Category Archives: healing communities

When Global Becomes Local — Support my home town’s Global Village School for a music grant

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Fairnessworks focuses on local, interpersonal peacemaking efforts, so I suppose it’s fair for me to ask my subscribers to log on and vote for Global Village School, located in my home region of Decatur, Georgia, to enable them to receive a small grant for its music program.

Decatur Georgia Global Village School GOOD Foundation grant

The local is the global at Global Village School in Decatur, Georgia.

Elise Witt, a music teacher at the school,  is applying for a special grant of $2500 from GOOD. The grant is specifically for arts-related projects that make a difference. It would be their kick-off money for the Global Village School’s Music Program/One Voice Chorus next year. But the winner is chosen by having the most public votes.
So, I am asking you to please go to this website and cast your vote.  Naturally, I would like for you to vote for Global Village School, but when you arrive at the site you will find many appealing proposals, and you may decide to vote for a program other than my pet project.  That’s OK, just vote and spread the word about the GOOD Foundation.

Global Village School is for teenage refugee girls from Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan, and Central African Republic. The grantseekers want to create a chorus to become the public face of the school and to leverage further funding for this unique institution that serves girls whose formal education has been interrupted by war and refugee camp experiences.

Music is an important part of the GVS innovative curriculum, and the One Voice Chorus will reflect both the diversity of the student population and the effectiveness of music as a tool for learning English as well as Science, Math, and Social Studies.

Recovery from the effects of war-ravaged regions depends on programs such as those offered at Global Village School in Decatur, GA.  Peacemaking begins in small local communities such as these.  Please visit the GOOD website and consider voting for their grant proposal.

If you vote online, please share your choice here, using the COMMENTS section.

 

 

Former State Supreme Court Justice Calls for Restorative Justice to Repair Harm in Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse

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Judge Janine P. Geske, former Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, is calling on the Roman Catholic Church to use restorative justice practices to address the many harms caused by the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

Judge Janine P. Geske urges Roman Catholics to use Restorative Justice in clergy sexual abuse scandal

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine P. Geske has applied

Reported in a lengthy article in the August issue of the Saint Anthony Messenger, on AmericanCatholic.org, the proposal to employ the methods of restorative justice is nothing new for the longtime jurist, now a distinguished professor of law at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI.  The law school supports a Restorative Justice Initiative.

Judge Geske envisions using a restorative justice approach in relationships beyond the offending priests and their victims. Parishoners in congregations where the sexual abuse occurred are also in need of healing, she asserts.

“The whole approach here is: Who was harmed and what is the ripple effect of that harm?” explains Judge Geske.  In much the same way victims of sexual abuse are told, “Just let go of it and move on,” congregations whose priests and young parishioners were involved in the scandal are also expected to act as if the harms already have been healed.

The effort is to promote understanding and healing,
to whatever degree possible, to both victims and criminals.  It can be applied in any situation, including the Church.

Evangelical Leader Offers a Hopeful View of Interfaith Dialog and Solving Global Problems

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Unfortunately, religious zealotry often fuels the fires of conflict around the world. In a refreshing counterpoint to this reality, the Rev. Richard Cizik offers an optimistic assessment of the role of religious leaders and faith communities in forging peace through understanding.

Ultimately, interfaith dialogue is about reaching common ground to solve the world’s problems, says the Rev. Richard Cizik, of The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, and throughout the world religious leaders and religious communities can be seen leading the way.

http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_4mmsgm8e/uiconf_id/48501

The Healing Power of Storytelling in Sudan: Another Gem from Odyssey Networks

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Milcah Lalam is a peace building development specialist who serves in war-torn countries, focusing on the devastating trauma of war. She specializes in helping victims of rape and abuse, women, children and the many people who are displaced by endless war in their homelands.

In her work with RECONCILE International (Resource Centre for Civil Leadership), she helps survivors of a wide range of war-related trauma work toward healing through the process of storytelling, whether through words, drama or visual arts. Listen as she describes an example of reconciliation and the reunification of a family, even after the attempted murder of a husband by his enraged wife.

http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_nkrnen0f/uiconf_id/48501

Click here to subscribe to Odyssey Networks, a multi-faith media coalition.

