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Global Core Team


EVELIN G. LINDNER
Evelin Gerda Lindner is the Founding President of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS) network and initiator of the World Dignity University initiative. She is a transdisciplinary social scientist and humanist and holds two Ph.D.s, one in medicine and one in psychology. In 1996, she designed a research project on the concept of humiliation and its role in genocide and war. German history served as starting point. It is often assumed that the humiliation of the Germans through the Versailles Treaties after World War I was partly responsible for the Holocaust and the Second World War. It seems therefore important to understand the nature of humiliation and how it is related to the occurrence of genocide and mass violence.
From 1997-2001, Lindner began carrying out such research, interviewing over 200 people who were either implicated in or knowledgeable about the wars and genocides in Rwanda, Somalia, and Nazi Germany. Her research indicates, that, indeed, the dynamics of humiliation may be at the core not only of war and genocide, but also of current events such as the "war on terror," American questions such as to "why do they hate us," or whether combating poverty would reduce terror or not.
Lindner is currently primarily concentrating on writing planned books and articles on humiliation, as well as establishing the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies as an international platform for further work on humiliation, with the particular aim of linking research and practice.
 
DONALD C. KLEIN † June 8, 2007, yet always with us in spirit!
Our beloved Don Klein has passed away.
Please see here our condolences, or, more precisely, our love letters to Don.
We are shattered and, for the moment, speechless.
Dear Becca and Alan! We are holding your hands in this difficult moment of losing your father and grandfather.
Don was and will always be, one of the central pillars of our work and our group. He is on the Board of our Directors and will always be there.
He spoke to us about Awe and Wonderment. About our human ability to live in awe and wonderment, not just when we see a beautiful sun set or the majesty of the ocean, but always. That we can live in a state of awe and wonderment. And we do that, says Don, by leaving behind the psychology of projection. The psychology of projection is like a scrim, a transparent stage curtain, where you believe that what you see is reality only as long as the light shines on it in a certain way. However, it is not reality. It is a projection. And in order to live in awe and wonderment, we have to look through this scrim and let go of all the details that appear on it, in which we are so caught up in. When we do that, we can see the beautiful sun set, the majestic ocean, always, in everything.
We are all inconsolable!
We are with you, dear Don, wherever you may be now!
And we promise to always remember that we can live in Awe and Wonderment, always!
Evelin, on behalf on our entire HumanDHS network!
Sunday, June 10, 2007

Donald C. Klein, Ph.D., was also a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors, the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, the HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team, and the HumanDHS Education Team.
After earning a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. in 1952 at the University of California, Berkeley, he was CEO of an experimental community mental health center, directed a multi-disciplinary graduate center at Boston University, served as NTL Program Director for Community Affairs, and helped to develop and became coordinator of the Applied Behavioral Science graduate program at The Johns Hopkins University.
Subsequently, he was Professor Emeritus of the Graduate College of The Union Institute & University, which offers an innovative non-residential doctoral program for working adults.
Don Klein has been one of the first to explicitly examine and write on the humiliation phenomena. His first publication on humiliation goes back to 1991 (Journal of Primary Prevention on the Humiliation Dynamic, Vol 12, no. 2, Winter, 1991; Vol 12, No. 3, Spring 1992).
He has written numerous books and has conducted extensive research on how families and organzations use humiliation as a tool of control and socialization. In addition to the Humiliation Dynamic, as an Applied Behavioral Scientist, he has studied and written about community change dynamics, differences and diversity, power, and large group methods for change in organizations and communities. In his training and consulting work he has used sociodrama and other performatory approaches. He is especially interested in methods that can be used to create meaningful, integrative non-humiliating connections (i.e., "social glue") between diverse groups in community settings.
In recent years Don Klein has become deeply engaged with what he calls Appreciative Psychology, which has to do with the inherent level of appreciative being that connects each one of us with universal life energy.
Please find here:
•  The humiliation dynamic: An overview by Donald C. Klein, in Klein, Donald C. (Ed.), The Humiliation Dynamic: Viewing the Task of Prevention From a New Perspective, Special Issue, Journal of Primary Prevention, Part I, 12, No. 2, 1991. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers.
•  Creating Social Glue in the Community: A Psychologist's View by Donald C. Klein, a revised version of paper presented at 'Rising Tide: Community Development for a Changing World', 32 nd annual conference of the Community Development Society, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, July 26, 2000.
•  Community MetaFunctions and the Humiliation Dynamic, paper presented at the 2nd Annual Meeting on Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, Paris, France, September 16-18, 2004 (not to be cited without author's authorization).
•  The Humiliation Dynamic: Looking to the Past and Future, paper presented at the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
•  Looking to the Past, Looking to the Future, New Years Greetings: 2006!

•  written by Alan Klein, Don's son, Past Master: Don Klein, first published in Practising Social Change, Issue 05, May 2012, pp. 48-49.
 

LINDA M. HARTLING
Linda M. Hartling, Ph.D., is the HumanDHS Director, the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, Global Coordinating Team, HumanDHS's Research Team, and HumanDHS's Education Team. She is also a Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (JHDHS).
Linda M. Hartling is the recipient of the Association for Creativity in Counseling Research Award (see the slides of her acceptance talk).
Linda is affiliated with the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI) at the Stone Center, which is part of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Until 2008, she was its the Associate Director. Dr. Hartling is a member of the JBMTI theory-building group advancing the practice of the Relational-Cultural Theory, a model of psychological growth and development. She coordinates and contributes to training programs, publications, and special projects for the JBMTI. She holds a doctoral degree in clinical/community psychology and has published papers on resilience, substance abuse prevention, shame and humiliation, relational practice in the workplace, and Relational-Cultural Theory. Dr. Hartling was co-editor of The Complexity of Connection: Writings from the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Stone Center (2004) and author of the Humiliation Inventory, a scale to assess the internal experience of derision and degradation. She is currently a member of an international team establishing the first Center for Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies. [read more]

 

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MICHAEL F. BRITTON
Michael Francis Britton is also a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors, the Global Advisory Board, and a Member of the HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team, as well as Co-Director and Co-Coordinator of the HumanDHS Stop Hazing and Bullying Project. He is the HumanDHS Director of "Global Appreciative Culturing."
Concerned with integrative thinking across neuroscience, in-depth psychotherapies and historical/cultural living, Michael Britton's work looks at how participation in the historical life of our times and interior life are deeply intertwined. His earlier research looked into experience by US military in planning and commanding nuclear weapons in the Cold War; kinds of parenting that help children grow to do well in love as adults; kinds of parenting that make it harder for battered women to take action on their own behalf; and psychological attitudes towards existing and hoped for worlds reflected in traditional, modern and postmodern architecture. Michael provides workshops for therapists to think about mature love and how patients are helped to get there within themselves, within relationships, and in their co-responsibility for sustaining love in the larger world. He is very concerned with supporting a culture of appreciation for what we can learn from each other, i.e. open societies rather than totalitarian, as the basis for global life. He is currently focused on the demands for psychological adaptation posed by global life and is working on two writing projects that invite taking up those challenges.  The first is on weapons of mass destruction and the psychological challenges involved in creating global safety. The second is on understanding what global life requires of us as illuminated by understanding the human brain's place in evolution, its multi-layered inclinations for rendering history in the present, and the choices among those inclinations that we face as we go about the business of everyday work as adults in the institutions of our societies.  
Please see here:
•  Transforming Myths of War to Create a Legacy of Peace, in V. K. Kool (Ed.) Non-Violence: Social and Psychological Issues. Lanham, MD: University of Press of America.
•  Adults' Perceptions of Childhood Experiences of Parental Love As Predictive of Stability and Levels of Enjoyment in Adult Relationships. Doctoral Dissertation. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International (Order Number 9004433), 1989.
•  Weapons of Mass Destruction, in Christie, Winter, Wagner (Ed.) Peace Conflict and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.
•  Conversation Between Harsh Agarwal and Michael Britton on Ragging, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2007.
•  Finding the ‘Right’ Moral Tone Regarding Climate Change And Travel, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2007.
•  A four and a half minute song with video on ragging produced by CURE on YouTube, and downloadable as high resolution version of this song and video, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2008.
•  Ragging: Can we ever solve this problem?, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2008.
•  Is it Ragging or Stockholm Syndrome in our Campuses?, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2009.

