Did you know that peace skills exist and are used every day around the world? How many destructive conflicts are creatively transformed (and don’t become news)? How would you react in a difficult situation that you saw escalating?
CFSC offers a variety of peace education opportunities that we can tailor to meet the needs of the organizations/groups requesting our services. Below are established workshops that can each be adjusted for time or content as required. Each workshop is a half-day (roughly four hours of delivery, including breaks/interactive parts/Q&A), and two or more can be booked together to make a full-day or multi-day series. Ideally, anything more than half a day in length would work best as an in-person delivery format (Zoom fatigue can be increased when dealing with challenging or emotionally engaging topics).
Currently, there is no set cost associated with the workshops, but a donation to our ongoing work is greatly appreciated and is eligible for a charitable tax receipt. Depending on the location, we would need to work out the cost of travel and accommodation if an organization or group wants an in-person workshop.
Peace education workshops we currently offer
Here is a brief description of the half-day workshops we currently offer:
1. Peace and power—this workshop is designed for folks at the beginning of their journey of understanding what peace means and how different forms of power can enable/disable peaceful actions and engagement. It covers a variety of research from the behavioural sciences. The goal is to help participants gain further understanding of how a variety of external factors can influence our feelings/beliefs/views—setting us and others up for success or challenges when trying to engage with those around us.
2. Communication/conflict skills—this workshop builds on concepts and techniques that help participants gain practical communication tools to navigate conflict and polarization around them. Participants are given time to better understand how the intersection of belief and emotion can significantly alter the outcome of a conflict or conversation. This workshop is also available in a short, two-hour version titled Compassionate communication.
3. Violence and interpersonal peace—this workshop explores the broader issues of tangible violence in our world and introduces theories and practices of active nonviolence and community change. It also covers the issue of hate, safety, and oppressor/oppressed dynamics. This workshop content is not recommended for groups that haven’t already done at least one of the above two workshops, as the skills and content here build on previously taught concepts and research.
4. Inner peace—this workshop focuses on the inner transformation and work required of a peacemaker. It offers some practical reflections and practices that can be incorporated into our daily lives to better prepare and change our mindsets and misconceptions. If requested, this workshop can be condensed to a two-hour format.
5. Structural peace—this workshop explores specific nonviolent strategies addressing structural violence and inequality, such as unarmed civilian protection, mediation, and peace education. It also covers some academic arguments on the Quaker belief that there is no just war.
To learn more or to request a workshop, please contact our Peace Program Coordinator, Mel Burns. Please note that we prioritize organizations and groups located in Canada.
You have more power than you think
In 2019, after years of reflection, research, and writing, CFSC’s book Are We Done Fighting? Building Understanding in a World of Hate and Division was published. The book collects and shares wisdom from remarkable peacebuilders from all over the world, both Quaker and non-Quaker. Peace education based on this book remains an ongoing focus of our work.
Right now there are places where hate is on the rise. That’s deeply disturbing, but it isn’t inevitable. Responding strategically and with care is vital if we’re going to turn the tide. How can we do it?
It turns out that a lot of our “common sense” approaches don’t work. But this book, full of carefully collected research and practical tips about what does work, is poised to be a game-changer. Discover your power, and the surprising ways you can use it.
There’s no one single secret to building justice and peace. And there are never any guarantees that our efforts will be successful. There are, however, many techniques that we can learn to use if we’re aware that they exist and if we don’t just imagine, incorrectly, that they must be impossible.
Are We Done Fighting? offers short chapters full of tips, exercises, and plenty of evidence to explain what’s happening when violence and hate rise, and when peace does.
Find out more on the book’s website AreWeDoneFighting.com
Join us for free online interactive workshops using content and exercises from the book.
See what people are saying about the book.
Read our ongoing blog Are We Done Fighting? over at Psychology Today.
Our definition of peace: what we mean by a culture of peacemaking
“Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—war, tensions, confusion but it is the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.
After years of reflection and discernment, CFSC joined a long tradition of peace thinkers from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Johan Galtung.
The definition emerged that, for us, peace is not about perfection or utopia. Peace is not a hiding place away from the strife and discord of the world. It’s much more dynamic. Peace as a living system will always include conflicts and major differences of need, feeling, and experience. CFSC encourages conflicts to be more constructive than destructive, and, most importantly, to be actively nonviolent.
We believe that peace is always possible. Neither peace nor violence is inevitable. Relationships, social, and political structures can influence us toward peace or toward violence.
CFSC chose the uncommon term a “culture of peacemaking” rather than the common “culture of peace” to highlight that, for us, peace needs to be continually built.
CFSC thinks of three levels through which the culture of peacemaking flows:
- inner peace—attitudes, beliefs, and habits conducive to peace
- interpersonal peace—peace in interactions with other people
- structural peace—political and social structures that support peace.
Each is simultaneously influenced by, and influencing, the others. Peace-oriented social and political structures will encourage more peaceful interactions between people. More interpersonal peace will help us achieve more inner peace. Structural peace will be promoted when we understand and value inner and interpersonal peace and use it to recognize, and seek to distance our societies from, violence.
Our definition of peacemaking applies equally to any country, whatever its present relationship to violent conflict. Because the conditions around us play such a major role in the decisions we make, peaceful conditions must be continually built. This process is complex and unpredictable, so peace must be cultivated responsively and with care.
CFSC considers the following interconnected elements central to a culture of peacemaking:
Justice—This includes well-balanced systems of laws and standards, conflicts being dealt with consistently, protection of dissent, and fostering respect for the full human rights, dignity, and participation of all. Social institutions can’t be founded on principles of retribution, exploitation, domination, or unsustainable use of resources. Because we live in a global and interdependent community, justice includes right relationships with others (other individuals, communities, nations, and species). Problems can’t just be exported elsewhere in the web of relationships.
Opportunities—We need culturally appropriate, safe, and ethical services and entry points into a life that holds meaning for us as individuals and communities. This includes education and child services, health services, housing, livelihoods, proper sanitation, arts, nutritious food and safe water, chances for fun and games, a sustainable pace of life, places and time enough to connect with the natural world of which we are a part, and opportunities for spiritual expression. We need a sense of control in our lives, within fair boundaries.
Active support for peaceful change—Cultures are not static; new ideas and directions are always emerging. Tension is inherent in such change. All elements of society need loving and supportive care, and space must be made to listen and encourage positive changes on a continual basis, while also maintaining and invigorating important traditions.
Skills—to live peacefully takes skill (as detailed in our peace education work).
Whatever CFSC can do to encourage peace is part of peacemaking. This is clearly a vast definition, rather than a narrow or technical one. Peacemaking is work that Friends historically, and still today, feel led to. It’s an expression of all of CFSC’s values, rooted in the Quaker testimonies of peace, integrity, equality, simplicity, community, and respect for all creation.
Quaker peacemaking arises from what early Friend George Fox said was our call to live “in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars.” This is manifested in:
- Respect for that of God in everyone
- Witness against war, violence, militarism, and hatred
- Examining, questioning, and engaging with the roots and with the manifestations of violence in ourselves, our own social world, and the larger world of which we are part
- Discerning and nurturing new growing points in creating a just and compassionate society
- Exercising our responsibilities as members and citizens of our local, national, and international communities
- Maintaining strict integrity in all our conduct
- Standing firm in nonviolence.