Beyond Phenomenal Forgiveness: A Mother’s Relationship with Her Son’s Killer

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Victim-offender Johnson Israel

Mary Johnson, 59, spoke with Oshea Israel, 34, at StoryCorps in Minneapolis.

Ginny H., a friend of this blog, shared this story (<—click here) from National Public Radio's StoryCorps. If you missed the NPR broadcast this morning, I urge you to invest the time to read and listen to this story. It begins with the gang-related murder of her son, Laramiun Byrd, and it extends from a conscious decision to forgive the killer to developing a loving relationship with him.

For people who champion Restorative Justice, this can only be a story of inspiration. Involving victims and offenders in restorative conferences early on might increase the likelihood of phenomenal outcomes like these. It is not an easy process, and not everyone in the justice system will even be willing to consider restorative options. But the story of Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel stands as a testimony to what is sometimes possible.

If you’re involved in neighborhood justice, or the local justice system — or, if you are just a concerned citizen who wants something more than orange jump suits for offenders, followed by the release of angry inmates into your community — and, if you think crime victims deserve a time of deep listening to their pain by the offender, the justice system and the community, maybe you will want to investigate local options for Restorative Justice (RJ).

RJ offers no easy grace or instantaneous forgiveness. It entails a difficult process to repair harms done, and to restore victims and offenders to a more compassionate community. The current system of warehousing of prisoners and neglecting crime victims does not seem to be working at all well. Is it time to investigate alternatives?

Wise Words from Men to Men

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Men Stopping Violence is a strong presence here in the Atlanta, GA, area.  They’re all about accountability and responsibility, and their programs draw on the higher instincts in men to end violence and abuse of women.  Chapter of MSV are all over the world.
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Men Stopping Violence is not a “bumper sticker” organization.  They’re not about “lock ‘em up and throw away they key.”  They are not afraid to do the hard work of helping men of all ages look deep into themselves for their own reasons for committing violence against women.  It’s painful, courageous work.  It’s a lot harder than simply putting offenders in orange jumpsuits and warehousing them in jails.

Sometimes the first step to making peace is simply not committing violence.  Sometimes that first step is not so simple.  Training and peer support helps immensely.  It’s about creating a culture of care.

preventing domestic violence and violence againsst women through peer counseling and support

Men Stopping Violence worldwide offers training and counseling to prevent violence against women.

Men Stopping Violence worldwide is an indispensable resource in addressing the causes of violence, looking first within to the hidden justifications for the abuse and humiliating treatment of women.

A Visionary Judge Makes Restorative Justice Come Alive in Alabama

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I was intrigued when a recent online search included a hit posing this question: “What if lawyers were Peacemakers, Problem Solvers and Healers of  Conflict?”

Alabama judge employs Restorative Justice in Montgomery court

Judge Tracey McCooey

A few clicks later and I was listening to Judge Tracey McCooey, who serves on the bench of Alabama’s 15th Judicial Circuit Court in Montgomery, on the website Cutting Edge Law.  (More on that in an upcoming post.)

In a six-part video series, Judge McCooey talks passionately about her believe that justice requires much more than the court system provides, especially in the area of giving crime victims the opportunity to meet the offenders, face-to-face, in a safe place, and to do so on a voluntary basis.  (If you walk out of here and find someone has stolen your car radio, chances are you don’t have much interest in meeting the thief, she says in one segment.  But the more deeply you have been hurt, the more likely you want to meet the offender and ask questions like “why?”.)

As appealing as her speaking style and warmth is her story about the unorthodox path that led her to the bench.  Serving as a judge was never in her long-range plans, but when she won her first election against a well-established Montgomery lawyer, surprising herself in the process, she knew there were some new thing she wanted to try.  Finding ways of implementing a restorative justice program was among them, and she set about methodically but quietly to make this happen.

Watch this series if you’d like to meet a judge who approaches her calling 24/7, who believes in the power of personal interaction — which has included working closely with offenders as they pick up trash, and spending her Saturday afternoons quilting with people who have passed through the drug court.

Watch the entire series, if you prefer, on this page of the Cutting Edge Law website.

To see how thoroughly the Montgomery court has integrated restorative justice principles into their programs, be sure to visit the court’s website.