 

spalthoff
ULRICH SPALTHOFF
Ulrich Spalthoff (Dr. rer. nat.) is the HumanDHS Director of Project Development and System Administration, and a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors, HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, the HumanDHS Global Education Team, and the HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team. He is, furthermore, the Coordinator of the HumanDHS One Laptop Per Child project.
Uli Spalthoff has studied chemistry in Mainz and Münster, Germany. After some years in industrial research on optical communication technologies he held various positions dealing with marketing, quality management, technology strategy and innovation management at Alcatel-Lucent in Germany and France. His activities as Director Advanced Technologies included - as a member of a truly global team - mentoring of start-ups and consulting high-tech companies in IT, telecommunication and semiconductor industries from countries all over the world. Being interested to work in a broad range of professional fields and diverse social contexts, he has acquired expertise in a broad range of technical, economic and social matters. After his retirement he still wants to nurture innovative ideas to shape our future. Being impressed by the concept of HumanDHS he wants to learn more about it and currently explores how he can contribute. Uli is married to Brigitte Volz, a teacher with a strong therapeutic and psychological background who is also an artist making sculptures.
 

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BRIGITTE VOLZ
Brigitte Volz was born in Ulm, Germany in 1955. She has more then 30 years pedagogic and therapeutic experience in Germany and France with children and teenagers having special needs. This involved leading a school for children who are mentally retarded , training of teachers, organizational development and team coaching. Focus areas included “Learning and Creating” as well as “Art and Handicap”.
For some years she continued this in Paris as volunteer for various organizations:
• Curating exhibitions of artists with special needs
• Offering paint workshops for children and teenagers who had lived homeless
• French-german team working on the subject "Access to art and media for people having special needs"
• Participation in international projects on the topic "Art and Handicap"
• Education in "Work at the Clayfield", adding to the existing certificates in Pedagogy for Special Needs, Gestalt Therapy, Mediation, Alternative Practitioner/Psychotherapist
She started a second career as artist. See details of her work and exhibitions.

 

VICTORIA C. FONTAN
Victoria Christine Fontan is also a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors, the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, the HumanDHS Global Core Team, the HumanDHS Research Team, and the HumanDHS Education Team. She is furthermore the former Co-Editor of the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (JHDHS).
Victoria is the Director of Academic Development, and Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in San José, Costa Rica. As a Fellow to the Iraq Project at the CICR in Columbia University, Victoria is in charge of developing a permanent Conflict Resolution curriculum in northern Iraqi universities.
Prior to 2005, Victoria was Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution at Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace Studies at Colgate University, NY, where she lectured in conflict resolution and peace studies. Earlier, Victoria was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Sabanci University, in Turkey. She lectured in the MA Program in Conflict Resolution and Analysis and also conducts research on conflict resolution processes and the politics of communication.
Victoria holds a Ph.D. in Peace and Development Studies. She published various papers on multi-track diplomacy, human trafficking, the public diplomacy of armed groups and the formation of political violence in post-conflict societies. Central to her work has been a conceptualisation of post-conflict processes through the study of social, gendered, cultural, economic and political humiliation. She conducted field research in Lebanon with the Hezbollah, in Bosnia-Herzegovina on human trafficking and organised crime, and in Fallujah (post-Saddam Iraq) with emerging armed groups. She is also involved in gender training for peacekeeping operations, and has lectured to various armed forces on the subject.
Please see:
•  The Dialectics of Humiliation: Polarization between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq (2003, unpublished Draft (Not to be cited without Author's authorization).
•  co-authored with Bertram Wyatt-Brown (2005), "The Honor Factor", Op Ed in The Baltimore Sun, January 23, 2005, p. 5F. Please see here the oringal long version.
•  "Hubris, History, and Humiliation: Quest for Utopia in Post-Saddam Iraq," in Social Alternatives (Special Issue "Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives"), Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, pp. 56-61, 2006.
• Voices from Post-Saddam Iraq: Living with Terrorism, Insurgency, and New Forms of Tyranny
Westport, CT: Greenwood/Praeger Security International.

 

AMY C. HUDNALL
Amy C. Hudnall is a Member of HumanDHS's Education Team, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (JHDHS). She is also HumanDHS's representative to the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS).
Amy is a Lecturer in the History and Women's Studies Departments at Appalachian State University and a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Rural Health, Idaho State University. Her work focuses on cross-cultural trauma and genocide from an historical perspective, and she teaches courses on peace and conflict. She has presented and published on captivity trauma, human rights, secondary trauma, cultural relativism, and cross-cultural conflict. She received her M.A. in history at Appalachian State University and also studied at the Bayerische Julius-Maximilian-Universität in Germany.
Amy Hudnall is teaching an interdisciplinary course on the development of warfare and peacemaking and preparing an interdisciplinary course on genocide that will have a heavy focus on psychology.
Please see "Humiliation and Domination under American Eyes: German POWs in the continental United States, 1942-1945," in Social Alternatives (Special Issue "Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives"), Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, pp. 33-39, 2006.

 

CHRISTOPHER SANTEE
Christopher Santee is also a Member in our HumanDHS Education Team, and Project Associate of the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (JHDHS).
He is currently studying and residing in San José, Costa Rica. He obtained a Bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Peace Studies from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, USA in 2005. Christopher has been working and interning at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica since February, 2005. He hopes to enroll in a masters degree program in a yet-to-be determined institution for Sustainable Development, Peace Studies or International Relations with a focus on Latin America.
Recently named Project Associate for the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network, Christopher will be working to aid the creation of a peer reviewed e-journal as well as a composited book on the study of humiliation.
Prior to 2006 Christopher was a member of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder, Colorado, organizing rallies and informational gatherings on the occupation of Iraq by the US as well as anti-racial profiling campaigns for US immigrant groups in the Colorado area through the Safety Net. Some of his work there included organizing a benefit concert for freetheslaves.net, featuring internationally renowned poet and activist Saul Williams in April, 2005. Through the service learning program at Naropa University, Christopher also coached high school students in community organizing and political activism on issues of civil rights and awareness utilizing the model of Public Achievement from the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota.
Please see American Diversity and the Role of Humiliation, note presented at the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.

 
BERTRAM WYATT-BROWN (March 19, 1932 - November 5, 2012, but always with us in our hearts!)
Bertram Wyatt-Brown is a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors and was the Guest Editor of "Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives," a Special Issue of Social Alternatives (Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, 2006), edited by Ralph Summy.
Richard J. Milbauer Emeritus Professor of History, University of Florida, and Visiting Scholar, Johns Hopkins University, he has published the following works in history: Lewis Tappan and the War against Slavery (1969, 1996); Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (1982); The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family (1994); The Literary Percys (1994); The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War (2001); Hearts of Darkness: Wellsprings of a Southern Literary Tradition (2003); and (co-editor), Virginia's Civil War (2004).
Bertram Wyatt-Brown earned the B.A. degree at the University of the South (1953), a B.A. (Honours) and M.A. at King's College, Cambridge University (1957, 1961), and his doctoral degree at the Johns Hopkins University (1963) under the late C. Vann Woodward.
Professor Wyatt-Brown has taught at Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, University of Wisconsin, Case Western Reserve University, University of Florida, and the University of Richmond (the Douglas Southall Freeman chair, 2002-03). He served as President of the St. George Tucker Society, the Society for Historians of the Early Republic, and the Southern Historical Association. His awards include: Finalist, Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award (1983); the ABC/Clio Historical Essay Prize (1990); the Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship and NEH Fellowship at the National Humanities Center (1989-90 and 1998-99), the Guggenheim Fellowship (1974-75), and several teaching and graduate student mentoring awards.
Wyatt-Brown is currently preparing books entitled Who Owns the Dead? The Perils of Literary Biography and Honor and America's War, from the Revolution to Iraq.
Please see also Professor Wyatt-Brown as "History Doyen" at the History News Network of George Mason University.
Please see the Announcement of the 2004 James Pinckney Harrison Lectures in History by Wyatt-Brown and here the three lectures:
•  Honor and America’s Wars: From Spain to Iraq;
•  Honor, Secession, and Civil War; and
•  Honor and America’s Wars: From the Revolution to Mexican Conquest.
Please see also
•  Honor, Shame, and Iraq in American Foreign Policy, note presented at the 2004 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, November 18-19, 2004.
•  The Changing Faces of Honor in National Crises: Civil War, Vietnam, Iraq, and the Southern Factor, lecture for the Johns Hopkins History Seminar, Fall 2005.
Bert has kindly accepted the task of being a guest editor of "Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives," a Special Issue of Social Alternatives (Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, 2006), edited by Ralph Summy. Please see the Guest Editor's Introduction to the Special Issue, written by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, and Honor, Irony, and Humiliation in the Era of American Civil War.
See furthermore:
•  The Psychology of Humiliation: Mann’s “Mario and the Magician” and Hawthorne’s “Major Molineux, My Kinsman” (2006), abstract presented at the 23rd International Literature and Psychology Conference 2006, by the Institute for Psychological Study of the Arts (IPSA), University of Florida and the Department of Education, University of Helsinki, and the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.
 

