US Servas Members as Peacebuilders--A National Conversation

1:00pm ET / 12pm CT/ 11am MT / 10:00am PT

US Servas Members as Peacebuilders—A National Conversation

Through the International Day of Peace, the United Nations reminds us that “Peace is more than the absence of war; it is the foundation necessary to collectively tackle humanity’s challenges. It is the lived experience of safety, dignity, opportunities and cooperation in our daily lives,” and “it is shaped by everyone, everywhere, every day.”

Servas is a peace organization, and this event is the first in a series of ongoing conversations sponsored by the Peace Team. At the August US Servas conference, participants were invited to identify and share one concrete action they wanted to take after the conference to build peace--at any level, from internal work to interpersonal relationships to advocacy for system/structural change. In this conversation, those participants are invited to connect with one another and share stories about what they did and what happened. BUT ALSO, all you other Servas members are invited to join this conversation and share specific examples of your work as peacebuilders—something you already do, or something you would like to take on--so the conversation goes far beyond the conference.

We’ll begin this first conversation as a whole group; your facilitator will suggest a process and some ground rules. Then we can go into breakout rooms where each of you can share a story of your work with about four or five other Servas members, hear their stories, and discuss what strikes you in this story exchange. When we return to the whole group, we will collect ideas about what follow-up group members would like to see, which could be as simple as scheduling more times for follow-up conversations, or could be to set up some form of training, or very likely a number of other good ideas will emerge.

I am excited to see what this diverse, talented, dedicated membership will do with this forum!

John Reiff, US Servas Peace Team