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CSOP Participant Profile – Darnell Barkman

By Aaron Epp

CSOP massively energizing for Canadian peacebuilder working in the Philippines

When it comes to peace work in the Philippines, Darnell Barkman is on the front lines.

Barkman and his wife, Christina, are Mennonite Church Canada Witness Workers, giving pastoral leadership to PeaceChurch Philippines, an Anabaptist church they helped plant in Metro Manila.

Originally from Abbotsford, B.C., the Barkmans have also been instrumental in the development of Peace Assemblies Network, also known as the Philippines Anabaptist Network, a group of peace-oriented individuals and churches who seek to transform their society by embodying a culture of peace in their faith communities in the Philippines.

“Jesus calls us to nonviolence,” Darnell says. “That’s very distinct in the whole world. That’s very distinct in the Philippines.”

The Barkmans and their colleagues work for peace and reconciliation between Christians, Muslims, and the indigenous people of the Philippines in a variety of ways.

They respond to disasters by supporting marginalized people who get less help than others, they train military leaders in peacebuilding and human rights through partner organizations, and they challenge the larger church in the Philippines to love their neighbour and seek justice, just as Jesus taught.

“The evangelical church of the Philippines is missing the peace and reconciliation teachings of scripture,” Darnell says on his website, DarnellBarkman.com.

“Most leaders and members don’t see scripture’s ethics and peace teachings. They don’t know how to see them – no one has ever highlighted them and they are seldom taught. My goal is that the church centers herself on Jesus’ example and teaching as the soul of the faith. His teaching and examples in the Gospel are the primary story we are living to emulate.”

Darnell is passionate about Mennonite theology and Anabaptist history, and sharing that knowledge with people in the Philippines. He also describes himself as an “experimenter in personal transformation,” discontent to enjoy the status quo and always looking to learn something new.

That’s why, when he found out he would be on furlough in Canada when the 2015 Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP) was taking place, he had to enrol.

Darnell travelled to Winnipeg to take the course The Justice of God: Questions of Justice in the Bible and the World, taught by Dr. Christopher Marshall, Professor of Restorative Justice at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

Darnell appreciated the way Marshall synthesized restorative justice principles with examples from his personal experience.

“What’s really cool is how he’s involved as a practitioner of restorative justice,” Darnell says.

Just as valuable as what he learned in the classroom was the opportunity Darnell had to meet new people at the CSOP.

“Peacebuilding can be very lonely work,” he says. Attending the CSOP was massively energizing because it allowed him to connect with other peacebuilders. “It’s amazing. It’s what we need.”

Now back in Manila, Darnell is excited to incorporate what he learned at CMU into his day-to-day work.

“Peace is not just a ‘60s hippy idea, or an individualistic,  new-age feeling,” Darnell says on his website. “Peacebuilding has a tangible output: Healed relationships and experienced justice in all sectors of society.”

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News Profiles

CSOP Participant Profile – Folake Aderibigbe

By Aaron Epp

CSOP helps parliamentary aid from Nigeria advocate for women’s rights

Violence in the home, sexual harassment at school and work, rape and defilement, enforcement of gender-biased laws, harmful traditional practices – these are some of the things women in Nigeria face.

Through her role as an assistant in Nigeria’s parliament, Folake Aderibigbe is working to peacefully change her society’s views on women so that they are treated equally.

“Women are not able to talk about it because our culture or society does not allow these things to be said,” Aderibigbe says, “but I think it’s better to come out and say what’s going on.”

Aderibigbe, who is writing a book about domestic violence and its effects on children, traveled from her hometown of Lagos to Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg this past June to study at the university’s Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP).

Aderibigbe took a course titled Women and Peacebuilding, which explored women’s involvement in peace action, research, and education.

The things Aderibigbe learned in the class will be useful in her work as a parliamentary aid. Only seven of Nigeria’s MPs are female, and Aderibigbe plans to brief them on what she learned.

In Nigeria, women are traditionally “to be seen and not heard,” Aderibigbe says, but she feels it’s important to speak up.