MOHAMMED BAYEZID DAWLA
Bayezid Dawla is a dignity activist. Born and based in Bangladesh, Bayezid studied in the Department of Economics and International Development at the University of Bath, UK and obtained the degree of Master of Research (MRes) in International Development. He also studied English language and literature in the Department of English at the University of Rajshahi and was awarded the MA and BA (Honours) degrees from that university. He worked with The Daily Star (published in Dhaka), ActionAid Bangladesh, and the Institute for Development Policy Analysis and Advocacy (IDPAA), Proshika (a human development organization). Bayezid Dawla is currently the (honorary) Executive Director of Civic Bangladesh, a civil society organization (CSO) registered as a Trust working to advance democracy and democratic governance through civic education and engagement. He is also General Secretary of Bangladesh Dignity Forum, which is leading an Equal Dignity Campaign launched in 2006 by Civic Bangladesh. See Pamela Gerloff covering Bayezid's work in Bangladesh in The Huffington Post.
 

MOHAMMAD ABUL KALAM AZAD
Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad is currently working as a lecturer in Manrat International University in Bangladesh. He has completed his M.A. degree in Peace Education at the United Nations mandated University for Peace. Md. Azad has another Master’s degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He worked as a Research Assistant for USAID where his research topic was “Pre-primary and Primary Madrasah Education in Bangladesh”. He joined in the Generations For Peace, Amman, Jordan, Training Camp-2009, “Curriculum Development Workshop on Peace Education in Islamic Context” at Toronto in Canada, in 2006, Yugakarta in Indonesia in 2007. Mr. Azad has completed his bachelor’s degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. He did voluntary work for a variety of organizations that dealt with natural disasters in Bangladesh ranging from Rotary Club to Bangladesh National Cadet Corps, to Bangladesh Tourist Society. He was also president of several organizations like the Student Welfare Association in Mothbaria, Islamic Studies Cultural Forum, and Bangladesh Islamic Studies Forum.
Please see:
•  Peace and Stability in Bangladesh through Peace, Charity Sustainable Development Education, Peace Education. San José, Costa Rica: United Nations-mandated University for Peace, Project Development Report.
• Peace and Stability in Bangladesh through Peace, Charity Sustainable Development Education, Peace Education
San Jose, Costa Rica: United Nations-mandated University for Peace, Project Development Report, 2006.

 

NICHOLAS CARL MARTIN
Nick is a also a Member of the HumanDHS Education Team.
Nick is currently a visiting fellow at the United Nations University for Peace (UPEACE) campus in Costa Rica. He also serves as Deputy Director of UPEACE/US, a foundation created in the U.S. for charitable purposes and dedicated exclusively to the advancement of educational peace initiatives and programs established by the United Nations University for Peace. Nick received his B.A. from Swarthmore College where he graduated with honors degrees in both English Literature and Education and his M.A. in Education for Peace from the United Nations University for Peace. After Swarthmore, Nick earned his secondary teaching certification and taught literature to high school students in inner city Philadelphia. He then worked at Xi'an Teachers College in China as an American classroom pedagogy professor. In 2004, Nick helped to start what has become a very successful NGO called the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET) to raise awareness and money for the African Union mission in Darfur. He and his family have also started a policy think tank in the Czech Republic called Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI) for Czech university students.
Please see Exploring Possibilities for UPEACE in China: Peace Education, Project Development Report, thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Peace Education, 2006.

 

ERIC VAN GRASDORFF
Eric Van Grasdorff is also a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors, and the HumanDHS Global Core Coordinating Team.
He is a Political Scientist and has graduated from the Free University of Berlin, German, on the topic African Renaissance and Discourse Ownership in the Information Age (2003).
Born and grown up in Dakar, Senegal and later in Germany, he has very early in his life developed an intercultural identity.
Eric Van Grasdorff is a Core Team Member of the Cameroonian NGO AfricAvenir and currently the Chairperson of its German section in Berlin. Additionally to being the Content Manager of both the HumanDHS and the AfricAvenir websites, he is currently building the Internet platform on Diversity Management for the German Heinrich Böll Foundation. Eric organised the 5th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Berlin in 2005.
His research interest include ICTs and International Relations, the Development/Postdevelopment Debate, Africa, African Renaissance and International Relations and Globalization, Transnational Corporations and Social Responsability in Third World Countries.

 

FRANCISCO GOMES DE MATOS
Professor Francisco Gomes de Matos also a Member of our HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, and kindly coordinates two of our projects: he is the Director of our World Language for Equal Dignity Project and of our Creativity Through Equal Dignity Project.
Professor Francisco Gomes de Matos is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Federal University of Pernambuco and President of the Board of Associação Brasil America. He is also a member
of the Dom Helder Camara Human Rights Commission at the Federal University of Pernambuco. His book Nurturing Nonkilling:a Poetic Plantation was published June 2009 by the Center for Global Nonkilling, Honolulu. It can be downloaded,FREE,pdf format, from this site.
Francisco Gomes de Matos has taught linguistics and languages at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) in Recife, northeastern Brazil till his retirement in 2003. He holds degrees in languages and law from UFPE and in linguistics from the University of Michigan and the Catholic University of São Paulo. He has served as a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Texas (Austin), Mexico, Ottawa, and Georgia (Athens, USA). Gomes de Matos is the author of two pioneering pleas: For a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (1984) and for Communicative Peace (1993). His current research interests include linguistic rights and responsibilities (of language users) and peace linguistics.
Please see here some of Francisco's publications:
•  Applying the Pedagogy of Positiveness to Diplomatic Communication by Francisco Gomes de Matos, In Jovan Kurblija and Hannah Slavik (Eds.) Language and Diplomacy. Msida, Malta: DiploProjects, 2001.
• See also a review by Robert Craig, University of Colorado, The Fundamental Communicative Right: A Brazilian Scholar’s Plea, a review of Gomes de Matos, Francisco. Comunicar para o bem: rumo à paz comunicativa, São Paulo: Editora Ave-Maria, 2002, 117 pages, ISBN: 85-276-0563- (first published in ICA Newsletter, International Communication Association, Volume 31, Number 6, August 2003, page 2 and 5.), and a review by Monica Rector, Review of Gomes de Matos, Francisco. Comunicar para o bem: rumo à paz comunicativa, São Paulo: Editora Ave-Maria, 2002. 117pages, ISBN: 85-276-0563-5, as well as by Manfred Prinz, Rezension von Francisco Gomes de Matos. Comunicar para o Bem Rumo a Paz Comunicativa, São Paulo (Ave Maria) 2002.
• Interview with Francisco Gomes de Matos in the APIRS Newsletter (May 2005).
• In 2004, Francisco published Criatividade no Ensino de Ingls (Creativity in the Teaching of English), São Paulo, Disal Editora.
• In 2005 he wrote the chapter "Using Peaceful Language: From Principles to Practices," available on EOLSS-UNESCO, Encyclopedia of Life-Support Systems.
• Chapter on Language, Peace, and Conflict Resolution, in the second, expanded edition of The Handbook of Conflict Resolution, edited by Morton Deutsch, Fall of 2006, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.
• Please see here also Francisco's poem on Peace Patriotism.
• Francisco Gomes de Matos has also developed a sociolinguistic checklist with the aim to identify how humiliation is communicated in daily life, so as to create a database that can be used by policy planners who attempt to diminish and end humiliating practices. Please see Communicative Humiliation: A Sociolinguistic Checklist (2005).
• Please see furthermore "Humiliation and Its Brazilian History as a Domain of Sociolinguistic Study," in Social Alternatives (Special Issue "Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives"), Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, pp. 40-43, 2006.
• Please see also the poem EQUALism, that Francisco wrote in honor of Bob Fuller's work.
• See, furthermore, Francisco's Review of Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People. The Exciting New Research That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life (New York: Broadway Books, 2007, xv + 302 pp, www.broadwaybooks.com).
•  See also Francisco's 2007 Review of Working for Peace: A Handbook of Practical Psychology And Other Tools by Psychologists for Social Responsibility (Author), Arun Gandhi (Foreword), Rachel M. Macnair (Editor) (Atascadero, California: Impact Publishers, 2006).
•  See also his Two Typologies of Linguistic Rights (2007/1984).
• Nurturing Nonkilling: A Poetic Plantation, in Joám Evans Pim (Ed.), Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm, Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling (June 2009). Please see the praise by Morton Deutsch of Francisco Gomes de Matos' chapter.
• ABA Poster Series, "Being Educated for Nonkilling," "TESOLers as Appliers of Nonkilling," "The Day Weapons Refused to Kill," "Educating All Children for Nonkilling," ABC Peace Poem, "The Boundaries of COMPASSION as seen by DIGNITY" (version 1 and version 2), Associacao Brasil America, Recife, Brazil, design by Ane Cleide.
• "Poem 'The Right to Peace, a World of Responsibilities for Humankind' by Prof. Francisco Gomes de Matos, Professor Emeritus of the Universidad Federal de Pernambuco (Brazil)," in Commemoration of the International Day of Peace, p. 32.

