Forum participants completed personal commitment forms (click here) and indicated if they wanted to be connected to others with similar interests.  The following is a list of action categories from the 100 forms we received.  If you have not completed the form but would like to be connected with others in these categories, RockRose will facilitate that connection through March 30, 2007.  Fax the form to (415) 561-3233 or e-mail the information to office@rockroseinstitute.org. Africa - Darfur Africa - Health Africa - Nigeria Africa - Rwanda Dialogue - Bay Area, CA Dialogue - Buffalo, NY Dialogue - General Dialogue -Idaho Diversity/Inclusion/Racial Reconciliation Economics and Justice Environment/Climate Change Global Citizenship Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Compassion Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - General Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Iran Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Israel-Palestine Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Latin America Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - New Orleans, LA Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Public Conversations Project Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Reproductive Rights Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Sports Individual Learning or Action/Personal Practice - Ukraine Interfaith Leadership/Education/Teaching/Training Military Peace Planning/Strategy RockRose Support Trauma Healing Violence Prevention/Reduction - Arts Violence Prevention/Reduction - Bay Area, CA Violence Prevention/Reduction - Domestic Violence Prevention/Reduction - General Violence Prevention/Reduction - Youth Women The World Café Youth Dialogue/Empowerment

 Rwanda Initiatives Tour: This ten-day tour of Rwanda will focus first on the history and political context of Rwanda, followed by an in-depth look at the struggle and hope created through the burgeoning coffee industry. Click here for more information.
 Yahoo! Group: Sign up to join the Rwanda Action Team. Then, e-mail rebeccabryson27@yahoo.com with your area of interest or if you are simply interested in receiving e-mails and updates on the situation. Also include any existing connections or information you might have and an indication of whether you might want to be a point person in any of the following 5 areas of activities: strengthening witness protection efforts providing technical assistance and support for the Rwandan judicial system raising awareness and education in the U.S. providing travel opportunities to bear witness in Rwanda conducting advocacy or letter writing efforts in the U.S. to ensure a stronger western policy response
http://web.mac.com/rockrose/iWeb/RockRose/Commitments_files/Commitment.pdfmailto:office@rockroseinstitute.org?subject=http://web.mac.com/rockrose/iWeb/RockRose/Commitments_files/Rwanda.pdfhttp://groups.yahoo.com/invite/RwandaActionTeam?email=westerfieldrj@aol.com&iref=I3LHi27CgfUngnF_TT95-VGd_HMmailto:rebeccabryson27@yahoo.comshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4

