Tag Archives: nonviolent action

Peace Frequency Podcast – Community Based Peacebuilding Series

This month I had the great privilege of helping co-facilitate and design the USIP online course, Community Based Peacebuilding: Engaging Youth. The main instructor for the course was Dr. Alison Milofsky, who is a brilliant, dynamic and gifted facilitator. Part of the course experience involved four great interviews on the Peace Frequency podcast. Alison and I co-hosted these episodes and were able to bring some great stories and perspectives into the course.

Peace Frequency w/ Guest, Mark Brimhall-Vargas. In this episode we explored the different definitions and types of dialogue and discussed some of the important complexities involving race, class, gender, sexual orientation and other dimension of identity.

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Peace Frequency w/ Guest, Ariana Barth. In this episode Ariana shares her experience facilitating dialogues with youth who come from communities engaged in intense identity based conflicts.

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Peace Frequency w/ Guest, Dominic Barter. In this episode we speak with one of the world’s most well-respected practitioners of dialogue who sheds light on concepts such as community, relationship, justice, and conflict.

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Peace Frequency Special Episode w/ Guests, Arthur Romano, Elavie Ndura, Nadine Bloch, and Kazu Haga. In this special episode we celebrate and interrogate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. by speaking with four scholars, practitioners, and activists who have immersed themselves in nonviolent movements in unique and distinct ways.

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Peace Frequency w/ Guest, Jeff Guerra. In this episode we speak with a Colombian DJ and producer whose music is helping build and spread messages of peace across lines of cultural, racial, and ethnic difference.

Music Plays Crucial Role in Nonviolent Civic Movements

This is another post about the Music of Nonviolent Action event that I helped organize and facilitate back in June of this year.

This post was written by Viola Granger and originally appeared on the United States Institute of Peace’s Olive Branch blog.

In Libya’s 2011 uprising, protesters pumped loud music from radios or CD players in the streets in front of government buildings, then fled from the inevitable rush of security forces. The nonviolent early days of Egypt’s revolution that same year spawned a raft of new independent music groups. In Turkey, the “Song of Pots and Pans” exhorts political leaders to stop their lies and repressive tactics.

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How Technology Can Help Activists Navigate Under Pressure

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This past week I participated in a great event at USIP organized by the PeaceTech initiative and Dr. Maria Stephan, a senior policy fellow at USIP’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. The event looked at the role that technology can play to aid nonviolent activists around the world. I had the opportunity as a result of this event to interview some amazing activists and technologists about their work addressing this challenge.

This post below originally appeared on the United States Institute of Peace’s Olive Branch blog and was written by Noel Dickover, Senior Program Officer at USIP.

How can technology support activists using nonviolent conflict approaches in difficult places?  A two-day workshop at the United States of Peace (USIP) that gathered 70 civic activists, policymakers, technologists, NGO leaders, and education professionals sparked eight distinct, innovative projects that will aim to overcome limits to mobilizing citizens in repressive places.

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Rhythms at the Intersection of Peace and Conflict: The Music of Nonviolent Action

This past Tuesday, USIP and the Conflict Prevention & Resolution Forum co-hosted and event at USIP presenting an exciting new movie followed by a panel discussion on the intersection between music and nonviolent civic action.

My USIP colleague, Maria Stephan, and my Freedom Beat partner, Timothy O’Keefe envisioned  this event and over the course of several weeks we worked with our friends and USIP and with the CPRF to organize a great event that brought in over 75 people to USIP to explore an exciting topic in a creative way.

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Workshop on Intercutural Competence and Nonviolent Action for Georgetown University’s Center for Social Justice

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On Friday, I had the honor and privilege of facilitating a workshop at Georgetown University for their The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service (CSJ).  the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor (KI), and the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access (CMEA). This year Georgetown launched their Social Justice Leadership Training Institute (SJLTI), a small-group intensive experience for undergraduate students who wish to deepen their commitment to and engagement with issues of social justice. Through an 8-week skills-building, cohort-based experience with accomplished social justice activists and one another, SJLTI participants will learn and reflect on ways to creatively and effectively work for social justice. I was invited by two of the most amazing and inspiring peace and social justice educators I know – Amanda Munroe and Dr. Andria Wisler.