“I’ll use my pen. I’ll (prepare) a write-up and give it to the MPs,” she says. “We (women) need the same education, we need the same rights. We need to network, we need to have a voice, we need to come together as allies.”

While the Nigerian government recently began passing laws prohibiting violence against women, many women are still afraid to come forward.

“It’s hectic (and) sometimes it’s difficult,” Aderibigbe says.

She hopes her work, and sharing the things she learned at the CSOP, will influence the MPs to create even better legislation to protect women.

Born and raised in Lagos, Aderibigbe worked hard to get where she is today.

She has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, as well as graduate degrees in International Relations and Public Administration from the Lagos City University and the University of Lagos, respectively.

After democratic rule returned to Nigeria in 1999, Aderibigbe was among the first sets of people employed to work in parliament.

In addition to assisting six MPs, Aderibigbe’s work includes writing. Five years ago, she published her first book. A Decade of Positive Legislation examines the history of Nigeria’s current parliament and how it works.

As the mother of a 15-year-old girl, issues of violence against women are close to Aderibigbe’s heart.

She says her experience at the CSOP was positive.

“The experience has been good,” Aderibigbe says. “The people are loving and ready to accommodate (students)… The environment is serene and it’s conducive to learning.”

Aderibigbe hopes to bring some MPs with her when she returns to the school in 2016.

“I hope they will come here so that they can better serve their constituents.”

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News Profiles

CSOP Participant Profile – Ali Shakeri, Mohammad Hozourbakhsh & Mohammad Barteh

By Aaron Epp

Iranian graduate students discover new ideas at Canadian School of Peacebuilding

Did you know that the 2015 Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP) took place during Ramadan? Three of its students were very aware of this.

Ali Shakeri, Mohammad Reza Hozourbakhsh, and Mohammad Rida Barteh traveled from their home in Qom, Iran to study at the CSOP. The three graduate students practice the Muslim faith, and so spent mid-June to mid-July fasting from sunrise to sunset as part of the annual act of worship.

According to Islamic belief, Ramadan is meant to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad.

The purpose is for Muslims to practice the presence of God in their daily life, Hozourbakhsh said.

“(The purpose is) to feel it more, grasp it more, and to share it with others, and to understand the hunger and thirst of poor people,” he said.

Being in a Christian atmosphere at Ramadan was a completely new experience for the three.

“Participating in classes in which all members are drinking and eating and we just have to (watch) is also new,” Shakeri said.

While all three had been to CMU prior to their visit in June – they were part of a group of graduate students from the International Institute for Islamic Studies (IIIS) in Qom, Iran who visited CMU March 8-18 to take a course in Christian Systematic Theology – it was their first time studying at the CSOP.

All three enrolled in the course The Justice of God: Questions of Justice in the Bible and the World, taught by Dr. Christopher Marshall, Professor of Restorative Justice at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

Barteh said the things they learned in the course will help them in their careers as university professors.

“There are two kinds of thinking,” he said. “The first is that you focus on differences between people and (the other is) finding similarities and coming together, and sharing the similar things we understand about humanity and the goal of life and the good life.

“We think this course (will) help us to find the simplest and best way (when working with) people from different nationalities, different races, different backgrounds, different nations. That’s why we are here.”

Barteh added that he and his colleagues enjoyed studying with Marshall.

“We found him to be a very devoted Christian,” Bareh said. “Every day, he comes up with ideas that are really genuinely new to us… Chris is a really informative person.”

The trio were invited to study at the CSOP after their visit in March.

That visit stemmed from a series of dialogues that began in 2002 that bring together Shi’a Muslim scholars from Iran and Mennonite scholars from Canada and the U.S. The goal of these dialogues is to improve understanding between Muslims and Christians.

The dialogues have resulted in a series of exchanges that have seen Iranian students from the IIIS travel to Winnipeg to study at CMU, and vice versa.

“We hope this process will be ongoing in the future,” Bareh said, “and we appreciate this recent invitation (to study at) the CSOP.”

