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Media Video

Peacebuilders’ Banquet – Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair

Each week at the CSOP, we host a lunch banquet of great local food and storytelling by one of the week's instructors.  This is a time to gather as a community of peacebuilders, to celebrate with great food and to be inspired by the stories of peacebuilders from around the world. Take a few minutes to be renewed and inspired by this video from the CSOP banquet, June 16, 2016, with storyteller, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair.

 

Looking for more stories from the Canadian School of Peacebuilding?  Check out out other videos, audio stories, participant profiles or download a FREE copy of the e-book version of Voices of Harmony and Dissent: How Peacebuilders are Transforming Their Worlds, a collection of stories and essays by CSOP instructors.

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Media Video

Peacebuilders’ Banquet – Dessa Quesada-Palm

Each week at the CSOP, we host a lunch banquet of great local food and storytelling by one of the week's instructors.  This is a time to gather as a community of peacebuilders, to celebrate with great food and to be inspired by the stories of peacebuilders from around the world. Take a few minutes to be renewed and inspired by this video from the CSOP banquet, June 23, 2016, with storyteller, Dessa Quesada-Palm.

 

Looking for more stories from the Canadian School of Peacebuilding?  Check out out other videos, audio stories, participant profiles or download a FREE copy of the e-book version of Voices of Harmony and Dissent: How Peacebuilders are Transforming Their Worlds, a collection of stories and essays by CSOP instructors.

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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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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

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Resources

Recreating the World: A practical guide to building sustainable communities

By Michael Bopp and Judie Bopp

Rooted in decades of work with indigenous communities in the Americas, as well as extensive experience in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the former Soviet Union, "Recreating the world" is really two books woven together. The first is a down-to-earth exposition of models, principles and strategies for understanding what community development is and how it can be promoted. The second is a rich collection of stories, games, activities and tools that can be used to help others to learn about various aspects of community development practice. In this book, building sustainable community is presented as a primary strategy for solving critical human problems. Community building is not merely viewed as a means to an end, however. Sustainable community is a basic human need, and in its absence, human life becomes distorted, painful, and often self-destructive.

www.amazon.ca/Recreating-World-practical-sustainable-communities/dp/0968823319/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1448572420&sr=8-4&keywords=michael+bopp

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Resources

Sacred Tree: Reflections on Native American Spirituality

By Michael Bopp, Judie Bopp, Lee Brown and Phil Lane Jr.

The Sacred Tree was created by the Four Worlds Development Project, a native American inter-tribal group, as a handbook of Native Spirituality for indigenous peoples all over the Americas and the world. This handbook is being used by the Four Worlds Development Project to eliminate widespread drug and alcohol abuse in tribal communities. It is now being shared for the first time with all members of the human family desiring personal growth.

www.amazon.ca/Sacred-Tree-Reflections-Spirituality-Paperback/dp/B010WI2ZHK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448572077&sr=8-1&keywords=michael+bopp

 

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Resources

Concerning the Prophets: True and False Prophecy in Jeremiah 23:9–29:32

By Dan Epp-Tiessen

This book sheds light on the compositional history structure, and theology of the book of Jeremish by demonstrating that a large concentric unit of material focusing on true and false prophecy stands at the center of the book.  This unit, titled, "Concerning the Prophets" (23:9), utilizes the heritage of Jeremiah to contrast the nature of true and false prophecy in order to warn the Second Temple community of the disastrous consequences of false prophecy and to highlight the saving potential of true prophecy.  False prophecy leads to doom because it ignores the moral failings of the community, promises well-being in the face of catatrophy, and reinforces the misleading theological certainties of Judah's pre-587 way fo life.  In contrast, the true prophet Jeremiah challenges the faith community to embrace the physical and spiritual dislocation of the Babylonian destruction.  Post-disaster life stands under the saving purposes of YHWH, but the only way forward is to learn the painful lessons of catastrophe and heed the prophetic summons to repent and embrace a Torah-based way of life.

http://wipfandstock.com/concerning-the-prophets.html