DIGNITY AS A HUMANIZING MIGHT, Poem dedicated to the HDHS family by Francisco Gomes de Matos, a peace linguist Member of the Dom Helder Camara Human Rights Commission, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil, 26th March 2010
Can DIGNITY deeply humanize?
Yes, when the rights of all beings on Earth it underlies
Can DIGNITY deeply humanize?
Yes,when a LIFE-supporting- force it signifies
Can DIGNITY deeply humanize?
Yes, when all forms of human violence it decries
Can DIGNITY deeply humanize?
Yes, when with environmental justice Humankind complies

• Please find poems received from 2010 onwards at Francisco Gomes de Matos's Peace Linguistics pages.
• ABA Poster 2012, "Global Women: A Man's View" in English, and in Portugese, designed by Karina Gomes.
• Entretien entre Francisco GOMES DE MATOS et DiversCité: Interview on Linguistic Rights, given to sociolinguist Angéline Martel, DiversCité Langues, Télé-université, TÉLUQ (a component of the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada), September 1998
• ABA Poster 2012, "What Will There Be: A Nonkilling Plea Dedicated to President Barack Obama," designed by Ane Cleide.

 

ROSITA ALBERT
Rosita Albert is a Visiting Scholar in the Social Psychology area of the Psychology Department at Harvard, and her research focuses on Intercultural Relations and Intercultural Conflicts. She is also an Associate Professor in the pioneering program in Intercultural Communication at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is a Founding Fellow and a member of the Governing Board of the International Academy for Intercultural Research. She is originally from Brazil, and her mother and grandparents left Germany to escape from Hitler. It is because of this background that she works to create respectful relations among groups from different backgrounds.
As to her educational background and her positions, Rosita Albert earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan. She has taught in Psychology, Education and Communication at a number of Universities.
Rosita Albert has conducted research in a variety of topics, including research on a) the development and evaluation of the Intercultural Sensitizer, an instrument designed to foster intercultural sensitization; b) interactions between Latin Americans/Latinos and North or Anglo-Americans; c) the experiences and difficulties of Asian employees in American companies; d) conflicts and mutual misperceptions between African-Americans and Koreans in the U.S.; e) cultural differences in perceptions of negotiation; f) the effect of intercultural courses on intercultural development; and f) the effect of online interactions on perceptions of the other.
With respect to teaching, training and consulting, Rosita Albert has taught courses in social psychology, intercultural communication, negotiation, and diversity. These courses have included students from many fields, countries all over the world, and a very wide range of cultures. She has conducted intercultural and diversity training, given presentations, and consulted for a number of organizations, including the World Bank, the 3-M company, Booz Allen Hamilton, the National Association of Transplant Coordinators, the University of São Paulo, the University of Minnesota and a number of other institutions.
As to languages and international/intercultural experience, Rosita Albert speaks Portuguese, French, Spanish and English, and has had extensive experience with cultures from many parts of the world.
 

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PAMELA HILEY
Pamela Hiley is the Director of the Norsk Taiji Senter (Norwegian Taiji Centre). Pamela is one of Europe’s most experienced Taijiquan and Qigong instructors and the first professional instructor in Norway. Originally from Wales, she founded the Norsk Taiji Senter in 1983 and has since then instructed in both the private and public sectors. Her clientele includes many Norwegian government offices, educational institutes and private companies. Pamela also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Movement Studies.
As an extension of her work with taiji, Pamela initiated many groundbreaking projects in Norway: In 2001 she created the Peace Point Foundation and participated in The Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders conference at the UN in Geneva. In 2003, she initiated and established the ‘Building Trust Peace Conference for the Middle East’ at the Nobel Peace Institute in Oslo, Norway. In 2004, she founded the Business Council for Peace at the Nobel Peace Institute and in 2006 the Youth Council and in 2007, MAP (Martial Arts for Peace).
Pamela Hiley has been given recognition for her international peace work and has been honored with the title, ‘Ambassador for Peace’ from the Universal Peace Federation and in 2006, the outstanding work in Norway was recognised when she was selected as one of the Top 10 International Men & Women in Norway.
Please see her son Bjarte Simon Ling Yuan Hiley, who studied Taihequan and Kungfu at Wudangshan in China, as he appeared on the Norwegian breakfast-tv show "God Morgen Norge" (published on 20th February 2013) and demonstrated the Wudang form of Taihequan, and holds a small tea ceremony using Pu'er tea while speaking about his time in China. A 30 minute documentary about Bjarte Hiley entitled "The Wudang Foreign Disciple - Ling Yuan" is part of a series called "Foreigners in China" on the CCTV International Channel in China and was aired on Saturday 20th April. See also and announcement and a YouTube version.
 
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SAFIA YUSUF ABDI HAASE
Safia Abdi Haase (born 05/05/59) is an ethnic Somali and Norwegian graduate nurse who has been with the Amathea Foundation in Norway since 2005. She is working with women's health, with a focus on Somali women and FGM (female genital mutilation). See Why Did You Do It Mom?, a film about Safia's history.
Safia came to Norway in 1992. She graduated as a nurse at the University College in Harstad. She has gained project experience through the Oslo University College and later earned her Masters in International Welfare and Healt Policy at the University of Oslo.
Safia has been involved in the formulation of the Norwegian government's Action Plan Against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and is regarded as an ambassador in the fight against violence against the female body. Beyond this, she is also involved in a national board (KIM) working on strategies to combat racism and promote acceptance and understanding between cultures.
In 2002, Karl E Rikardsen (Harstad) made the documentary Safia and Her Daughters about Safia and her three daughters and their meeting with Norwegian culture. Safia describes herself as "finished wandered" immigrant - she's here to stay.
Foundation Amathea has worked on a project to develop good services to girls and women from minority backgrounds. The background of this project was Amathea's experience that girls and women from certain countries in Asia and Africa are facing completely different challenges than Norwegian women when it comes to pregnancy prevention and abortion issues. An important purpose of the Foundation Amathea is to develop new knowledge and improve skills with a socio-cultural perspective related to women's health. In seeking to achieve this goal, Safia Abdi Haase's experience and expertise in language and culture has been an important factor. The goal is to nurture self-help groups, where women of reproductive age meet and give each other support with a focus on health promotion and the right to control their own bodies without any kind of violence.
Safia is one of the Somali pioneers who along with others, among them Kadra Noor, Ayaan Yasiin og Zahara A. Osman, PMV, NAKMI and Amathea were the initiators of a support rally against FGM on 25th November 2009. In 2010, Safia worked on a new aksjonsdag against FGM, on 27th November 2010, in collaboration with NAKMI, NKVTS, PAWA, the Amathea Foundation and African Youth. See the program on the website www.amathea.no.
Safia is a hard worker and has dedicated his life to the fight against FGM. She has received various prices such as:
2007: Forsoningsprisen for 2007, Blanche Major, for arbeidet mot omskjæring av jenter / Reconciliation Prize for 2007, Blanche Major, for work against circumcision of girls.
2007: Topp 10 "Årlige kåring av fremragende internasjonale rollemodeller i det norske arbeids– og samfunnsliv" /
Top 10 "Annual award for outstanding international role model in the Norwegian working life and society."
2005: Africa Forum – Nordic, "For your contribution to the African Society in Norway" / Africa Forum - Nordic, "For your contribution to the African Society in Norway"
2005: Æresmedlem av Norske Kvinners Sanitetsforening / Honorary Member of the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association.
2005: Unni og Jon Dørsjøs minnefond ved Norske Kvinners Sanitetsforening "For kontaktskapende arbeid mellom somaliere og nordmenn, og for at hun er en viktig rollemodell for innvandrerkvinner i Norge" / Unni and Jon Dørsjøs Memorial Fund at the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association "To promote contact between Somalis and Norwegians, for which she is a role model for immigrant women in Norway."
2002: Troms Fylkeskommunes likestillingspris 2001 "for sitt enestående engasjement og iherdige arbeid for å fremme kulturforståelse og toleranse" / Troms County Council Equality Award 2001 "for her outstanding dedication and untiring efforts to promote cultural understanding and tolerance."
2001: Harstad Sparebanks kulturpris 2000 "for sin dyktige innsats i Harstads nye multikulturelle miljø og som krumtapp i arbeidet med den årlige Multicultura"/ Harstad Savings Banks Culture Prize 2000 "for her skillful efforts in Harstad's new multi-cultural environment and driving force in the work of the annual Multicultura"
1999: Harstad: Æresambassadør / Honorary Ambassador.
Safia has its own publications as Basic Information About the Circumcision of Girls - a User's Guide (published by the Harstad Municipality, 2001) and Between Two Cultures (published by Gyldendal Academic, 2006). In addition, she contributed to the book Woman Know Your Body (PAX Publishing).
Safia has held many positions in many organizations that PAWA (Panafrican Woman Association), FOCUS and Multikultura. She has been project leader (MiA / UDI) for the project "Somali Youth - A Resource" and coordinator of the Norwegian Nurses Association (NSF). She is also working on projects in Mogadishu (Somalia) and as an individual actively contributes to many projects.