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News Resources

Download your free copy of Voices of Harmony and Dissent

Last June we launched our book, Voices of Harmony and Dissent: How Peacebuilders are Transforming Their Worlds.  Each chapter, authored by a different CSOP instructor, explores three dimensions of peacebuilding:

  • stories of inspiring peace work
  • tools and strategies for peacebuilding in a variety of settings
  • resources that have helped shape the author's views

Now we are making the e-book version of this book available for free.  We think this book captures the spirit of the CSOP and we hope that it will give you a taste of what the CSOP has to offer, particularly for those of you who are unable to join us for one of our five-day courses. 

You can download your free copy of this book at at CommonWord, Amazon, Kobo, Nook, or Apple. If you wish to purchase a print version of the book, you can do that on any of the above sites or through the CSOP website. We hope you will enjoy reading this book and that it will equip and inspire you in your work as a peacebuilder.

Please feel free to let your friends, communities and social media networks know about this free offer.  

What others have said about Voices of Harmony & Dissent:

“This book is an empowering patchwork of rich voices of harmony and dissent… It is a book you can dip into here and there on a plane or before bed. This is because it is a compilation that lets the journey be your own in connecting up the many strands of wisdom it contains. All of us can be much better peacebuilders if we take that journey of the connections with this sumptuous volume.”

– John Braithwaite, author of Crime, Shame and Reintegration

"This book stands out because it reflects and charts the creativity, energy and relevance of the field for global peacemaking. ”

– Tom Woodhouse, author Contemporary Conflict Resolution 

"This is a book of wisdom… Even the experience of reading these essays can prompt a greater peace .”

– John Borrows Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School

"These stories and essays intimately and powerfully convey two fundamental truths. The first is that history changes only through the actions of people who decide it has to change… The second truth is that the human spirit is worth struggling for, day after day, year after year, no matter whether we are successful or not. In this work, which joins us at the heart, we will always find joy, even in the harshest of external circumstances."

– Margaret J. Wheatley, bestselling author Leadership and the New Science

"Voices of Harmony and Dissent holds the heart of how social change happens–people who believe deeply, develop significant relationships, and have the courage to engage together. Each and every chapter provides lessons and inspiration and, most importantly, has a deep resonance that rises from these voices of hard-won experience and reflective practice, an authenticity that touches the reader and points us toward the kind of learning that really makes a difference in our world."

– John Paul Lederach, author The Moral Imagination

 

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News Profiles

CSOP Participant Profile – Michael Wiebe

by Ellen Paulley

What does the Bible teach about justice? How can these teachings be applied in the church and wider society today? Can a compassionate and restorative justice serve the world?

These are some of the topics discussed in the 2015 Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP) class, Justice of God:Questions of Justice in the Bible and the World, taught by Professor Chris Marshall, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Canadian Mennonite University alumnus Michael Wiebe was one of the participants in this CSOP course. A Communications and Media major, Wiebe noted the importance of communication and conversation in restoring right relationships.

“Storytelling is one of the biggest assets in making right relationships,” he says. “Everything I’ve learned at CMU has been about storytelling—being in the communications industry, I can be a steward of the earth through storytelling.”

Restoring relationships is a very communicative process and hearing from both parties involved is an important aspect of restorative justice. Additionally, gaining “an understanding of someone’s speech community and the conversation they were raised with, needs to be taken into account in the restorative justice process,” he says.

Wiebe has had opportunities to mediate conflicts in the past and has sought ways to build people up and figure out how to work well with people in conflict.

Taking the course, Justice of God, has helped him discover ways of facilitating what can be difficult conversations and explore how his faith informs the way he does so.

“What does justice mean biblically and to the wider Christian community? Justice means that God is involved in very actively bringing justice about in relationships,” he reflects.

For those who are interested in CSOP, Wiebe’s encouragement is to be prepared to be inspired about something new.

