JERUSALEM | Seeds of Peace is offering its third year-long intensive training course in dialogue facilitation and conflict transformation, designed to provide professional peace-building skills and opportunities, for a select group of 20 Israelis and Palestinians beginning this fall.
Despite its significant value and need, peace-building is still a nascent professional field in Israel and Palestine. The Seeds of Peace course is designed as a meaningful introduction to dialogue facilitation and conflict transformation that can serve as a foundation for professional work in the field. Within five years, Seeds of Peace aims to have trained more than 150 Israelis and Palestinians that can form the base of a growing industry of conflict resolution professionals.
The course meets twice monthly in Jerusalem, over a period of nine months from October 2011 to July 2012. While participants gain a theoretical understanding of dialogue facilitation and conflict transformation, the Seeds of Peace course is unique in its emphasis on experiential learning and practice. Israeli and Palestinian participants go through their own dialogue experience, and facilitate dialogue within their group, in order to confront and contend with their own personal and political perspectives. Through the training process, the group forms interpersonal relationships and a deeper understanding of ‘the other side’ that, combined with practical skills-training, enables them to be exceptionally effective peace-building professionals.
Course participants are required to provide 40 hours of dialogue facilitation for local Seeds of Peace programs as part of their field experience. At the end of the nine months, a select group of the most talented facilitators will have the opportunity to lead dialogue sessions at the Seeds of Peace Camp.