Every official event in Sierra Leone begins with both a Muslim and a Christian prayer. Sierra Leoneans are a very religious people, and there is a fairly evenly split Muslim and Christian population here (who by the way coexist remarkably harmoniously – a topic for another post perhaps). For Constellating Peace 2, ….Keep reading this post >
Posts Categorized: News-and-events
Constellating Peace: A View from Sierra Leone
By James Momodu Dao Samba
(Sierra Leone) Our country’s journey to peace has been nothing short of inspiring. From the ashes of civil war, communities have found ways to heal, mend relationships, and build a future rooted in unity.
Now, a gathering called Constellating Peace is celebrating what Sierra Leone has achieved and bringing community leaders, peace activists, and government officials from around the world to learn from the nation’s work. Opening ….Keep reading this post >
Peace and development leaders are growing a global community—from the inside, out
I just arrived in Sierra Leone with my colleagues Charles Gibbs and Joni Celiz; we are readying to receive 50 of the most inspiring peace and development leaders, from all around the world, for a week-long immersion into the heart of the work and legacy of Fambul Tok and the inside-out approach we have been pioneering-in-practice together for the last 17 years.
The week in Sierra Leone is the centerpiece of ….Keep reading this post >
Showers of Recognition
Alongside New England’s record seasonal rainfalls, this spring and early summer have brought showers of recognition for The Answers Are There, with the book winning several major book awards. The Nautilus Awards, the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Nonfiction Authors Association, the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and Indie Excellence have all awarded it top honors, with several in more than one category. See below for more information on the individual awards.
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My New Book Braids Lessons From a Lifetime of Peacebuilding
How do we lead from wholeness, even in the middle of brokenness? This is a question I’ve held throughout my 30 years as an international peacebuilder. My new book The Answers Are There: Building Peace from the Inside Out, published in October, tells the story of how I’ve been doing that in practice and, especially, in partnership with Fambul Tok in Sierra Leone.
We’re confronted on a daily basis with the ….Keep reading this post >
Cultivating Learning and Design Spaces – Part 4
by Amy Czajkowski and Charles Gibbs
This is the fourth and final post of a four-part blog series exploring how to cultivate learning and design spaces for practitioners committed to community-centered peace and development. We understand such a space as one that invites knowledge, experience, wisdom and nuggets of insight from even the most painful experiences to address today’s questions and needs so we can create the new together. We are ….Keep reading this post >
Cultivating Learning and Design Spaces – Part 2
by Amy Czajkowski and Charles Gibbs
This is the second post of a four-part blog series exploring how to cultivate learning and design spaces for practitioners committed to community-centered peace and development. We understand such a space as one that invites knowledge, experience, wisdom and nuggets of insight from even the most painful experiences to address today’s questions and needs so we can create the new together. We are assuming that ….Keep reading this post >
How to Cultivate Learning and Design Spaces – Part I
by Amy Czajkowski and Charles Gibbs
An Overview and Invitation
At a time when people and systems seem overmatched by the size and urgency of the challenges we face, what worked for yesterday’s problems won’t solve today’s and won’t help us create the world we’d like to inhabit tomorrow. In the absence of a shared vision of a whole, healthy system with enlivened, mutually enriching partnerships at all levels, we teeter between ….Keep reading this post >
Sacred Opening in a Time of Pain and Possibility
The call of this moment
and of all moments
is to seek the light
and to face the darkness
within and without
with unflinching honesty
and unswerving devotion
to journey at least a little each day
toward enlightenment –
living in love,
fearless, joyous and free –
in service
to this glorious and wounded world.
As the coronavirus flows invisibly over the face of the Earth transforming life as we have known it and creating seemingly ….Keep reading this post >
As Our Work Grows, So Too Is Our Team
As our team continues to support the growth of a global community of learning and practice building peace from the inside out, we have also needed to grow our team. Beyond skillful administrative skills, we were looking for someone with experience and background in grassroots organizing, communications, and coalition building. Our new addition comes with that and more. He brings multi-cultural and multi-lingual resilience and spiritually-based formation that enriches our ….Keep reading this post >