“The course topics that CSOP covers are innately the things that humans want, which are resolving conflict, making relationships right, living in harmony,” he says. “Once you get into the course, you can’t really help but to feel some sort of urge to think harder about these questions and to even make changes in your own life about peace and justice and how to live well in a very broken world.”

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News Profiles

CSOP Participant Profile – Beverley Stewart

By Ellen Paulley

Beverely Stewart has explored her longstanding interest in peace and justice by taking courses at the Canadian School of Peacebuilding over the last few years.

This year she participated in Women and Peacebuilding, taught by Ouyporn Khuankaew and Ginger Norwood.

“I’ve always liked the idea that this [CSOP] is called peacebuilding,” says Stewart. “The focus of this course has been on ourselves and our own personal being. How do we build peace? How do we become a person of peace within our inner being?”

Instructors Khuankaew and Norwood drew on their Engaged Buddhist roots and their work in Burma, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand to work with participants to analyze women’s involvement in peace action, research, and education. The course also looked at the challenges that women activists face, such as building common ground among women with varied experiences and concerns.

In the past, Stewart has taken Exploring Indigenous Justice and Healing and Human Rights and Indigenous Legal Traditions. After each course, she shares her learning to some extent with family, friends, and colleagues.

“Each year that I’ve come, I’ve been able to move on and listen and learn in a different way than before the course,” she says. “As the story goes, peacebuilding begins with you.”

A retired Anglican priest, Stewart sees a strong connection between faith and social justice.

“It [social justice] is the faith,” she says. “Faith is all about reconciliation and peace and justice. Those two go together.”

Through her work and now in retirement, Stewart has had opportunities to travel in Central Asia, Africa, Iran, and North Korea, on pilgrimages, classes, and tours. As such, she’s been exposed to a diversity of religions, cultures, and governance models.

“Every [trip] is a piece of the puzzle, and it’s all a part of the web. Each one teaches me something different.”

Stewart is grateful for the opportunities she’s had, which have led her to wonder about the options available to affect positive change in the world.

“How much right do we as a nation, a community, a religious institution—any kind of a we or an I—have to tell somebody else what to do, how to believe and behave?”

While peacebuilding and working for change can feel overwhelming at times, Stewart stresses the importance of drawing on faith to stay motivated.

“Peace groups that haven’t had an element of faith haven’t lasted,” she says. “There’s something about the ground work of an element of faith—whatever that faith might mean to that person. It’s like a tree, you have to have that rootedness in order to survive.”

For those interested in attending CSOP, Stewart encourages them to come. “Having international and interfaith communities is one of the absolute blessings of this place,” she says.

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Resources

Voices of Harmony and Dissent: How Peacebuilders are Changing Their Worlds

By Richard McCutcheon (editor), Jarem Sawatsky (editor) and Valerie Smith (editor)

Harmony and Dissent: How Peacebuilders are Transforming their Worlds is a resource book and sampling of the CSOP designed to engaged, equip and inspire peace and justice practitioners around the world. Formerly this was only accessible by attending the annual June School in Winnipeg, Canada. Each chapter of the book is authored by these peace leaders. It tells stories of inspiring peacework, offers case studies into communities embodying these lessons and offers the key resources of have helps shape these peace leaders. Authors include: Ovide Mercredi, Mubarak Awad, Stuart Clark, David Dyck, Martin Entz, Harry Huebner, Ouyporn Khuankaew, George Lakey, Ivo Markovic, Maxine Matilpi, Stan McKay, Piet Meiring, Sophia Murphy , Kay Pranis, and Karen Ridd.

http://csop.cmu.ca/peacebook/

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Resources

Heart of Hope: A Guide for Using Peacemaking Circles to Develop Emotional Literacy, Promote Healing & Build Healthy Relationships

By Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Pranis

This resource guide is designed for practitioners who work with youth, young adults, and their families within social services, violence/pregnancy prevention, education, and positive youth development programs. It offers a flexible set of tools that can be applied to a range of settings and for a variety of purposes. We believe that any caring and responsible individual can learn to use these practices safely, creatively, and effectively:

  • the peacemaking circle;
  • the practice of mindfulness/meditation; and
  • exercises and concepts derived from Power Source, an emotional awareness/emotional literacy program for at-risk youth and young adults.