PARTICIPANT ACTION COMMITMENTS

WORLD FORUM 2007     ROCKROSE INSTITUTE     YOUTH DIALOGUE PROJECT

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World Forum Commitments Fulfilled By Kate Ettinger In the eleven months following the World Forum, I am grateful to report I have fulfilled or made progress on my three Forum Commitments. Before the World Forum, I had decided to join a peace delegation in Vietnam, intending to be with the group for two and one-half weeks. At the end of the Forum, I made my first Forum commitment: to grow my peace by extending my time to five weeks, as a way to challenge myself through the discomfort of a longer stay. As lay delegates joining the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic sangha, we were constantly “on the go.” Unlike the serene routine and bucolic atmosphere of a monastery retreat, we stayed in hotels in the heart of bustling cities, bused here and there, visited temples and schools and in mindfulness experienced the rich vibrancy of Vietnam. We were under constant surveillance by a government not entirely certain of what to expect from this monk, who had been exiled for over 40 years, and his international lay delegation. Thus, our mindfulness was necessary, not only to support ourselves and one another through arduous days, but more importantly to communicate assurances and consistency in our intentions to our hosts, the Vietnamese government and people of Vietnam. With meditation on the cushion transformed into living-in-mindfulness, I deeply grew my capacity to be peace. With deep gratitude to the Rockrose founders and all the participants who co-created the energy at the Forum, I report back that I leapt with an open mind and an open heart into my discomfort, and fully surrendering there I tremendously deepened my peace. This journey expanded my capacity to pursue my passions for teaching people to use their power well and for building bridges of hope and understanding, which was my second Forum commitment. An unexpected stopover in Bangkok en route to Vietnam enabled me to meet a professor sponsoring a conference on Buddhism and Science that I attended this past August. He will host a conference on Buddhism in an Age of Consumerism in December 2008 that will carry a theme of “developing a global ethic on consumerism,” which ties into my third commitment, “create/participate in a global ethic for global citizenship.” So, the first step led to action on all three of my Forum commitments. If you would like to read more about Kate’s experience in Vietnam, please see her article below, “Hope for Peace Ceremony for the Dead in Hanoi.” Hope for Peace Ceremony for the Dead in Hanoi By Kate Ettinger In gratitude TO??????, I offer one story from this journey in Vietnam with Thich Nhat Hanh’s peace delegation. The extended length enabled me to participate in all three of the Ceremonies for the Dead offered in the South, Center, and North of the country to heal the suffering on all sides of all those affected by the unjust killing and destruction of past wars, French and American. When we arrived in Hanoi, three days before the last of the three ceremonies, the situation was bleak– just that week authorities relocated the ceremony to a remote temple an hour away from Hanoi. If local people could find it, the transportation fare was prohibitive, no publicity, no local political or religious communities were supporting the ceremony. Word was that a small turnout was expected, and we, the lay delegation, would need to conserve our energy to support the monastic delegation. When we arrived the morning of the first ceremony, it was an incredible site. There were buses, vans, taxis, cars, an endless stream of people and food stands were being set up. There must have been 8,000-9,000 people! Word of mouth led to this eruption of human spirit present for healing the wounds of the past. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life: even with such political will and effort to subvert and suppress, I witnessed the resilient strength of the human spirit and the tremendous power of the thirst to heal. The truth that Gandhi spoke took life: “at times, when I despair at the state of the world, I remember that even with all the tyrants and despots, truth and love always prevail, think of it, always.” I am deeply grateful that I had the chance to witness this inspiring moment of hope and I send it out to all of you who work for peace in personal, local, and global communities, so that if you find yourself feeling a tinge of despair, please remember that truth and love will prevail, maybe in three lifetimes, as our wise Thai friend from the Forum suggested, but trust in this truth with a smile in your heart, and peace will be possible. To view short movies from Kate’s trip, particularly the Prayer and Vow that Thich Nhat Hanh wrote especially for the Ceremony for the Dead, please visit: http://katemural.blogspot.com.  Silena Layne and Her Bay Area Youth Violence Group Take Action When I was invited to World Forum 2007, I saw the Forum as an opportunity to access resources, connect with progressive organizations and find information that helps bring about change in the world…after all I was a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who had served in Swaziland-Southern Africa.  Building life-altering relationships did not even enter my mind.  There were some really amazing speakers/presenters that I'd come to admire and recognize as "change agents" and never considered them potential partners for the change I was searching for.  Well, that was until I listened to Alice share her story and ask the question: What are you going to do?  It was a question that I had heard many times before but never with this kind of directness, so I answered. With the same courage, truth and vision Alice presented to me, I asked the Forum audience to hear my question about youth violence in the Bay Area and make a commitment to address the need for change in our own back yards.  That same afternoon, I was embraced with meetings and dialogue with people that understood and shared this vision.  With more than three dozen people gathering, we formed a community action group that agreed to address youth violence by identifying the risk factors, assessing community resources and volunteering to work with youth service providers in Oakland and San Francisco.  Our work is ongoing. As the Forum progressed, it became increasingly clear that my community urgently needed education about non-violence and programs that supported it. I suddenly understood that this work needed to come from within the community and that I had personal responsibility for making sure it happened. Four months after the Forum, I left my career as a classroom teacher and partnered with a friend to create Opportunity Impact (formerly 4ward Focus), a new non-profit to honor this commitment and the life of my little brother who was a homicide victim of this youth violence.  At Opportunity Impact we work with youth living in public housing in San Francisco's Western Addition. The objective of Opportunity Impact is to use a holistic approach for change in underserved communities.  With academic support, life skills and enrichment programs and case management/mental health resources, we aim to bring about change to the lives of all those who enter our doors. Silena Layne Program Manager Opportunity Impact eiatrice@hotmail.com (510) 253-9713  http://katemural.blogspot.commailto:eiatrice@hotmail.comshapeimage_8_link_0shapeimage_8_link_1

