NONVIOLENCE DIALOGUE TRAINING

Since 1999, one of the Center's missions has been to support everyday citizens in nonviolent dialogue across conflict divides. We offer training in nonviolent conflict resolution for diverse organizations, from gang intervention to international peacebuilding (See our South Caucasus Peacebuilding Programs: Distance Learning and Dialogue Project and Black Sea Project). Promoting skills and structures in nongovernmental sectors ensures reconciliation and is conducive to ultimately developing safe, civil and stable societies.

 

• GANG INTERVENTION TRAINING

For more information about our training program click here.

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• DISTANCE LEARNING AND DIALOGUE PROJECT (2011-2016)

Donors

The project was funded by USAID, UCI Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, and UCI Distance Learning Center.

Partners

Our partners in the program included 6 local university faculty, 95 university students and young professionals located in Georgia/Abkhazia/South Ossetia.

Main Objectives / Purpose

The purpose was to build people-to-people relationships between 95 Abkhaz, Georgian, and South Ossetian youth through online courses and in-person conferences together with around 225 UCI students in 6 distance learning courses (2011-2015) and 2 in-person conferences at UCI (2014 and 2015). The courses were designed to provide all students with knowledge, skills, and abilities to analyse causes and consequences of conflict over territory and sovereignty; generate a problem and solution analysis of case studies; write a policy paper convincingly arguing a policy position based on data analysis, write and present a briefing memo, and mediate between different parties of a conflict. The goal was to build a foundation of trust among the South Caucasus and US students so that they could learn from each other about their societies and conflicts and connect with each other in positive ways that would lead to long-term relationships. This is what we had accomplished in the series “Aspects of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict. Another goal was to give South Caucasus students practice in discussing their conflicts with an international audience unfamiliar with their communities and the conflicts. For an independent assessment of our South Caucasus programs, please see -- Analysis of 30+ Years of Working with Conflict in the Georgian-Abkhaz-South Ossetian Contexts (Indie Peace).

Main Activites / Strands of Work / Methodology

• 6 distance learning courses
• 2 in-person conferences at UCI (2014 and 2015)
• Meetings in the region with project leaders, local university students and faculty, local NGOs, political leaders, diplomats, international representatives in the region
• Although the courses were developed primarily by UCI faculty, the project was designed in consultation with local participants taking the lead on what type of courses and related activities were most beneficial locally and for the sake of building people-to-people relationships
• Wide dissemination of the project results in each community
• Certificates of completion of courses were awarded to all the South Caucasus students.

Main Outcomes and Outputs

The framework of education as a context for fostering constructive dialogue has produced many positive outcomes, and lessons learned to enhance future people-to-people reconciliation among youth. Through the online courses and in-person meetings, students were able to:

• Examine their own conflict from the perspective of others (the UCI students, faculty, and other students from the conflict zone). They were able to see their conflict in a more global context and understand better how global and regional agendas affect the dynamics of the conflict.
• Explore new platforms for dialogue - online learning platforms, Skype, and Zoom.
• Develop independent views on their own conflicts and on other conflicts.
• Discuss issues more freely than in traditional bilateral discussions because of interactions with US students. The presence of American students and faculty greatly helped to establish a trusting environment. The questions that the American students asked also opened up topics that might otherwise be avoided. Students were able to address these topics in constructive ways.
• Establish connections that would extend outside the program. Most of the participants, including the coordinators, are communicating outside the project, mainly through Facebook and Skype.
• Local participants reported that the project format allowed for more relaxed and authentically personal group dynamics than other dialogue platforms. This may have been because the core of the project was learning, not dialogue. As a result, participants may have felt less stressed interacting online and in person at the conferences. Furthermore, it takes considerable time for people to open up to each other across a conflict divide. According to the participants, the courses gave them the time needed for this delicate process of building trust and easing of communication. This, in turn, created more room for understanding and acceptance of other positions. Another factor that the Abkhaz said predisposed them to open up authentically to all the participants was that youth in Abkhazia who aspire to better education, but feel blocked by political circumstances, felt this project gave them equal access to education.
• The project was also positively received by parents and other family and friends of Abkhaz participants because the students were able to participate in a US educational environment. Many Abkhaz believe that Georgia and the West want to prevent Abkhaz from having equal access to Western education and travel. Thus, they were sceptical of the possibilities to participate in an educational program in the US. They were pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Students and their circle of friends contacted the Abkhaz coordinator to find out how they or their relatives and friends could participate in this type of educational project in the future. Parents, teachers and students spreading the word about this positive project. This kind of enthusiasm for the program opens the potential for Abkhaz parents and others to support and lobby for more such programs. This, in turn, can have a positive impact on perceptions of the West, of Georgian policies, and of access to education in the West. This is a very important transformation occurring; Abkhaz students are eager to meet with Georgians.

