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Seen here are participants of the training in peace-building, mediation and dialogue that was conducted at the NEISSR in Dimapur.[/caption]
Dimapur, Oct. 13 (EMN): With the objective of creating awareness about the present conflict situations in the society and to train the religious leaders peacemaking activities, the peace channel in collaboration with north east institute of social sciences and research ( NEISSR) and people’s forum for peace (PFP) organised a training of trainers (TOT) on peace building, mediation and dialogue held in Dimapur at the NEISSR conference hall on Oct. 13 which was attended by religious leaders from different religion.
Director of peace channel, Dr. Fr. CP Anto, in his keynote address, said the seminar for the leaders was a much felt need to train them to prevent conflict, involve in peace making and promoting peace. While congratulating all the religious leaders for their tireless contribution towards the society for a peaceful society, Fr. Anto said that the multi cultural co-existence in the society is an asset.
He asked the participants to ponder upon the questions: What is the role of a religious leader and community leaders towards peace building? What is the way forward to build a peaceful society? and How to make our dream of making a peaceful society a reality?
He encouraged all the religious leaders to take a step forward to bring people together, train them for dialogue and mediation in order to promote peace, by intervening in times of conflict through peaceful means and prevent further conflict.
Resource person of programme, Dr. Deben Baschaspatimayum, asst. professor, NEISSR and ‘peace skills trainer’, emphasised on the socio-political and legal context at global, regional, national and local levels within which dialogue facilitation and mediation works need to be located
While highlighting on the number of international and national issues which were solved mediation and dialogue process, Dr. Baschaspatimayum asked the religious leaders to ponder upon who could be the right mediator especially basing on the local experiences of violent conflict within the Naga society.
He also initiated a brainstorming exercise where the participants shared a number of core values and characteristics of mediation based on local experiences of violent conflicts within the Naga society.
Some of the core values shared during the brainstorming session was about ‘having a clear knowledge of common goals, being truthful, neutral, sincere and honest; of being having the knowledge of cultural worldviews, analytical skills, being non-judgmental, being selfless’ etc.
The training programme was compèred by Patrick Tungoe, coordinator of peace channel. Programme coordinator, peace channel, Chumdemo Odyuo welcomed the participants.
Welcome address by Chumdemo Odyuo, Programme Coordinator, Peace Channel.. Dr. Fr. CP Anto, Director, Peace Channel delivered the keynote address. After the training, there was an open discussion where the religious leaders from different religions shared about their understanding on peace and the skills needed for dialogue and mediation to solve conflicting issues.
