Effective and Sustainable Reconciliation
On 21-23rd May 2010 Winchester Centre of Religions for Reconciliation and Peace organised a weekend consultation in partnership with St George’s House and St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace at St. George’s House in the magnificent grounds of Windsor Castle.
The consultation brought together internally recognised experts in reconciliation and peacebuilding: academics, religious leaders, and peace practitioners from countries as diverse as Australia, Israel, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland, came together to discuss the issues and problems involved in building effective and sustainable modes of conflict prevention, resolution, and reconstruction.
The consultation process was significantly enhanced by opportunity to draw on the experiences and knowledge of experts who have actively participated in numerous conflict resolution and peace processes. John Paul Lederach’s conceptual framework for sustainable reconciliation was used as a starting point for exploring issues in relation to understanding the nature and process of reconciliation. The role and effectiveness of different ‘tracks’ of communication; political, social and religious dimensions of reconciliation; building sustainability into reconciliation processes; the use of IT in preventing conflict; the cultural specificity of reconciliation processes; funding, monitoring, and evaluating reconciliation projects, were amongst the wide variety of issues discussed.
Whilst highly valuable in itself the St George’s consultation has been instrumental in identifying the urgent need for further research on a number of conceptual and practical issues in the areas of reconciliation and peacebuilding, and the report will be used to guide some of the future work of the Winchester Centre of Religions for Reconciliation and Peace.
To download a report based on the process and insights of the consultation please click here.