CPT provides training for Peacemaker Corps applicants to give skilled, courageous support to peacemakers working locally in situations of violent conflict. An intensive, integrated, 4 week training course involves participants in action, reflection, and practice of a variety of peacemaking skills:
• Biblical Basis for Nonviolence
• Spirituality and Faith for Peacemaking
• Public Witness and Nonviolent Direct Action
• Negotiation & Conflict Transformation Skills
• Ministry of Presence -- Listening, Observation, Documentation
• Cross-cultural Work and Undoing Racism
• Working in Teams
• Organizing and Communication Skills
CPT will be conducting a Peacemaker Corps Training in October 2009 for a group of 10-15 Corps applicants from Europe and the UK.
Applicants invited to participate in CPT’s training should commit to being present for the entire period. Final acceptance into the Peacemaker Corps or Reserve Corps is discerned upon completion of the training course.
Designed to be participatory, the training is characterized by a kaleidoscope of role plays, simulations, small group exercises and presentations.
It’s not exactly “boot camp,” nor can it simulate many of the conditions of international living that will likely be part of team members’ work. However it is important to gain some experience with each other working in stressful situations.
Days are long and full. Group housing conditions are simple and afford little privacy. Participants walk or use public transportation in an urban setting.
Every training includes one or two public witness events.
While CPT staff provide overall coordination of the training, a variety of trainers with significant experience in active peacemaking are brought in to facilitate the different training modules.
For more information, ring 0845 450 0214 or email timn@cpt.org
For more information about the content of the training see http://www.cpt.org/resources/training
Vietnam to Iraq: 40 years of Peacemaking
Pioneering Christian peace activist and organizer Gene Stoltzfus will be in the UK this January, speaking to groups around the UK about nonviolent intervention in situations of conflict and injustice.
Gene Stoltzfus was the director of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) since its founding in 1988 until September 2004. CPT trains and places violence reduction teams in high conflict situations like Iraq, the West Bank, Columbia and various native communities in the United States and Canada. Teams and peacemaker delegations have worked in Chiapas, Vieques, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. and investigative teams have visited Chechnya, Afghanistan, Congo and the Philippines.
Christian Peacemaker Teams UK is an umbrella group for regional CPT groups in the United Kingdom.
We provide support for CPT members and fellow travellers around the UK as they follow Christ's way of shalom both locally and internationally. We offer resources and speakers for churches around the UK interested in learning more about Christian Peacemaking.
We hope to raise the visibility of nonviolence as an alternative way of solving conflict and specifically introduce UK Christians to the work of CPT. We also want to build relationships with other like-minded organizations across the country.
We are encouraging members and friends to participate in the "Stop the Massacre : Israel Out of Gaza" National demonstration Saturday 10 January. This starts with speakers in Hyde Park and continues with a march to Israeli Embassy, High St Kensington, London.
Pax Christi invites members, other Christian or faith groups who wish to join, to gather in silence from 12.15 at the area marked Brook Gate slightly south of Speakers Corner and parallel to Park Lane (looking out for the Pax Christi banner).
People can choose to stay together or join those listening to speakers until the move off.
Weblink below
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/idmap.srf?x=527625&y=180875&z=106&sv=527625,180875&st=4&ar=N&mapp=idmap.srf&searchp=ids.srf&ax=527765&ay=180884&lm=0
Our Quaker friends have posters with the word Peace in English, Hebrewand Arabic - if you wish they can be collected from Friends House,Euston Road from 10.00 am on Saturday.
"Friends,
I will be leaving for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire) in early December with three other CPTers to be part of an experimental three month violence reduction project. We go at the request of the Martin Luther King Group in Goma, an invitation that came last year to the third Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation into that Great Lakes Region of Central Africa.
The DRC is a very resource rich country. The conflict is a resource war, complicated by two civil wars and the tribal struggle remaining from the genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda during 1993. Goma lies in the triangle of the eastern DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, just north of Lake Kivu. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans fled to this area, especially those connected to the Hutu fighters in the aftermath of the Tutsi genocide. Alliances developed in the DRC with other militia groups and the DRC military and Gen. Nkunda, a Tutsi, formed a Rwanda-allied militia in the DRC, purportedly to protect Tutsis living in the DRC.
A "Songs of Praise" about old age is being broadcast this Sunday, 23 November, at 1720 hrs, on BBC1, and one of the people interviewed is one of our own. Be sure to check it out if you get the chance!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006ttc5/comingup
Israel vs Hamas
Schools in Hebron are being closed and other charitable organisations put under pressure by an Israeli state convinced they are the conduits for Hamas funding and propaganda. But the result is more fear and hatred...
www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2008/10/israel-hamas-palestinian
Presenter(s): CPT, EAPPI, ISM
Sixty years after the creation of the state of Israel, tensions in the Holy Land continue to capture the attention of the world, and continue to divide people of all faiths across the globe.
Come and spend a day with representatives from three organizations working to reduce violence in the region: Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine Israel (EAPPI), and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
As well as hearing first hand understandings of the conflict, there will be opportunities for discussion and interactive learning around different strands of non-violent accompaniment and violence reduction methods. Violence is never the only way.
Saturday 27 September, at the London Mennonite Centre
9:30 am to 4:00 pm
Fee: £20 (£10 unwaged)
Fee includes VAT and meal
Recommended Reading: Hebron Journal: Stories
of Nonviolent Peacemaking by Arthur Gish; Peace Under Fire, Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement edited by Nicholas Blincoe et al; My Name is Rachel Corrie: Taken from the writings of Rachel Corrie edited by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner
www.palsolidarity.org, www.eappi.org, www.cpt.org
To book a place email crosscurrents@menno.org.uk or call 0845 450 0214. For more information visit www.menno.org.uk.
by Tricia Gates Brown (Ed.)
On November 26, 2005, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) members Tom Fox and Jim Loney along with delegation members Norman Kember and Harmeet Sooden were kidnapped in Iraq. Tom Fox was killed on March 9, 2006. Jim, Norman and Harmeet were freed two weeks later on March 23 after 118 days of captivity. The kidnapping of these four peacemakers was like a rock thrown into a pond. This collection describes the ripples on the water, the impact and results of that rock, in stories characterized by hope, courage, friendship, and forgiveness. 118 Days bears witness to vital peacemaking being done around the world in these times.
CPT corps members and CPT supporters will gather on April 19th to pray and brainstorm together about how we can most effectively support the movement for peace and justice in the Middle East.
If you have been feeling either particularly discouraged or especially motivated in the wake of the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the newest wave of violence in Israel/Palestine, this forum will speak to those struggles.