The peacemaking circle is the core practice of the guide. In Heart of Hope (HOH), the peacemaking circle provides the environment in which participants develop emotional awareness and emotional literacy and learn to practice mindfulness. Users learn how to plan, create, and facilitate the peacemaking circle as a safe place for shared dialogue. The resource guide provides 50 step-by-step model circles. Each model circle offers activities for building and deepening relationships as well as for developing emotional awareness and emotional literacy. It also includes easy-to-use exercises in breathing, simple yoga, and meditation.

www.livingjusticepress.org/index.asp?SEC=%7B93AFCED1-3FDA-4DB1-83CA-A97EE3FEBC3A%7D&Type=B_BASIC&persistdesign=none

 

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Resources

Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water

By Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair (Editor) and Warren Cariou (Editor)

This anthology of Aboriginal writings from Manitoba takes readers back through the millennia and forward to the present day, painting a dynamic picture of a territory interconnected through words, ideas, and experiences. A rich collection of stories, poetry, nonfiction, and speeches, it features:

  • Historical writings from important figures
  • Vibrant literary writing by eminent Aboriginal writers
  • Nonfiction and political writing from contemporary Aboriginal leaders
  • Local storytellers and keepers of knowledge from far-reaching Manitoba communities
  • New, vibrant voices that express the modern Aboriginal experiences
  • Anishinaabe, Cree, Dene, Inuit, Métis, and Sioux writers from Manitoba

Created in the spirit of the Anishinaabe concept debwe (to speak the truth), The Debwe Series is a collection of exceptional Aboriginal writing from across Canada. Manitowapow, a one-of-a-kind anthology, is the first book in The Debwe Series. Manitowapow is the traditional name that became Manitoba, a word that describes the sounds of beauty and power that created the province.

Because the editors want to give back to the local Aboriginal communities that have inspired them with their words, Niigaan and Warren have chosen to donate the proceeds from Manitowapow to a special fund administered through the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba. This fund supports literacy and creative writing initiatives among Manitoba’s Aboriginal youth. Many of the book’s contributing authors and copyright holders have also joined in this initiative by donating their fees to help support the next generation of Aboriginal writers.

https://highwaterpress.com/product/manitowapow/

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Resources

Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World through Stories

By Jill Doerfler (Editor), Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair (Editor), Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (Editor)

For the Anishinaabeg people, who span a vast geographic region from the Great Lakes to the Plains and beyond, stories are vessels of knowledge. They are bagijiganan, offerings of the possibilities within Anishinaabeg life. Existing along a broad narrative spectrum, from aadizookaanag (traditional or sacred narratives) to dibaajimowinan (histories and news)—as well as everything in between—storytelling is one of the central practices and methods of individual and community existence. Stories create and understand, survive and endure, revitalize and persist. They honor the past, recognize the present, and provide visions of the future. In remembering, (re)making, and (re)writing stories, Anishinaabeg storytellers have forged a well-traveled path of agency, resistance, and resurgence. Respecting this tradition, this groundbreaking anthology features twenty-four contributors who utilize creative and critical approaches to propose that this people’s stories carry dynamic answers to questions posed within Anishinaabeg communities, nations, and the world at large. Examining a range of stories and storytellers across time and space, each contributor explores how narratives form a cultural, political, and historical foundation for Anishinaabeg Studies. Written by Anishinaabeg and non-Anishinaabeg scholars, storytellers, and activists, these essays draw upon the power of cultural expression to illustrate active and ongoing senses of Anishinaabeg life. They are new and dynamic bagijiganan, revealing a viable and sustainable center for Anishinaabeg Studies, what it has been, what it is, what it can be.

www.amazon.com/Centering-Anishinaabeg-Studies-Understanding-American/dp/1611860679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448571483&sr=8-1&keywords=Centering+Anishinaabeg+Studies%3A+Understanding+the+World+Through+Stories