The No War, No Warming Training
The great, intense, fun-filled and deep 7-day Erasmus+ funded training "No War, No Warming" held by Nina Koevoets and myself, took place from 6-14 July 2023 in the beautiful Apuseni mountains of Romania, near the small village Măguri-Răcătău, an hour from Cluj.
A lively group of youth workers, activists and teachers from Slovakia, Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Romania joined us for the week as we dived into pivotal peacebuilding skills, as well as strategic nonviolent movement tools, coupled with a thorough theoretical grounding in the current (systemic) realities of this world.
From a theoretical lens, we looked at the interlinkages of war and global warming, and covered topics like the grotesque asymmetry between money flowing into the military industrial complex compared to money flowing into peacebuilding and nonviolent conflict resolution skills and peace education, as well as shared stories and examples from the different cultural and historical contexts of our participants.
Practically, we approached and practised peacebuilding on the three different levels (personal, interpersonal and societal), experienced and reflected on how our emotions are linked to our bodies and physical sensations and how all this is shaped and influenced by the cultural contexts and collective/family belief systems that we operate within.
learning in nature, and with fun
We then made space for practising and remembering gratitude as essential practise, and began to delve into and learn about the basics of nonviolent communication, conflict resolution, restorative justice, and bystander intervention techniques - both in theory and especially through experiential exercises and role plays so the new skills could slowly become part of our lived reality.
Next to the daily practice of peacebuilding skills we also made space to explore social movement dynamics and a range of social change strategies, including the different roles people take within a movement, the spectrum of allies to take into consideration when planning an activity, or the different stages that social movements often take, based on Bill Moyer’s research.
Every day, the participants met in action groups to work on their personalised action plans that they would then implement once back home to put their learning into action and share it with more people, especially the youth they work with.
One day, we were also visited by some of the employees of Patrir, the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania, while Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen, the president of Patrir joined us via Zoom to give an inspiring and moving talk and Q&A session.
While every day was filled with intense study and activity, we were held and hosted by the beautiful forests of Măguri-Răcătău, in the venue Pensiunea Valea Paradisului (Paradise Valley) right by (and across) a small mountain stream from which we even took our drinking water.
It was a great week together, with effortless and fun collaboration between Nina and me - even though it was the first time working together.
Here’s to more peace education, intercultural learning and nonviolent conflict resolution, knowing that peace is an ongoing practice and begins with(in) us!