Tom Gage, Professor Emeritus of English at Humboldt State University


When I consider how the RockRose Institute and last January’s conference affected me, I paraphrased Walt Whitman’s utterance to Emerson: I was simmering until RockRose, when I was set a boil. After 9/11, I regretted that as a professor I was ill-positioned to do much to ameliorate the mess into which we were getting ourselves internationally, a mess exponentially compounded from fear and ignorance. I've a unique history of international experiences in that I have been involved longer in the Middle East than I have been in education, a career I retired from in 2000. In 1958 as a sophomore at Berkeley, I hitchhiked from Oakland to Damascus and have subsequently spent more than half of my seventy years in the eastern Mediterranean, as traveler, Fulbright lecturer, and teacher.


When I learned of the four San Francisco lawyers who created RockRose Institute with the generosity of many contributors, what was kindling in me was set ablaze. Since last year’s World Forum, that blaze is localized in six activities, which you can peruse by linking to the following URLs.


1. Cross-cultural Fluency. I have developed curriculum and am implementing a unit of study about cross-cultural fluency (''CCF'') for secondary writing programs in California and the world that entails: 1. Electronically connecting adolescents with twins in paired classrooms, one here and one abroad; and 2. Improving students’ writing skills while dialoguing to learn about each other’s culture. I have initiated contact with California’s Department of Education and leaders of the National Council of Teachers of English to create a network of CCF twins. (http://www.humboldt.edu/~teg1/syllabus/424/ccf.html)


2. Speaking about CCF.  To promote CCF programs, I have delivered papers at the U of Texas (http://raindropturkevi.org/theottomans/speakers.php), the U of Erasmus in Rotterdam (http://youtube.com/watch?v=HCwt6EA4AOE), and the U of Fathi in Istanbul (http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/121).


3. Networking. Through a representative I met at RockRose’s World Forum last year, I have worked with an organization of Turkish Muslims dedicated to tolerance, dialogue, and peace to further good will and mutual understanding, an organization inspired by the Islamic scholar Hoca Effendi Fethuallah Gulen. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt11e2ZThXU&NR=1)


4. Teaching. I am teaching through Osher Life Long Institute at Humboldt State University a course entitled What We Should Know about Islam. (http://www.humboldt.edu/~teg1/rrr-syllabus.html)


5. Planning Conferences. I have organized conferences with the Curriculum Study Commission featuring or solely devoted to CCF at Asilomar for September 2008 and April 2009. (http://www.cccoe.net/csc/index.htm)


6. Consulting. I have become a board member of Consultants for Global Programs, which arranges for travel to teach and interact in the regions populated by the most minorities of China. (http://www.globalprograms.com/)(http://www.fethullahgulen.org/)


Should you be interested in assisting in any of these efforts, please contact me at gaget@northcoast.com

SAN FRANCISCO and OAKLAND YOUTH STUDY ABROAD IN BEIJING


World Forum 2007 represented an intersection of races, religions and cultures in a dialog about international relations and inter-group peace. In the spirit of the conversation arising from that meeting of minds, Silena Layne (Opportunity Impact) and LeeAnn Mallorie (Learning as Leadership and The Cultural Horizons Institute) – who met at the Forum – are teaming up to send Bay Area youth to study and travel in China.


