COURSE DESCRIPTION

This basic course in Peace and Conflict Studies is designed to provide a wide spectrum of professionals with the "must know" elements of this field.  The course provides analytical tools and terminology for conflict analysis, and possible approaches for promoting peace in today’s world.   A strong emphasis of the course is on social, cultural, psychological and communication dynamics of conflict escalation and de-escalation.  This is followed by a practical component to provide participants with effective skills in conflict management, resolution and transformation, using hands-on activities related to communication, negotiation and mediation. 

These skills are relevant for professionals in every field, and can be used to manage and resolve disputes of all kinds – whether in international or professional settings.
 

This two-credit course is designed for professionals who are concerned about climate change issues and want to improve their skills in convincing others.   It is also intended for participants who desire greater knowledge on media production and distribution, using online media tools and how to work more closely with journalists to enhance public knowledge on climate change.  In fact, each student will have produced a short film about climate change during a three-day workshop in the Monteverde cloud forest.

At the end of the course, the participants will have acquired: a) a fuller understanding of the physical, ecological, social, cultural and political factors that drive the climate change dialogue; and b) improved skills to influence specific audiences on these issues. The theoretical part of the course will address the forces driving climate change (physical and ecological processes); will clarify the risk, vulnerability, resilience, mitigation and adaptation concepts, as well as their human security impacts (social and political processes); and will analyse the main factors behind the resistance to taking concrete actions.  The more practical part of the course will improve the participants' skills in creating and combining web-based tools such as facebook, twitter, blogs, and short documentaries, to influence on-line audiences. One of the products of the course will be a web-page with articles created by course participants.
 

The advent of new technologies has fundamentally changed the capacity for processing and exchanging information in the 21st century. NGOs and governments, and companies alike are just beginning to understand the potential that these tools and systems can have in analyzing and addressing a range of social problems.  This dynamic one-week course will explore how technology is being used to transform conflicts, build more sophisticated statistical models, fight diseases, monitor elections, distribute food, design better economic development measures, and much more. It will also consider some of the key challenges related to access, implementation, scale, and evaluation that working with technology presents. The course is designed for professionals from both the private and public sectors to assist them in developing strategies and skills to benefit their organization amid this rapidly evolving landscape.  Participants can expect a hands-on and interactive learning environment with exposure to a variety of real world examples from organizations working in the field.

Dr. Abdalla is Professor and Vice Rector at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE).  Before arriving at UPEACE, he was a Senior Fellow with the Peace Operations Policy Program, School of Public Policy, at George Mason University, in Virginian, USA.   He was also a Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Virginia.
 
Both his academic and professional careers are multi-disciplinary.  He obtained a law degree in Egypt in 1977 where He practiced law as a prosecuting attorney from 1978 to 1987.  He then emigrated to the U.S. where He obtained a Master's degree in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.
 
He has been teaching graduate classes in conflict analysis and resolution, and has conducted training, research and evaluation of conflict resolution and peacebuilding programs in several countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.  He also authored, and co-authored, several research and evaluation teaching manuals including: Doing What You Want With Your Data, A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning and Implementing Evaluation Strategies, and Qualitative Evaluation: The What and Why.

He has been an active figure in promoting effective cross-cultural messages within the Islamic and Arabic-speaking communities in America through workshops, T.V. and radio presentations.  He has also been actively involved in inter-faith dialogues in the United States.  He pioneered the development of the first conflict resolution training manual for the Muslim communities in the United States titled (“…Say Peace”).  He also founded Project LIGHT (Learning Islamic Guidance for Human Tolerance), a community peer-based anti-discrimination project funded by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ).
 

Austin is a Peabody award-winning filmmaker and educator. In Guatemala, he produced films for international human rights and development organizations such as Doctors without Borders, Habitat for Humanity and the United Nations. He was also the Creative Director at the New York City-based Listen Up! Youth Media Network. At Listen Up! he produced “The Way We See It: Youth Speak Out on Education” (PBS & Annenberg Channel). In 2007 he won a George Foster Peabody Award for “Beyond Borders: Personal Stories from a Small Planet” (Independent Film Channel/IFC). He is currently producing “Beyond Green,” which asks youth in nine countries to examine how they interact with their environment and if there’s a better way to achieve sustainability. For United Nations Television (UNTV) Austin is also producing a report on the Crucitas Gold mine in Costa Rica. Austin is currently getting a masters in Environmental Security and Peace from the U.N. mandated "University for Peace" in San Jose, Costa Rica.
 

Ph.D., Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands, 2007. EPU Certificate for Advanced International Study Programme in Peace and Conflict Transformation, European University Centre for Peace Studies (EPU), Austria, 1997. MA Politics of Alternative Development Strategies, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1996. M.Sc. Political Science, Graduate College, University of Khartoum, 1995. B.Sc. (Honours) Department of Political Science, Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, University of Khartoum, 1988.

Nick is the Executive Director of UPEACE/US and has been with the organization since graduating from the Peace Education Masters program at UPEACE in 2006. Nick oversees all activities of the organization, both programmatic and operational, and is the chief liaison with the senior administrators at the University. His favorite role however is helping out with the DCPEACE afterschool program in local elementary schools. Nick is passionate about ideas and projects that connect the fields of education, peacebuilding, technology, and global citizenship and, over the past few years, has worked with closely with a number of organizations including Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET), the United Nations Association for the United States (UNA-USA) and the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI). Nick holds a BA with honors from Swarthmore College and was recently selected as a 2009 Global Fellow by the International Youth Foundation for his track record as a young social entrepreneur.

Heads the Department of Environment Peace and Security at UPEACE. He worked for 12 years in international research centres in Africa and Central America in the development of livestock and agroforestry production systems and for another 12 years as an international consultant for bilateral cooperation agencies on subjects of rural development, social forestry, institutional strengthening and environmental conflict management. In the last 10 years, he has coordinated research and training activities in environmental conflict management involving local communities and he is being involved in mediation between environmental organizations. Dr. Borel was trained as an agronomist (Dipl. Ing. Agr. ETH, Zurich), with a specialization in livestock farming (Mag. Sci. IICA, Turrialba, Costa Rica) and further specialization in pasture agronomy (Dr. sc. Tech. ETH, Zurich).