Karuna Center for Peacebuilding
Karuna Center for Peacebuilding promotes a culture of peace through its training programs in conflict prevention, transformation and management, with a special emphasis on intercommunal dialogue and reconciliation.
The Karuna Center works in partnership with non-governmental organizations, community groups, and educational and religious institutions to design and deliver training and workshops in conflict transformation that builds trust and communication between conflicting groups. Mentored participants then become peacebuilding agents in their own communities.
The objective of Inclusive Security’s partnership with Karuna Center for Peacebuilding is to mainstream our distinct training methodology that emphasizes women as agents of peace in Karuna’s work. Inclusive Security and Karuna participate substantially in each others’ programming, from co-creating currcicula that fuse the two organizations’ training designs to collaborating on joint workshops around women, peace, and security in countries of mutual interest. Building on one anothers’ expertise advances the entrée and objectives of both Karuna and Inclusive Security.
Highlights
Transitioning to Democracy in Nepal
In February 2009, Evelyn Thornton, the Institute for Inclusive Security’s policy officer and administration manager, joined Karuna Center to facilitate trainings on peace building, leadership, and advocacy in Nepal, where women now make up 33 percent of the legislature, the highest percentage in Asia. In Kathmandu, they led a three-day workshop with women members of the Constituent Assembly that included representatives of Nepal’s leading political parties including the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist. Workshop participants were particularly interested in learning about women’s parliamentary caucuses in other parts of the world. They also identified strategies for increasing women’s leadership in constitution drafting and in political parties.
Negotiating Peace in Sri Lanka
In September 2008, Karuna Center Director Paula Green, gender expert Sanam Anderlini, and the Association of War Affected Women led a five-day workshop combining coalition building across ethnic and regional lines and training on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for women’ inclusion in all stages of peace processes. Participants developed an action plan for continuing their advocacy for peace through 2009. The workshop culminated in a conference in Colombo to invigorate implementation of UNSCR 1325 in future peace processes and peace negotiations in Sri Lanka. Read more here:
In January 2009, Inclusive Security partnered with the Harvard Program on Negotiation and International Civil Society Action Network (founded by Sanam Anderlini) to support a follow-up training program for a diverse cross-party group of high-level Sri Lankan women politicians prepared for negotiations, should they arise.
Securing Afghanistan: Women’s Vital Contributions
In September 2007 Inclusive Security and the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding jointly led a six-day multi-sector training seminar in Kabul, titled Securing Afghanistan: Women’s Vital Contributions. The training culminated in a policy forum held at the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and brought together more than 60 Afghan leaders and 17 international policy makers.