The participants in the courses and conference now have a face to the other side. They have expressed that they can feel what the others might be feeling, what they care about, and the complexities. The interaction has given them understanding of all the layers and players that are influencing the dynamics of the whole process. They recognize that there are not quick answers easily available, that much time will be needed to find resolution to the conflict. But all feel that what they did was a step forward, even if a small step. In February 2020, the Georgian and Abkhaz coordinators of this project presented their experiences and analysis of this project at a 2-day conference marking the 20th anniversary of UCI’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, thus renewing their friendship in person, and sharing their views about the program’s value and lessons learned.

Main Challenges and Lessons Learned

The challenges were:

• Technical issues associated with Wi-Fi in individual homes and workplaces that sometimes hindered direct communication in real time with the US instructor and students. These problems were the greatest in South Ossetia.
• The time difference of 11-12 hours between the region and California necessitated early morning classes in California for all students to interact in real time. The earliest times for the California class was in the evening for all students in the region who were home at that time, not at their university where they could be together and where Wi-Fi might be stronger.
• Course schedulers were not always able to accommodate faculty request for morning time slots.
• In the future it would be preferrable to offer such courses from US universities on the East Coast, and better yet, in European universities, thus closing the large gap in time difference.
• Even the students with the best English language knowledge found the course material challenging and needed additional time to complete written assignments, and more help from faculty.
• Students met with some scepticism from their communities about their participation in the dialogue aspects of the courses, but all agreed that those challenges outweighed the benefits everyone saw in participating in US university courses and engaging with US students.
• Students who participated in the conferences noted that if they had been able to meet with their Georgian/Abkhaz/South Ossetian counterparts in person before the online course, they might have felt more comfortable interacting with them online. This would require more funding for an additional meeting but would be worthwhile for the sake of dialogue.
• Unfortunately, no further funding was possible to continue the project after 2016.

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• BLACK SEA PROJECT (1994-1998)

Donors

The project was funded by the Winston Foundation for World Peace, Open Society Institute, Hewlett Foundation, UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the UCI Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.

Local Partners

Our partners included 12-16 civil society actors, sociologists, Black Sea environmentalists and scientists.

Main Objectives / Purpose

The purpose was to bring together Abkhaz and Georgians who shared similar concerns about the degradation of the Black Sea and surrounding environment. The topic was considered a good place to begin facilitating dialogues to help the sides in the conflict reach a mutually satisfactory peaceful resolution. For an independent assessment of our South Caucasus programs, please see -- Analysis of 30+ Years of Working with Conflict in the Georgian-Abkhaz-South Ossetian Contexts (Indie Peace).

Main Activites / Strands of Work / Methodology

• Conducted 6 focus groups, over a hundred in-depth interviews, and collected newspaper and other media reports of peace activities
• Facilitated 8 forums of local environmental activists, scientists, members of other NGOs interested in working on joint projects to promote confidence-building and the peace process
• The above activities led to plans for additional forum activity
• One of the forums was held at UCI in February 1998. It was a meeting of scientists from Georgia/Abkhazia, from the UC system, including UCI and UCSD’s Scripp’s Institution of Oceanography, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Marine Board of the US National Academy of Sciences
• The focus of the 1998 forum was to identify and begin working on issues of common interest that threaten the Black Sea ecosystem
• Consistent communication with local partners by email/phone in between visits to the region.

Main Outcomes and Outputs

• Participants were interviewed about the project for local publications, TV and radio programs
• UCI produced a video showing the highlights of the forum discussions and interviews with the participants
• Plans to organize the next forum in 1999 which became the first in the series ‘Aspects of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict’

Main Challenges and Lessons Learned

The biggest challenge was our discovery after the 1998 conference that this topic for joint projects was related to major security concerns at the political level. Both sides at the NGO level shared similar concerns about the well-being of the Black Sea and the surrounding environment, but the political leaders would not allow the participants to do research together, or share sensitive information obtained by one side or the other about conditions on their side of the ceasefire line. That is why the next forum/conference that we organized became the first one in the series ‘Aspects of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict’. We never returned to the topic of Black Sea environmental issues.

 

Further information regarding this effort along with others in the context of the Georgian-Abkhaz-South Ossetian conflict may be found in a report published by Indie Peace (Independent Peace Associates): Analysis of 30+ Years of Working with Conflict in the Georgian-Abkhaz-South Ossetian Contexts, 12 April 2021