   

JOSHUA N. WEISS
oshua N. Weiss is the Associate Director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University in 2002. Dr. Weiss has spoken and published on negotiation, mediation, and systemic approaches to dealing with conflict. In his current capacity he conducts research, consults with many different types of organizations, teaches courses on Negotiation, Mediation, and Conflict Management and Resolution, and practices the art and science of negotiation at the interstate, intrastate, and organizational levels.
 

KENNETH SUSLAK
Dr. Kenneth Suslak is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Union Institute and University and a Clinical Psychologist for over 35 years with a specialization on the effects of war and oppression on children. He has provided consultation, treatment, and training services for professionals and indigenous workers in many countries, including Belarus, Latvia, Russia, Israel/Palestine, and the U.S. He has been involved with the Compassionate Listening Project in Israel and Palestine, a reconciliation program utilizing listening to all sides in intractable conflicts. He is currently studying the process of a number of reconciliation and peacemaking programs to determine whether there are consistent themes in "success". He has presented papers on his work at international conferences in Russia, Latvia, Canada, and the U.S.

 

HILDEGUNN NORDTUG
Hildegunn Nordtug is also a member in our HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team.
Hildegunn has just earned her Master's degree in Social and Community Psychology at the University of Trondheim. She wrote her thesis, Implicit Prejudice against Arab Immigrants. This thesis presents the duality of unconscious and conscious prejudice, and links it up to body language and unmonitored responses. She was also working as a research assistant for associate professor Ute Gabriel on an experiment about prejudice.
Hildegunn has a wide interest in social and community psychology. Some of her interests are basic social psychology, community health, preventive work and violence. She is now working on a project called “Tolerence Nord-Trøndelag”, which has as a goal to reduce prejudice and enhance diversity in the region of Nord-Trøndelag in Norway. She happily accepts all ideas and suggestions on how to do this work. Please share your experiences and thoughts! Hildegunn will also have some lectures on prejudice at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
 
MAGGIE O'NEILL
Maggie O'Neill is also a Member of the HumanDHS Board of Directors, the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, the HumanDHS Education Team, and HumanDHS Research Team, as part of the core HumanDHS Research Management Team, particularly to our upcoming Refugees and Humiliation Project. She is furthermore a Member of the Academic Board of the Journal of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (JHDHS).
Maggie O'Neill is a Reader in Criminology in the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University, UK. Until 2009, she was based in Criminology and Social Policy at Loughborough University. Prior to this she worked for eleven years in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Staffordshire University and before that was ten years in the Department of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. She co-edited Sociology (with Tony Spybey): the journal of the British Sociological Association from 1999-2002; she is a member of various professional associations including the National Network of Sex Work Projects and the British Sociological Association and British Criminology Association. She acts as a research consultant on community cohesion issues and has had commissions from the Home Office, and regional Local Authorities. Maggie researches the issue of prostitution, women's experiences, routes in to prostitution, and communities affected (since 1990) and forced migration (since 1998).
An expert in participatory action research (working with people, groups, communities to create change) Maggie has a reputation for developing innovative culture work to imagine new ways of understanding and articulating the experiences of crime and victimization, that breach disciplinary boundaries and expand and enliven the methodological horizons of cultural criminology. Her theoretical concept of ethno-mimesis (the inter-connection of sensitive ethnographic work and visual re-presentations) is a methodological tool as well as a process for exploring lived experience, displacement, exile, belonging and humiliation.
Research funding has been received from the AHRB; Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Home Office; Leicester Local Authority and Local Education Authority, East Midland Arts, Nottingham Trent and Staffordshire Universities. Books include:
• Adorno, Culture and Feminism (Sage);
• Prostitution and Feminism: Towards a Politics of Feeling (Polity);
• Prostitution: A Reader (Ashgate) with Roger Matthews;
• Gender and the Public Sector (Routledge) with Jim Barry and Mike Dent;
• Sex Work Now (Willen) with Rosie Campbell.
See also:
• Humiliation, Social Justice and Ethno-mimesis, note presented at the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005;
• together with Ramaswami Harindranath, Theorising Narratives of Exile and Belonging: The Importance of Biography and Ethno-mimesis in “Understanding” Asylum, in Qualitative Sociology Review, II (1, April 2006), pp. 39-52.
• Forced Migration, Humiliation and Human Dignity: Re-Imagining the Asylum-Migration Nexus through Participatory Action Research (PAR), abstract presented at the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.
• Re-Imagining Diaspora through Ethno-Mimesis: Humiliation, Human Dignity and Belonging (2007). In: Reimagining Diasporas: Transnational Lives and the Media, edited by Olga Guedes-Bailey (Liverpool John-Moores University), Myria Georgiou (University of Leeds), and Ramaswami Harindranath (University of Melbourne). Published by Palgrave Publishers, UK.
• Humiliation and Human Dignity: Conducting Participatory Action Research with Women Who Sell Sex(see www.safetysoapbox.co.uk), abstract presented at the 2007 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 13-14, 2007.
• "Making Connections: Ethno-mimesis, Migration and Diaspora," in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 14, 289-302, September 2009, doi:10.1057/pcs.2009.5.
• Humiliation, Social Justice and Recognitive Communities: Thinking about the Asylum-Migration-Community Nexus in the Context of HDHS, abstract presented at the 2012 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 6-7, 2012.
 
FLOYD WEBSTER RUDMIN
Floyd Webster Rudmin is Co-Director and Co-Coordinator of the HumanDHS Stop Hazing and Bullying Project and the HumanDHS World Gender Relations for Equal Dignity Project, as well as the HumanDHS Apology Project. He is also a member of the HumanDHS Advisory Board and Research Team.
Floyd Webster Rudmin, Ph.D., is a Professor of Social and Community Psychology at the University of Tromsø in Norway. He earned his B.A. in Philosophy in Bowdoin College, his M.A. in Audiology in SUNY, Buffalo, his M.A. in Psychology at Queen's University, Canada, and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Queen's University, Canada. His research interests include cognitive history (psychology of historical beliefs), psychology of ownership, cross-cultural psychology, statistical methods, peace research, and history of psychology.
His paper Debate in Science: The Case of Acculturation won the 2004-2005 Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award given by SPSSI (Div. 9 of the APA). Please see here the full text version.
Please see also:
•  Seventeen Early Peace Psychologists, in Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 31 (2, Spring), 1991, pp. 12-43. Altaf Ullah Khan commented (23rd July 2006, in a personal message): "This reminds me of George Herbert Mead's concept of Universals. He was also in favour of developing a universal human society where interactive/rational dialogue prevails. I had never studied psychology as a discipline, but in my journey for self-discovery I have read Freud and Jung and have also gone through mythology and Sufism. I remember one Sufi saying at the very onset of a book: Sufism is to avoid preconceptions."
•  co-authored with Kristina Ostvik, Bullying and Hazing Among Norwegian Army Soldiers: Two Studies of Prevalence, Context, and Cognition, in Military Psychology, 2001, 13 (1), 17-39.
•  G. B. Grundy's 1917 Proposal for Political Psychology: "A Science Which Has Yet to Be Created", in ISPP News, 12 (2), 2005, pp. 6-7.
•  Six Research Designs on Humiliation, abstract presented at Round Table 2 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
•  Charles Robert Richet: Pioneer of Peace Psychology, in Peace Psychology Newsletter, in press.
•  Daniel Droba Day (1898-1998): Attitudes Towards War As a Cause of War, i n Peace Psychology, in press.
•  How History Allows Insight into the Malady of American Militarism, abridged version published by CounterPunch, 13 (1, January 1-15), pp.1, 4-6, posted Feb. 17, 2006, at http://www.counterpunch.org/rudmin02172006.html as
"Plan Crimson: War on Canada: Secret War Plans and the Malady of American Militarism."
•  Preventing Inadvertent Humiliation, abstract presented at the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.
•  Franziska Baumgarten (1883 - 1970): Early Female, Jewish, Peace Psychologist, in Peace Psychology, in press.
•  The Apologies Project: Small Wins Ways to Reduce Militarizing Memories, abstracts presented at the 2010 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 9-10, 2010.
 

DANIEL L. SHAPIRO
Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D., advises the HumanDHS Public Policy for Equal Dignity Project. He is the Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. He is on the faculty of Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School's Department of Psychiatry. Trained in clinical psychology, his research and teaching focus primarily on the role of emotions in negotiation and international conflict management. Currently, he is working with Professor Roger Fisher on a book on how to deal with emotions in negotiation.
Dr. Shapiro consults widely to governments, businesses, and school systems, and has developed conflict management programs both domestically and internationally. Through funding from the Soros Foundation, he developed a conflict management program that has reached nearly one million people in 22 countries across Eastern and Central Europe.
Please see The Nature of Humiliation, note presented at the Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, November 18-19, 2004.
Daniel Shapiro is leading HumanDHS's Public Policy for Equal Dignity project. He is teaching a course on Negotiation: Dealing with Emotions at Harvard Law School.

