All Peace Place training uses the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) approach and format. At Peace Place we offer special topics for 24 participants with six 3-hour sessions each:

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• Basic Empowerment (prerequisite). Community building, affirmation, speaking, listening, cooperation and transforming power (see AVPUSA.org or AVPInternational.org).  

• Resiliency. Self-care, companionship, memory reprocessing and mourning balanced with solidarity, grounding and play.  

• Developmental Play. Reconnecting with natural materials and other people through activities that develop and reconstitute fundamental cognition and social relationships.  

• Discernment. Cooperative thinking and decision-making through listening to conscience, exchanging feedback, seeking direction, settling disputes and recording agreements for a culture of peace and conscientious society.  

 

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An Annual International Peace Training

For one week in February each year gives people of all backgrounds an opportunity to learn together, build community and practice skills in empowerment, resiliency, play, discernment, and conscience. 

 

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Why do peace training in Pati?

Peace Place in Pati offers training in the universal elements of preserving peace translated into the Indonesian language applied within the Indonesian culture—homes, schools and communities. Peace Place share our learning about recovery from colonization and nonviolent responses in the midst of armed conflicts. Peace Place is readily accessible for many others in the region, to continue to spreading these tools and techniques in the region.

 

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What are workshops like?

How do you describe a space that has the power to change? Imagine a space where everyone is equal, and where everyone agrees to follow principles which are based on peaceful interaction. Imagine a space that creates a sense of belonging, community and safety. In this atmosphere, you are brave enough to speak, to change, to try new behaviours, and to discover the goodness in yourself. Once you affirm your own inner goodness, you are able to shine in the outside world and to see the goodness in other people. The workshops are experiential rather than lecture-based. Each workshop creates its own small peaceful world in which we can learn and practice how to cooperate with each other.

 

Workshops are facilitated by a team, so participants witness cooperation first-hand. Facilitators participate as fully as possible, to practice the tools and techniques themselves. AVP principles create a framework for power sharing, making friendships and agreements, slowing down, and showing respect for each other. Workshops balance experience and reflection, practice speaking and listening, and focus on personal change in our private and public lives. Workshops are open to everyone, drawing participants and facilitators from all religions, cultures, races and walks of life. The active learning style works well with all kinds of community groups, social agencies, youth organisations, and individuals of all ages.

 

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What are the goals of a training?

The goals of an AVP workshop are to build community, to build self esteem by affirming self and others, to learn communication, cooperation and conflict resolution skills. (Add Bittel's first name to make this seem less academic) Bittel (1999) theorizes that the AVP workshop works by essentially reversing the cycle of development that leads to violence, i.e., difficult life situations leading to low self- worth and low self-esteem, a lack of trust, disempowerment, a lack of responsibility and ultimately, violence. He feels that AVP works by reversing this cycle, through building self-worth and self-esteem, facilitating trust, revealing that one has choices, and developing responsibility, all of which lead to a person's being able to choose alternatives to violence in situations of conflict.

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Cooperative Agreements

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• Affirm self and others; no put-downs or put-ups, even in joking. 

• Stop, listen, don’t interrupt. 

• Speak simply and honestly, without fear of mistakes. 

• Speak from my own experience, not others’. 

• Be authentic and open to change. 

• Ask for and give feedback and help. 

• Tend to emotions, then speak directly to someone in dispute. 

• Build friendships with people like me and different from me. 

• Use what I need and share the rest. 

• Volunteer myself only, not others. 

• Exercise my rights to pass and to consult. 

• Care for myself, others, the group, the community and the land. 

• Live in integrity with life's transforming power.