The workshop I facilitated was titled, The Intercultural Dimensions of Nonviolent Action: Power, Participation and Progress. The workshop explored two concepts – intercultural competence and nonviolent action as a method of struggle – and why one is an integral part of the other’s success. For the past couple weeks I have been giving some talks and presentation on this topic. My interest in the connection was spurred by a three day training I did a few weeks ago to become a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Ever since that training I have been finding a number of valuable connections between that cultural work and the theory and strategy behind nonviolent action.

Nonviolence Presentation at New School of VA

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This past Thursday, my friend and colleague, Althea, and I facilitated a presentation on nonviolence for a group 100 6-12 graders at the New School of Virginia. My friends and former colleague, Travis Cooper, invited us to give this workshops as part of a learning unit he was doing with his students looking at civic activism.

This was a great opportunity for Althea and I to mix concepts from various orientations and conceptions of nonviolence – the ICNC strategic nonviolent action orientation and the Kingian nonviolence orientation.

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2013 Conflict Resolution Education Conference

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This past Thursday, June 13th, I facilitated a one-day workshop titled, “People Power and Pedagogy: Methods for Teaching Nonviolent Struggle.” There were about 19 participants in the workshop who were all attending pre-conference trainings 7th annual Conflict Resolution Education Conference. This made it one of the most well-attended trainings of the conference. The feedback and comments on the workshop were also very nice to read. Here are a couple quotes from the evaluations:

Daryn managed a very egalitarian structure to the group. No “talking head” behavior. Great material, great activities, great opportunity!

Excellent mix of academic theory and activities. Well prepared, but also flexible. Remained engaged with the group and kept us engaged during this long session. Thank you!

Excellent: interaction, empowerment of participants, Daryn’s presentation skills/ability to clearly articulate info/resources/concepts as well as ensure participants voices understood. Overall facilitation of activities was great.

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American University Skills Institute on Civil Resistance

This past weekend my colleague, Maciej and I co-faciliated a skills institute at American University titled, “People Power: How and Why Civil Resistance Works.”  We had 15 participants from a variety of backgrounds and covered a range of topics: history of civil resistance, conceptions of power, the role of media in civil resistance, frameworks for deciding how one considers what is violent vs. nonviolent,  tactical innovation, backfire, and dilemma actions.

Click here to download the full course syllabus.

Occupy DC Nonviolence Workshop

This past Tuesday I co-facilitated a three-hour workshop on nonviolence for approximately 40 people who were in town to participate in the Occupy DC demonstrations.  The campaign is organized by a coalition of groups whose agenda and vision can be found on the website, October2011.org.  As the call to action states on the campaign’s website, “October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions.  We call on people of conscience and courage—all who seek peace, economic justice, human rights and a healthy environment—to join together in Washington, D.C., beginning on Oct. 6, 2011, in nonviolent resistance similar to the Arab Spring and the Midwest awakening.  Continue reading to learn more about my co-facilitators and to see the entire outline of the workshop.

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Why I Got Arrested

On Saturday, August 20th at 11:30am I, along with 65 other people, were arrested for “failure to obey a lawful order.”  I was hand cuffed with my hands behind my back, stuffed into the back of a police wagon with 16 other men, where we remained for over an hour and a half in 90+ degree heat, many of us in suits and ties, sweating profusely as the wagon temperature steadily rose. We were driven to the Washington, DC processing center in Anacostia where we were eventually taken out of the wagons and lined up against the wall, still in handcuffs.  To combat the heat and prevent dehydration we were provided fluids by tilting our heads back as water was poured into our mouths.  The handcuffs were finally taken off after we were escorted into the building where our possessions were bagged – shoe laces, belts, wedding ring, watch – and our bodies thoroughly frisked.  We were finger printed and our information was recorded – address, age, race, eye color.  We were crammed, 13 to 14 people at a time, into 6×8 holding cells equipped with one metal bench welded to the wall and a small metal toilet/sink combo, where we held for several hours.  I, along with 6 other arrestees who lived in the area, was released at around 7:00pm that same day, while the others who were from out of town, spent the next two nights in jail.  This is the story of my first arrest.  It was hot, crammed,  enlightening and amazing all at the same time!

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