JustPeace Workshops
Since its beginning in 2001, the Center for Justpeace in Asia has had five workshops.
September 18 - 23, 2006: SEWA Rural Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, India
This workshop was hosted in the Indian state of Kerala, and was entitled Understanding Justpeace in the Context of "Caste Untouchability & Dalits." Participants from Aceh (Indonesia), Cambodia, India, Korea, Mindano (Philippines), Nepal, and Thailand attended to further understand the plight of the Dalits, or untouchables, in Indian society. At the same time the concept and understanding of untouchability was applied to the participants own societies. The direction, vision and perceived role of the Center for Justpeace in Asia was also discussed.
View photos from the workshop in India.
The Workshop report will be made available soon.
November 27 - 30, 2005: Henry Martyn Institute, Hyderabad, India
This worskhop was co-organized with the Interfaith Cooperation Forum with the intent of assessing the need for bringing interfaith peace and justice learning into schools in Asia. Participants started to map out a process for developing curriculum and/or a resource kit for peace education that could be used at various levels in schools.
Pictures from this workshop have been posted in the photogallery of the Interfaith Cooperation Forum website.
August 2-7, 2004: Nation Builders, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Participants from all over Asia gathered in Sri Lanka to discuss the vision and direction for the Center for Justpeace in Asia. The discussion revolved around the need for the Center for Justpeace in Asia to help clear away the political, economic and social obstacles so that justice and peace can flow freely and all people, especially the marginalized can enjoy a true Justpeace. How do we carry out this difficult and delicate task?
September 15 - 20, 2003: Prek Ho, Cambodia
The Center for Justpeace in Asia, together with Khmer Ahimsa of Cambodia, organized the third Justpeace workshop, whose purpose was to bring together people from many different countries, ages, languages, ethnic groups, and religious faiths who would share powerful grassroots stories.
Participants from Cambodia, India, Laos, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam came together to talk about Justpeace - justice where relationships are restored, and we can live together and prevent injustice from happening again. We also looked at conflict transformation, to help transform our communities into better and happier ones. The aim in using grassroots wisdom was to look at and learn from marginalized people (people whose voices are not heard) to build up relationships, and convince leadership of the benefit and need to do this.
View photos from the Cambodian workshop.
June 10 - 14, 2002: Penang, Malaysia
Thirteen people from India, Nagalim, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Philippines Burma, and Thailand representing NGO groups as well as marginalized communities attended the second Justpeace workshop and continued the discussion on seeking justpeace in Asia. Together, they exchanged experiences and examples of indigenous forms of conflict transformation and peacebuilding in different parts of Asia, as well as brainstormed a program to document and help build up these indigenous forms of conflict transformation and peacemaking.
Stories from this workshop can be read on the Justpeace People's Stories page.
September 30 - October 4, 2001: Solo, Indonesia
Documentation for Action Groups in Asia (DAGA) and the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) organized the first workshop in Indonesia, where a group of justpeace activists from Philippines, Indonesia, Nagalim and Thailand came together to look at Asian values and concepts of conflict transformation and peacemaking in order to discern how a regional program designed to document, help build up and strengthen indigenous forms of conflict transformation and peacemaking could most effectively be developed.
The Center for Justpeace in Asia was born out of ideas from this workshop. This website was developed where reflective articles on justpeace, as well as stories of how marginalized communities creatively confront the forces of violence and oppression could be placed.