2003 PJSA Conference Highlights

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Art and culture are powerful tools for social change. Music, poetry, spoken word and other creative expressions have played a vital role in fueling and sustaining struggles for justice and peace throughout history. This community celebration will feature both local and national artists who will share their creative work. In addition to invited artists, community members and conference participants will have the opportunity to sign up and participate in the program.

Featured artists include: poet Sam Hamill, the founder of Poets Against the War, singer and song-writer Elizabeth Hummel, the founder of Olympia's Open Stage for Peace, and Jay Sicilia and Planet Percussion

Eli Sterling from Earthbound Production and the Procession of the Species Celebration will be our Master of Ceremony for the evening

If you would like to share your creative talents, please contact us via email at pjsa@evergreen.edu with "Open Stage for Peace" in the subject or call us at: 360-867-6196

Mindful Movement
led by Mukti Khanna

This practice will integrate gentle Tai Ji, Chi Gung and Vinyasa flowing yoga sequences to celebrate bring fully present in heart-mind, body and spirit. Grounded in breath and movement, we are able to open to inspiration and creativity to enhance our presence of being peacemakers in the world. No prior movement experience necessary.

In mid-August 2003, members of Voices in the Wilderness, Al-Awda, the International Solidarity Movement, and Middle East Children's Alliance took to the road in a colorfully decorated full-size school bus for the Wheels of Justice Tour. Several participants in this project will be with us throughout the conference.

Having seen and lived with war, terror and occupation in Iraq and Palestine, they will share first-hand experiences irrespective of partisan politics and sound bite sloganeering. To build upon and reassert the massive domestic opposition to war against Iraq and occupation of the Palestinians, the Wheels of Justice Tour is dedicated to education, outreach, nonviolence/action training, active resistance, and community-building.

This evening is a tribute to Rachael Corrie, our beloved community activist who was crushed by an Israeli Bulldozer on March 16, 2003, while trying to prevent a house demolishing.

1. University Peace Studies: Prospects and Challenges
   Fr. David Smith, University of St. Thomas
   Connie Popp, University of Wisconsin, Milwakee
2. Religious and Spiritual Roots of Peacemaking
   
   Facilitator: Glen Anderson, Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation
   This workshop will focus on the religious and spiritual beliefs or values that motivate work for peace and justice. This workshop is designed to help participants explore more deeply how their own faith and values inspire and guide their involvement with peace and justice issues. Participants will deepen their understanding and appreciation of the various faiths and values through interaction and sharing with others. We will create a safe space and encourage an open-minded exchange based on respecting and appreciating the insights and motivations arising from all kinds of spiritual, religious, and value-based sources.
   Glen Anderson has worked hard for nearly 35 years on a wide variety of peace   justice issues, especially through the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a broadly interfaith pacifist organization. He has helped people of various religious backgrounds explore Conscientious Objection and the power of nonviolence. Glen's writings and workshops often explore strategic approaches to nonviolent social and political change. They often combine theory and a wealth of practical applications.
3. Expressions of Peace
4. Developing a Peace Curriculum for Communities
   Facilitator: Mukti Khanna, The Evergreen State College
   In this workshop, participants will explore person centered expressive arts, image theatre and nonviolent communication to express cultural stories and transform intergenerational transmission of conflict. Working with the ethical framework of the Earth Charter and Sharif Abdullah's "Common Society Movement," how can we create a cultural story inside ourselves that radiates the harmony of life? We will explore ideas from Sharif Abdullah's "Creating a World that Works for All" by sharing a global vision based on inclusivity and common benefit. Witnessing and acknowledging images representing the essence of what each side needs allows communities to transform intergenerational cycles of violence and open our hearts to transpersonal dimensions of radiance and interbeing. Central themes to be explored include the linking of personal action and social transformation, the transforming enemy images through comprehensive compassion and ways of co-creating a global culture of peace.
   Mukti Khanna is a clinical psychologist and expressive arts specialist. She has been working with diverse communities to create community dialogues on violence and nonviolence, racism and violence, environmental sustainability and respect and disrespect. She was a recipient of the Noetic Sciences Arts and Healing in Community grant program serving the Southern Ute Indian reservation and Southwestern Colorado high schools. She has developed expressive arts dialogues for the Gandhi Institute, National Civil Rights Museum and Face to Face with Diversity. She is a Member of the Faculty of The Evergreen State College.
5. Developing a Peace Curriculum for Communities
   Facilitator: Nancy Hanawi, Co-chair, PJSA Board of Directors
   What do people need in order to be effective peacebuilders in their own communities and in the world? What specific knowledge, skills, understandings and beliefs would lead people to be part of the peace movement and make them more effective participants? In what settings and formats should such learning be offered? To address these questions, this workshop will offer an opportunity for people to share specific ideas and examples of community-based peace education. We will then attempt to discuss some guiding principles and core concepts, as well as possible formats and settings for community peace education
   Nancy Hanawi is co-chair of PJSA's Board of Directors and the co-president of the Center for Social Redesign (CSR), a non-profit consulting organization with a 25-year history. She has been a tenured mathematics professor, a Dean and college President. In recent years, her academic interests and experience have been primarily on peace and conflict studies. In this field she has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley for 10 years. There she has developed and taught several new courses and redesigned and taught the introductory course and senior seminar.
6. Integrating Diversity and Social Justice Issues into K-12 Curriculum
   Facilitators: Evan Hastings, Olympia
   This interactive workshop will address the problems K-12 teachers face daily in their classrooms as they attempt to integrate questions of identity and difference, current events and social justice issues into the curriculum. The workshop will draw examples from existing curriculum to address these issues as well as engage participants in creating original lesson plans tailored to the particular needs of the students they work with.