 
SAYAKA FUNADA-CLASSEN
Sayaka Funada-Classen is Associate Professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (2008-). Sayaka holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Tsuda Colledge. She is the author of The Origins of 'Unity' and 'Division' in Contemporary Mozambican History, published in Japanese by Ochanomizu Shobo in 2007, awarded by Japan Association of African Studies in 2008.
 
ELISABETH E. SCHEPER
Elisabeth E. Scheper has until recently been the Director of Program Development of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, based in New York. She researches and writes about innovative civil society conflict prevention approaches (as a Fellow and Associate at Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, since 2000). In collaboration with the University of Amsterdam she is currently completing her PhD thesis on the role of Asian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in preventing deadly conflict in divided societies. Ms. Scheper holds a double MA in Geography and Regional Development Planning for Developing Countries and Europe. In her spare time she advises NGOs in Burma, Cambodia and Sri Lanka with programmes in peace building, human rights, governance and security, and poverty eradication.
From 1990 - 2000, Ms. Scheper was Novib's - Oxfam Netherlands - Head of the East and South East Asia Department and developed and managed its grant making programme aimed at poverty eradication, civil society building, human rights and advocacy in ten Asian countries. In addition she chaired various international boards and committees, like Sri Lanka NGO Forum, INFID (Indonesia) and Padek (Cambodia), and initiated voter education and free legal aid projects in the Mekong region and Sri Lanka. Previously, Ms. Scheper was employed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1982 and worked five years in Nepal as Deputy Resident Representative to manage the Dutch volunteers and bilateral programmes in remote areas.
Please see some of Scheper's work here:
Please see some of Scheper's work here:
The Challenges for Local NGOs in the Globalising Civil Society, key note speech at the Rise of Civil Society in East Asia conference, a joint Sophia University/UNDP initiative, April 2000, Tokyo/Japan;
On the Right to Development, Human Security and a Life in Dignity, 2001, Harvard University, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs' Fellow publication,www.wcfia.harvard.edu/fellows/papers00-01/scheper.pdf;
On the Brink: Prevention of Violent Conflict and Protection of Children in Deeply Divided Societies, paper presented at the Conference on Religious Women, Children and Armed Conflict, World Conference of Religions for Peace and UNICEF University of Cordoba, Spain, March 18 - 20, 2002;
Role of Women in Violent Conflict Prevention and Negotiation, paper presented at the Women, Peace Building and Constitution Making Conference, organised by the International Center of Ethnic Studies, May 3-5, 2002, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
 

NOAM EBNER
Born in the US and residing in Israel, Noam is an attorney and an accomplished mediator. Directing a Jerusalem-based mediation center, he has dealt with hundreds of conflicts as a third party neutral or advisor. Settling day-to-day conflicts in a conflictual locale, Noam has dealt with issues ranging from divorce mediation and business disputes to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. He has founded Israel 's first Campus Mediation Center at Bar-Ilan University, and serves on advisory boards and panels of various community mediation centers, Bar Association committees and Israeli-Palestinian dialogue groups. Noam balances teaching with practice, and believes in a hands-on method that encourages students to begin practicing their new skills as soon as they enter the classroom. Using this approach, Noam has taught and trained in Israel's leading universities, colleges and organizations and is a faculty member of Sabanci University's Graduate Program on Conflict Analysis and Resolution in Istanbul, Turkey.
 

SOPHIE SCHAARSCHMIDT
Sophie Schaarschmidt is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team, and the HumanDHS Education Team.
She was born nearby Dresden, Germany, 27 years ago. She has lived and studied in several countries, including Great Britain, Netherlands and Malta. She is a doctorate student of psychology working at the "FernUniversität" in Hagen, Germany (a distance learning university).
Sophie writes: In my free time I've been actively involved in the Youth Programme of the European Commission (EC) by volunteering, setting up (inter)national youth projects and training. Over the last years I have become interested in the co-operation between Europe and the Middle East. My Master thesis focussed on differences in cultural values of youth and youth workers engaging in the Euro-Mediterranean Youth Programme of the EC which aims at creating co-operative youth projects in both regions. I was involved in establishing CYT (Conyoungtion) association, a Dutch based association that facilitates and implements intercultural youth projects with a specific focus on cooperation with partners from the Middle East.
My dissertation will now focus on (emotional) barriers in dialogue between youth from Israel and Palestine, which is of specific interest for me.
I've visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Westbank) several times, and I've lived there for a period of 3 months. For my future I envision to get involved in projects in that region that are aimed at creating an atmosphere for and facilitating dialogue for peaceful change.
I like working in the spirit of the HumanDHS group because I really believe that here we're dealing with a core issue of human relations and peace, be it in the micro or the macro level. I feel very connected to the vision and concept and the ambition to research, publish and put into practise models of how human relations can improve through mutual respect, dignity and appreciation and the avoidance of humiliation, counterhumiliation, shaming and blaming. This connects very well with the concept of non-violent communication which I find very important and valuable, especially in the field of peace work.
I really believe that in this HumanDHS group, we're dealing with a core issue of human relations and peace, be it in the micro or the macro level. I feel very connected to the vision and concept and the ambition to research, publish and put into practise models of how human relations can improve through mutual respect, dignity and appreciation and the avoidance of humiliation, counterhumiliation, shaming and blaming. This connects very well with the concept of non-violent communication which I find very important and valuable, especially in the field of peace work.
Please see here some of Sophie's publications:
•  Cognitive and Emotional Ingroup-identification of Youth in Israel and Palestine, note presented at Round Table 1 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
•  Samen in Zee: Israelis and Palestinians in the Same Boat Camp.
Sophie Schaarschmidt (2007)
•  Contribution presented at the 2007 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 13-14, 2007.
 

JUDIT RÉVÉSZ
Judit Révész is also a Member in the HumanDHS Global Core Coordinating Team and the HumanDHS Education Team. She generously donates her free time, since 2003, to handle all the messages sent to our website through our Contact Us page.
Currently Judit works as a Consultant Case Officer at the United Nations Office of the Ombudsman for Funds & Programmes (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and UNOPS), providing services for those whose want to resolve their workplace related conflict within the informal conflict resolution system.
In 2007 Judit received her Master of Science in Organization Development from the American University and the NTL Institute joint program. Prior to that, she graduated from ELTE School of Law Budapest, Hungary in 1998 and practiced litigation and corporate law for a year in Hungary. She then studied conflict resolution and mediation at Columbia University, Teachers College, in New York in 2001. Judit subsequently worked as a mediator in New York on cases referred by the Small Claims Court. In this capacity she experienced how mediation actually fulfills the deepest meaning of conflict resolution for all parties as opposed to only litigation. She also worked as a facilitator on numerous conflict resolution courses and trainings at Teachers College and at the United Nations. She has been involved with Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies since its inception, as its NY resident, and kindly taking upon herself the important role of the HumanDHS website contact person.

   

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ERIN HILGART
Erin Hilgart, (Erin A. Hilgart, LLC) is a change consultant, facilitator & executive coach with 15 years of experience in change management, career development and leadership / team development. Erin works with leadership teams and individual leaders in businesses undergoing growth, off-shoring/outsourcing, and personal and organizational transformation. Her current clients include Associated British Foods, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, New York Life, Women's Prison Association and private coaching clients.
Erin has travelled to more than 50 countries and worked in more than 20 countries across the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the India subcontinent. Early in her career she held project-based roles and internships at GCI Group/ Grey Advertising, Miller Brewing Company, and the British House of Commons.
Change at the Systems level; Organization Transformation:
Erin has a particular area of expertise in employee engagement during transformational change. At Deutsche Bank, Erin led the People Strategy of the Global Finance Transformation; a four year global change agenda. Based in Singapore and London during that four-year period, her remit included both the offshore people strategy (Manila and Mumbai) and the on-shore global people strategy (primary locations were Frankfurt, London, New York, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong). The redesign and implementation of this new global people strategy included organization design, learning & development, resourcing and reward.
Change at the Individual level; Executive Coaching & Leadership/Management Development:
Erin’s approach to making systems-wide change prioritizes the engagement and effectiveness of top leaders, middle managers, and team members in taking responsibility for effectively managing and leading teams. Rather than doing the change for them, Erin engages executives in driving change in their own organizations. This includes executive coaching, team interventions, leadership/ management development, and career consulting for executives ranging from MDs and their leadership teams to graduate-level professionals.
Coaching and Development in times of Business As Usual:
Erin also coaches executives and facilitates leadership team development in business as usual environments. Her philosophy is there really is no business as usual. Even when no organizational change agenda is underway, executives must continue to keep pace with demands of their dynamic industries and personal aspirations.
Education, Certifications & Awards:
- T.C., Columbia University - Doctoral Candidate (Ed.D), Adult Learning and Leadership (Expected 2013)
- T.C. & Columbia Business School – Certified Executive Coach, Columbia Coaching Program (2011)
- T.C., Columbia University – M.A., Organizational Psychology (2003)
- Ashridge Business School, Hertfordshire, UK – Certificate, Partnering and Consulting in Change (2010)
- Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI – Bachelor of Arts in Social Science (1997)
- London School of Economics, London – Hansard Scholar (1996)
- Full Academic Scholarship; Ellen Harcourt Scholar and Trustees’ Scholar (1993-1997)
- Certified in MBTI, DISC, EQi & Hay Leadership Survey, Hogan & accredited DB Career Consultant.
- Designed and managed Career Management initiative for Barclays; project won Barclays Wealth and Investment Management HR of the Year Award (2011)

