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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Laura Ingalls (laura.ingalls@worldlearning.org) in Washington, 1.202.464.6973

SIT Summer Course Teaches the Art of Global Peacemaking

BRATTLEBORO (May 27, 2010) -- A Sudanese relief worker and a Pakistani woman who works to counter sectarian violence are among the more than 52 peacemakers from around the world taking part in this summer's Conflict Transformation Across Cultures program. The CONTACT course, running from May 31 to June 18, is offered by the SIT Graduate Institute, a program of World Learning.

Over the last 14 years, CONTACT has trained peacebuilders from more than 60 countries. Some of the program's most prominent alumni include Nobel Peace Prize nominee Shelley Anderson and Nigerian peacemakers and former foes Rev. James Movel Wuye and Imam Muhammed Nurayn Ashafa.

"The highlight of my CONTACT experience was meeting dedicated activists for peace from many different countries," said Anderson. "It is the personal stories that stay with me: the story of the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors and her dialogue with the daughter of a Nazi official; the story of the Palestinian who, after showing the scars on his back from cigarette burns inflicted by an Israeli soldier, told how he wept after visiting Auschwitz."

CONTACT participants complete an intensive professional development course that covers conflict analysis, interventions and strategies for use in protracted conflicts, and the essential tools of peacebuilding such as dialogue, mediation and training.

This year's participants hail from at least 23 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas. Several of the students are available for media interviews about the program, including:

• Mohamed Arbab, the national field coordinator for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in West Darfur. Originally from Sudan, Arbab has coordinated relief efforts for victims of the conflict in Darfur since 2006.
  
  
• Mir Abdul Wali Sadat, an associate program officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Afghanistan. Sadat will oversee the implementation of a peaceful co-existence program in Afghanistan's central region, which has historically been divided by conflict.
  
  
• Mehlaqa Samdani, a Pakistani native who works for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. She plans to mobilize religious leaders, educators, and human rights activists in Pakistan to oppose militancy across ethnic and sectarian lines.
  
  
• Miriam Dror, an American psychological counselor who worked in the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Dror hopes to combine CONTACT program techniques with the indigenous peacemaking skills she acquired in training with a Navajo elder peacemaker.
  
  

Learn more about World Learning:

SIT Graduate Institute
SIT Study Abroad
International Honors Program
International Development and Exchange
The Experiment in International Living