The project will support eight recent high school graduates from underprivileged communities in Oakland and San Francisco to travel to Beijing, China to study Mandarin, Chinese. The students will study history and culture, as well as Eastern Religion and Chinese martial arts. After attending classes on the campus of the Beijing Sports University, they will travel for one week to visit several of the historic and religious landmarks referenced in their studies. Students will also learn basic ESL instruction techniques and take on a part-time job tutoring English for their Chinese student counterparts.


Both Silena and LeeAnn believe the study abroad experience is a valuable way for youth to develop basic adult life skills in addition to broadening their perspective on cultural norms and values. Their hope is that students will develop personal confidence while mastering a second language and will build their capacity to navigate new, difficult or unknown situations. Prior to their departure, students are participating in two weekends of dialog, intercultural communication training and travel readiness preparation. The training, sponsored by the Cultural Horizons Institute, will ensure that students get the most out of their time abroad. 


The goal of this pilot project is to form the infrastructure for future exchange programs in the Bay Area.  Silena and LeAnn are currently in the process of fundraising for students’ tuition and airfare to travel abroad. If you have any resources (financial, informational, training, etc.) to offer the project, or would like to be kept in the loop about its progress, please contact LeeAnn at lmallorie@gmail.com or Silena at silena@opportunityimpact.org.



 




USING TOOLS LEARNT IN THE WORLD FORUM YDP AT THE NGAI TAHU MAORI LAW CENTRE, AOTEAROA-NEW ZEALAND

By Nadine Warbrick


When I reflect on my experiences from the Youth Dialogue Project and techniques learnt in the World Forum 2007, I realise this experience has advanced my skills in the area of law in which I work.  I work for a community organisation that represents the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa-New Zealand in mainly land, resource management, trusts and other unique issues to Maori.  I frequently need to refer to the simple methods of cross-cultural communication, active listening and interpretation we learnt in the Learning Lab and in training for the Youth Dialogue Project.


The programmes and methods we trained in such as the World Café Method and Facing History and Ourselves, prepared me for the collective intergenerational dialogue I would be coming across every day in my work.  Maori land accounts for 6% of the total land mass in Aotearoa-New Zealand.  Maori currently make up 15% of the population.  Some land blocks therefore have as many as one, to tens of thousands of owners on one title.  Maori land (with ancestral connection) is collectively owned, and owners (usually extended familial relationships) are forced to reach consensus on heated topical issues for the purposes of administration and development of the land, and therefore develop the people who connect to this land.  It can be frustrating as the Maori Land Court is a mandatory interference for development and administration on Maori land, and sometimes acts as a “rubber stamp” for collective decisions made by Maori.  There are few (if any) specialised Maori mediators who understand the nature of Maori land, the character of historical disputes and the Court application process.  This largely hinders development of Maori land and the potential development of an economic base for many Maori.


As one can predict, there is a large need for the Maori youth, being the next collective land owners, to be trained in intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue.  There are currently no education programmes for free mediation or dispute resolution programmes offered for Maori land owners, apart from the occasional workshops we run from our law centre.  I hope to promote the use of mediation with traditional methods and values of dispute resolution in my career and hope to pay forward the techniques I have gained from the Youth Dialogue Project.


At the Ngai Tahu Maori Law Centre, Dunedin, Aotearoa-New Zealand, we integrate traditional Maori values into the dialogue processes we practiced in the YDP and at the Forum for decision making and dispute resolution.  These values bring better success to other alternative dispute resolution methods. 


Practicing in Maori land law is difficult because tools for mediation are rare.  What is more often used are Maori values in relation to dispute resolution.


•Whanaungatanga: Inter-relatedness is the basis for voluntary consensus and somewhat obligatory as everything is connected.

•There is no labelling of “victims” and “offenders”: offenders are also treated as victims and family members (also extended family members) take responsibility for conflict.

•Wairua or Whatumanawa: when a settlement “feels right” or a person has a “gut feeling” it is settled, then the agreement can be recognised as settling the problem.


(For more in this, see Dispute Resolution in New Zealand, Peter Spiller (Ed), Chapter on Maori Dispute Resolution [by Ian MacDuff]).

 

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