 

BEATRICE JACUCH
Beatrice Jacuch is also a Member in the HumanDHS Global Core Coordinating Team and Editor of the World Language for Equal Dignity project.
She is a clinical psychologist currently interning at the Prague Psychiatric Center in the Czech Republic where she provides psychotherapy and assessment. She received her Masters degree in clinical psychology from the Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her dissertation was on psychological resilience to terrorism and combat trauma in a sample of civilian and military personnel in Iraq. The aim of this study was to discover and identify factors that contribute to increased resilience. The study, led by Anne Speckhard, is still ongoing. For several years Beatrice has worked on various research projects investigating issues such as: trauma , posttraumatic stress disorder in Holocaust survivors, terrorism and its psychological consequences, and fostering resilience to terrorism. In Prague, next to research and clinical work, she volunteers for Amnesty International.
 
MICHAEL DAHAN
Michael Dahan is lecturer in communication studies and political science at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. His main research interests include civil society organizations and ICTs; transnational civil society; new media, politics, and society; cultural aspects of ICTs; intercultural dialogue; coexistence issues and comparative politics. Much of his work focuses on the Middle East. He has published on all of these topics.
 
REBECCA ANN KLEIN
Rebecca Ann Klein is interested in creating effective, culturally sensitive nutrition programs within the field of Public Health. She is currently a student at Tufts University, working for a Master of Science in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition, with the aim to gain skills to run international health projects, and/or work with the politics and policies that affect the global food supply. She also takes classes at Tufts' school of International Law and Diplomacy.
Earlier, Becca completed a year of volunteer service through the AmeriCorps* VISTA program where she spent her time coordinating a teaching garden with Oregon Food Bank serving Washington County in Hillsboro, OR, USA. She has traveled extensively and is eager to do more. Becca is a graduate of Hampshire College in 2001 with a concentration in Nutritional Anthropology.
 
ASHRAF SALAMA
Professor Salama is is also a Member of the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board, the HumanDHS Reseach Team, and the Director and Coordinator of the HumanDHS World Architecture for Equal Dignity Project.
Dr. Ashraf Salama Dr. Ashraf Salama is Professor of Architecture in the Architectural Engineering Program of Qatar University in Doha. Prior to that, he was Associate Professor of Architecture at the Department of Architecture, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals-KFUPM. Please see here his new website that he recently developed to include his work and his wife's work http://www.arti-arch.org. He was the Director of Research and Consulting at Adams Group Consultants in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA (2001-04). He is a licensed architect in Egypt, trained at Al Azhar University and North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA. He is Associate Professor of Architecture, Al Azhar University, Cairo (on leave of absence), and former Chairman of the Department of Architecture, Misr International University in Cairo (1996-01). Dr. Salama has written over 50 articles and papers in local and international conferences and archival journals, and trade magazines; published three books on Architectural Education: Designing the Design Studio, Human Factors in Environmental Design, and Architectural Education Today; delivered lectures and presentations in over 25 countries; and contributed widely to international publications. He was member of the UIA/UNESCO International Committee of Architectural Education, and the Director of Architectural Education Work Program of the International Union of Architects-UIA (1995-00). He is currently co-Convener of the International Association for People-Environments Studies-IAPS Education Network.
He was the recipient of the first award of the International Architecture Design Studio, University of Montreal, Canada, 1990, and in 1998 he won the Paul Chemetove Prize for his project on Architecture and the Eradication of Poverty, a United Nations International Ideas Competition. Dr. Salama served as a consultant to the Egyptian Ministries of Tourism and Culture. He also served as member in the international jury for projects within the context of the revitalization of Sarajevo, Bosnia, and a UIA Jury member in the international competition on designing a central urban park in La Paz, Bolivia. He has been appointed a technical reviewer for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in Geneva, Award Cycle (1998-01). Salama has been involved with the Community Development Group of the College of Design, North Carolina State University (1993-95). His academic experience includes teaching courses on Programming and Space Planning, Research and Design Methods, Applications of Socio-Behavioral Studies in Design, and Interior Design, Architectural and Community Design Studios. His professional experience includes consultancy for several government and public agencies, and managing design projects from inception through programming and space planning, encountering users and environmental constraints. His recent research places emphasis on design studio teaching practices, and workplace and learning environments.
Please see some of Dr. Ashraf Salama's work here:
•  Incorporating Knowledge about Cultural Diversity into Architectural Pedagogy (1999).
•  Skill-Based / Knowledge-Based Architectural Pedagogies: An Argument for Creating Humane Environments, paper given by Ashraf Salama at the 7th International Conference on Humane Habitat-ICHH-05 – The International Association of Humane Habitat IAHH, Rizvi College of Architecture, Mumbai, India, January 29-31, 2005.
•  Shores of the Mediterranean: Architecture as a Language of Peace, co-edited by Ashraf Salama with colleagues from Napoli, Italy, Donatella Mazzoleni, Giuseppe Anzani, Marichela Sepe, and Maria Maddalena Simone, 2005. Intra Moenia, Rome and Naples, Italy: Edizioni.
•  Patterns of Change in Work Environments: A Process-Employee Centered Paradigm, introductory speech given by Ashraf Salama at the 8th International Conference of IAHH-the International Association for Humane Habitat- Sustainable and Humane Workplaces. Mumbay, India, January 27-29, 2006.
•  Architecture as Language of Peace: Democracy and Collaborative Design Processes, a short course by Dr. Ashraf Salama.
•  PLADEW: A Tool for Teachers Awareness of School Building Sustainability: The Case of Carmel School, Mathews, North Carolina, in the Global Built Environment Review-GBER, International Center for Development and Environment Studies ICDES, Vol. 5, 2005, Issue (1), Edge Hill, Lancashire, United Kingdom. ISSN 1474 6824.
•  A Process Oriented Design Pedagogy: KFUPM Sophomore Studio, in the Journal of the Center for Education in the Built Environment-CEBE Transactions, University of Cardiff, Vol. 2, 2005, Issue (2), Cardiff, United Kingdom. ISSN 1745-0322.
•  Design Studio Teaching Practices: Between Traditional, Revolutionary, and Virtual Models, with Guest Editor Ashraf Salama, Ph.D., Professor of Architecture, in Open House International (OHI) (Academic Refereed Journal), Special Issue, Volume 31, No.3, September 2006 (Contact "Carol Nicholson" Carol.Nicholson@ribaenterprises.com).
•  Symbolism and Identity in the Eyes of Arabia’s Budding Professionals, in LAYERMAG... An Online Magazine on Architecture, Art, and Design, and Media Studies.
•  A Lifestyle Theories Approach for Affordable Housing Research in Saudi Arabia, in the Emirates Journal for Engineering Research, Vol. 11, 2006, Issue (1), United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
•  Learning from the Environment: Evaluation Research and Experience Based Architectural Pedagogy, in the Journal of the Center for Education in the Built Environment-CEBE Transactions, University of Cardiff, Vol. 3, 2006, Issue (1), Cardiff, United Kingdom. ISSN 1745-0322.
•  A Typological Perspective: The Impact of Cultural Paradigmatic Shifts on the Evolution of Courtyard Houses in Cairo, in the Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, Middle East Technical University. Vol. 23, 2006, Issue (1). METU-JFA, Ankara, Turkey.
•  Ashraf is the Chief-Editor of the new Journal ArchNet-IJAR, an interdisciplinary scholarly online publication of architecture, planning, and built environment studies. Please see here an outline and the submission notes to authors. The journal aims at establishing a bridge between theory and practice in the fields of architectural and design research, and urban planning and built environment studies. It reports on the latest research findings innovative approaches for creating responsive environments, with special focus on developing countries. The journal has two international boards; advisory and editorial. The range of knowledge and expertise of the boards members ensures high quality scholarly papers and allows for a comprehensive academic review of contributions that span wide spectrum of issues, methods, theoretical approach and architectural and development practices.
•  New Book! Design Studio Pedagogy: Horizons for the Future, by Ashraf M. Salama and Nicholas Wilkinson (editors), Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK: The Urban International Press (2007). ISBN: 1-872811-09-04. The Urban International Press, P.O Box 74, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, NE9 5UZ, UK. e-mail Carol Nicholson: carol.nicholson[@]ribaenterprises.com for more information.
 

