Beyond Violence: Creating a Culture of Peace is dialogue based convening of representatives of the various peace and nonviolence movement networks. The convening seeks to provide a collaborative listening space in which we learn and share our methods and results in peace and violence-interruption work. The intention in creating this space is to welcome the emergence of a narrative that could help reset society to a peace culture. This convening hopes to lay out a template that can be used for future local and regional convenings. The convening welcomes all faith, religious, spiritual, and social peace & justice groups which focus on peace work. We use the term peace work as a very broad category.
The Saturday afternoon (1-7) pm agenda includes:
Opening Welcome and interactive icebreaker
A keynote
A round of World Café Conversations (a set of three small group conversations in which participants rotate to different tables of four each per question).
A panel discussion
A second round of World Café Conversations
Concluding remarks.
The Sunday afternoon (1-6pm) agenda is a work session:
Welcome and Framing Open Space collaboration (Open Space Technology is a process by which a group self-organizes to identify the issues and projects which they want to collaborate on)
Concluding Keynote
Open Space generates multiple small groups that meet simultaneously. There can be two to three sessions, depending on group size and interests.