SI MONTHLY NEWS August 2006 Exco Info
From SI Exco News
Starting Point: New Servas
International Photo Contest!
An on-line photo exhibition and international photo contest will be opened for Servas hosts and travelers, and you are invited to help start the first pilot test.
Theme of the exhibit and contest is: "Peaceful Faces, Peaceful Places and Peaceful Deeds".
Any member of any Servas Group and their friends will be able to display their pictures in a free "digital warehouse" managed by Easel.ca Photos would be freely accessible in the on-line gallery. Your photos would remain your property. Additional access to some photos would be arranged, for educational uses reserved by Servas.
This is not just a global photo show for expert photographers. It will include images captured by new talent and everyday people. If a pilot project shows it is successful, it will help link Servas people to each other, and to their interpretations of peace.
High quality photos will be selected by an International Judges Panel including a renowned photographer and a distinguished member of the UN. Organizers are now seeking interest among Servas Member Groups, to twin with each other, to arrange for the first-ever international sister exhibitions of the Servas International Photos for Peace Project.
The Servas International Photos for Peace Project advances peace on two levels. It combines the community-building and friendship-building functions of Servas International and Easel.ca, bringing together art and community in global outreach. Founded in August 2004, Easel.ca is an online arts community specializing in the promotion of original works of art of all mediums. This is a non-commercial use of its specialty approach.
By entering you may:
• visually interpret any of the dramatic stories of peace with photography displayed globally by Easel.ca facilities;
• extend your personal communities of friendship and intercultural understanding.
Through the Servas system of hosted travel, you can also advance cross-cultural understanding by choosing to visit people, places and activities similar to those featured in the photos.
Additional technical details of how to submit photos have already been arranged and will be tested.
What we need now, are signals from Member Groups that they would like to participate in the first pilot project. Who wants to be among the first? Please let us know.
Gary Sealey: president[at]servas.org
Russians and Chechens work together on developing Constructive Nonviolent Conflict Management
by Pat Patfoort
(Pat Patfoort did an excellent job as one of the moderators at the eGA. Pat works in Conflict Management, which should be part of what we do as Servas members. She has written various papers on her work. They are quite long and so extracts have been taken to give us ideas and help us to see our way forward in the world. If you are interested in the complete paper then contact the newsletter email).
We have brought Russians and Chechens together, during two one-week seminars, the first in St- Petersburg and the second in Rostov, in October 2005. The objectives of these seminars were to learn more about violence and conflicts, to develop knowledge and skills in nonviolence and nonviolent conflict management, and to learn to use those concretely, first in ordinary daily cases, and then in the conflict between Russians and Chechens.
In each group there were about 16 participants, including teachers, educators, social workers, directors of schools and libraries, psychologists (for instance involved in rehabilitation of children and teenagers, or working with immigrants, or in psychiatric hospitals with people who committed physical injuries, or in prisons), lawyers, journalists, members of humanitarian organisations and human rights organisations. In the beginning of the seminar each participant presented him/herself and expressed his/her expectations.
(Following are the topics covered)
1) Expectations of the participants for this seminar
2) Associations with pain and suffering
3) Transforming conflicts from the individual to the inter-ethnical level
4) Working on solutions
5) Meeting of Russians and Chechens in Equivalency
6) Evaluation and results of this seminar
One of many:
Here we felt as if it was a real solution, but there is still lack of trust. We need to build confidence between people in real negotiations.
I wish the description of this seminar will help others to think about how hatred, images of enemies, prejudices and despair can be replaced by communication, understanding, respect and hope.
