrastructure to a team of Iraqi counselors to staff a trauma treatment
center in Karbala, Iraq.
Joint Palestinian/Israeli Trauma Treatment Training:
An innovative joint Palestinian/Israeli trauma treatment training
for therapists from Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. This project
is intended to provide opportunities to learn and share trauma treatment
skills, and the unique possibility for therapists from both sides
of the conflict to work directly in assisting each other in gaining
skills to heal their respective communities.
Joint Palestinian / Israeli Peace Studies Center Network
A project being explored between the universities involved in our
Capacity For Peace and Democracy project and universities in
Israel. The hope is to work toward including additional local academic
institutions to promote more direct dialogue, interaction, and eventually
cooperation, including the possibility of co-sponsoring one of our
"Engaging The OTHER" conferences as a regional conference.
A Cooperative Publishing vehicle (including
E-Publishing) for voices of hope and reason - individuals from around
the world with important, cutting edge ideas to stimulate and contribute
to the public dialogue. To support our overall goal of nurturing individual
capacity for peace, this service is intended to help promote the insights
and wisdom of visionaries for peace and healing on an international,
cross-cultural level, and to offer practical hope through raising
public awareness of the wealth of viable efforts and visions of the
possible that are at work in the world. In the current state of publishing,
many good ideas never see the light of day because of the commercial
or ideological criteria of many publishers, as well as the financial
capacity of many throughout the world doing truly soulful and inspiring
work that is all part of the emerging consciousness of peace that
is literally occurring around us each day. Too often this crucial
work takes place under the radar of the general public, and even clouded
from public consciousness by an alternative world-view that dysfunctionally
perpetuates a diminishing value of human potential and an ethos of
self-destruction, despair, and impotence.
Instilling genuine and realistic hope in the general public based
on simply knowing the facts is seen as an essential part of achieving
a consciousness of peace and healing, and in empowering each individual
with the capacity to add their necessary energy and support, locally
and globally, to the making the vision a reality.
Professional Schools and Practical Training Programs
In Human Services: Assisting the establishment and development
of locally based professional schools and practical training
programs in human services to assist in forming core mentor groups
in post-communist and developing countries.
Expanding our Website as an interactive
vehicle for virtual community, collaboration, education, follow-up
to training, and exploratory dialogue. Our redesigned website is currently
in the process of being developed toward these ends. Among the features
that will be available in the very near future:
- Journal of Conflict Transformation, a virtual journal of
collected papers from our conferences and trainings
- "Connections," a CBI E-newsletter that - in addition
to reporting on the activities of CBI, our network, and alumni -
provides a virtual forum to share learning and offer contributed
opinion articles and editorials on important issues and current
conditions in the world.
- A Virtual Resource Library, of programs & curriculums
from our annual conferences and training projects, as well as reference
and training materials from many sources, including publications
(books, journals, articles, etc.), videos, audio, graphics and photos,
etc. This will be continually added to both through loading materials
on our web site and providing easily targeted links to specific
materials on other sites by developing a reciprocal and cohesive
information net with various collaborating organizations and universities
internationally.
This information will be made available to all to help instill the
most people with the most knowledge, information, and skills to
help increase capacity for peace in their local communities.
- Themed E-Dialogue Groups and E-Working Groups to
maintain contact between participants and provide supplemental training,
networking, support, and follow-through between events, and promote
collaboration on practical efforts..
- Clinical Consultation to augment training projects, intended
to provide easy access between trainers and trainees, as well as
between trainees, for clinical consultation, additional professional
learning, and support.
- Establishing an ongoing Chronicle of projects, collaborations,
and new organizations that have come out of CBI's conferences over
the last 14 years.
- An expanded Photo Album to share photos from our events
and projects (eventually with audio-video capability)
- E-Publishing (see above Publishing Vehicle)
- Future planned enhancements:
- distance learning capability
- streaming video and audio for access to material from our
events
- Audio-Video E-conferencing
- Virtual Global Youth Community - a virtual community for
cross-cultural interaction made up of participants of our international
youth conferences, intended for and operated by the youth themselves.
Youth participants will have opportunities to follow up on their
conference participation by continuing to collaborate on joint projects
having to do with ecological/environmental and conflict transformation
issues in their respective physical communities. The virtual community
will also be linked to the youth sections of cooperating organizations,
including the Jane Goodall Institute.
The virtual neighborhood enlists youth participants themselves in
co-creating ways it can be further developed. This includes collaborating
on uses, content, features, and character of the forum to reflect
their unique purposes and potential, and to provide a vehicle for
1) shared learning and wisdom, 2) collaboration on joint projects,
and 3) maintaining their evolving intentional community. Initially
this section will include:
- a youth community Newsletter to share personal thoughts
and opinion, news of activities, opportunities for involvement
and cooperation, stories, poetry, art, etc.
- global Dialogue Groups to provide ongoing, threaded
dialogue between all youth participants and their organizations.
The dialogue groups will have the capability of including a
general conversation section and separate sections divided by
topic for more focused dialogues - particularly intended to
help promote cooperative efforts and projects, and to maintain
direct personal contact.
- a web-based Photo Album to share pictures from shared
events, each others communities, projects, etc. (eventually
with audio-video capability), and
- a Youth Peace Resolution page where the resolution
created at the 2004 Ecology of War and Peace youth conference
in St. Petersburg, Russia can be shared, responded to, and built
on.
There has already been the wish expressed to extend this service
and create a wider Internet community that would include more
individuals, youth organizations, schools, etc. from each participant'
home community.
If you are interested in contributing
your time,
energy, and talents to assisting
our international efforts,
Join Us To:
- create new possibilities for conflict transformation, prevention
and healing in this pivotal time,
- form unique relationships with individuals and organizations throughout
the world, and
- gain invaluable professional and personal experiences along the
way.
Find Out More
On Becoming Involved
with Common Bond Institute
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