Hayal Köksal, Ph.D., is a teacher, trainer, researcher, and author. She is the
Turkish Founder of the “CMS-QOMER Initiative for Peace Education.” She is the advisor and coordinator of the Innovative Teachers Program of Microsoft Turkey, and consultant of Educational Quality, Leadership and Project Management.
Dr. Köksal was born in Balikesir, Turkey in 1956. She graduated from Izmir Teachers' Training College in 1976, and Educational Faculty of Marmara University in 1985. She received her MA in English Language Teaching from Gaziantep University in 1992, and her Ph.D. in Educational Sciences in 1997.
Dr. Köksal has been dealing with Total Quality in Education since 1992, and in 2000, she co-founded the Turkish Center for Schools of Quality with world-wide renowned quality expert John Jay Bonsting.
She has been lecturing at various outstanding Turkish Universities as a part-time instructor as a way of publicizing quality-oriented education, and working as an educational quality consultant, researcher, and book writer. Dr. Köksal wrote seven books about Total Quality in Education and more than 100 articles and if required they are available. The last three books are: A Bunch of In-Class Activities (Based on the Structuralism) ( Istanbul, Turkey, Marduk Publishing, 2006), Power of Unity in Education and Imece Circles at Classroom and in School ( Istanbul, Turkey, Akademi Publishing, 2004), and Everything About Quality ( Istanbul, Turkey, Akademi Publishing, 2003).
Dr. Köksal has been coordinating the Innovative Teachers project of Microsoft Turkey and is also trying to publicize the Students' Quality Circles philosophy, Imece Circles in Turkish, at Turkish schools. She conducted nearly 200 circles till the end of 2006.
Dr. Köksal is a member of ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), English Language Education Association (Founder of Quality in ELT, SIG), Democratic Principles Association (Board member), The New Generation Village Institutions Society (One of the founders and board members of Istanbul branch), and the association for Continuous Improvement (The founder & the president). Dr. Köksal has received the Honorary Medal of the Ministry of Tourism due to her leadership of Archeological projects, and golden and silver medals of NYDT in South Africa. She has also received the Business-Education Partnership Award of the Center for Schools of Quality together with Microsoft Turkey. Dr. Köksal is the Turkey representative of the Center for Schools of Quality of USA, the Turkish National Youth Development Trustee (NYDT) of South Africa, the Turkish General Director of the World Council for Total Quality and Excellence in Education (WCTQEE) of India, and a member of the advisory board of the Center for Quality People and Organizations (CQPO) in the USA. She is also in collaboration with the International Academy for Quality Circles (IAQC), established by Donald Dewar, Dallas Blankenship, and Dr. John Man. She won an award in the World Bank 2005 Turkey Innovative Marketplace competition through her Imece Circles Project in May 2005. On 4th December 2005, she was awarded the World Quality Leader award by the WCTQEE. During the winter months of 2006, her project about Istanbul was among the 75 projects that will lead Istanbul through 2010 as a European Cultural Capital City. Her ICT Project which has been supported by Microsoft Turkey has gained great acclaim among the national and international teams and it is going to be publicized through the Educational Technologies Department of the Ministry of National Education to train innovative students.
Dr. Köksal is giving some elective and compulsory courses at the Educational faculty of Bogaziçi University (like “School Experience,” “Introduction to Teaching Profession,” “Innovative Teaching and Quality in ELT”); at Yildiz Technical University (Personal Quality and Leadership), at the MA Program of Bahçesehir University (Human Resources Management), and “Quality in Training” at Yeditepe University.
Dr. Köksal is married with one daughter.
 

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DUKE DUCHSCHERER
Duke Duchscherer is also a Member of the HumanDHS Education Team.
Duke Duchscherer is a Certified Trainer with the International Center for Nonviolent Communication and is on the Board of Directors for the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. For the past 17 years Duke has taught and facilitated peacebuilding and reconciliation processes with a depth and breadth of peoples and groups from the grassroots to the United Nations on four continents. For more than 2 years Duke has been learning from Dominic Barter (originator of the Restorative Circle process) while helping to set up a Restorative System for a university and a church; and teaching and applying the process within small groups and communities across N. America, Europe and Asia. Duke has a deep passion to find ways to (re)build relationships that acknowledges shared interdependence while affirming the unique strength and beauty in each person/group.

 


DHARM P.S. BHAWUK
Dharm P. S. Bhawuk, is a Member of the HumanDHS Advisory Board, and Advisor of HumanDHS's World Films for Equal Dignity Project.
Dr. Dharm P. S. Bhawuk
(Ph. D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is a Professor of Management and Culture and Community Psychology at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, Honolulu. He has research interests in indigenous psychology and management, cross-cultural training, intercultural sensitivity, diversity in the workplace, individualism and collectivism, culture and creativity, and spirituality. He is originally from Nepal, and has published more than 60 papers and book chapters and made more than 150 presentations at internationally at conferences universities. He has edited special issues of journals on Globalization and Diversity (IJIR, 2008, volume 32, no. 4) and Indian Psychology (PDS, 2010, volume 22, no. 1).  He is the author of the book Spirituality and Indian Psychology: Models from the Bhagavad-Gita (Springer, 2011) and co-editor of the book Asian Contributions to Cross-Cultural Psychology (Sage, 1996). He has received many awards including Best Paper Award from the Academy of Management (2009 and 1996), the Distinguished Service Award from the East West Center (1989), and the Lum Yup Key Outstanding MBA Student Award from the University of Hawai‘i  (1990). He is a Founding Fellow of the International Academy for Intercultural Research and was H Smith Richardson, Jr. Visiting Fellow, Center for Creative Leadership for 2009-10. (bhawuk[@]hawaii.edu)
Please see:
• “From Social Engineering to Community Transformation: Amul, Grameen Bank, and Mondragon as Exemplar Cooperatives” by Bhawuk, Mrazek, & Munusamy, 2009, which received the Rupe Chilsom Practical Theory Paper Award from the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management, 2009.
• Humiliation and Human Rights in Diverse Societies: Forgiveness & Other Solutions from Cross-Cultural Research, paper first presented at the Third Annual Meeting on Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, September 16-18, 2004, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, France, developed in 2009.

 
EDWARD J. EMERY
Edward J. Emergy is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team and HumanDHS Education Team.
He is the Chief Representative to the United Nations for World Information Transfer, an international NGO in Genral Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council at the UN. He is also a Senior Partner with Ethical Futures and a psychoanalyst in private practice. Dr. Emery has lectured and taught internationally.
Please see:
•  An Ethics of Engagement: Shame and the Genesis of Violence, paper presented at a Conference of the Peacemaker Corps Association in Honor of Sergio Vieira de Mello "Peacemaking in the Family: Nuclear, Community and Global" United Nations Headquarters, February 27, 2004. Forthcoming in Psychotherapy and Politics International in 2004 (2) 3.
•  Musings on Shame and Idolization, abstract presented at the 2007 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 13-14, 2007.
 
MIRIAM PINA
Miriam Pina is a Brazilian, mother of seven children, a writer, translator-interpreter, and teacher of English. She spent five years in Angola (19991-1996), originally to work for the Focolare Movement, but she also worked for the U.N. The place she worked in was called United Nations Angola Verification Mission. She has written a series of articles on her experience (some with a focus on Humiliation) for the Brazilian Focolare magazine CIDADE NOVA.
 
TREVOR L. BALLANCE
Trevor L. Ballance is a lecturer and researcher at Josai International University, Japan, in the Department of International Exchange. He teaches courses on NGO issues and case studies on the NGO/business relationship. In addition to his teaching commitments, Trevor also works with local NGOs to provide students with work experience and is currently helping set up an NGO Support Center at the University. He was involved in setting up an NGO Certification Program at Temple University Japan as well as running courses in English for NGOs at The Asia Foundation, Nagoya NGO Center and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations.
Trevor Ballance is the author of a textbook for university students on NGOs and articles on the role of NGOs, and the sustainability of development projects. He is a member of Amnesty International Japan and a Nepalese Development NGO, Asha Ko Kiran. He is currently studying for an MA in NGOs and Sustainable Development.
His research interests include NGOs as learning organizations; the relationship between the Japan International Cooperation Agency and NGOs; and the development of effective indicators in the assessment of project sustainability.
 


NEIL RYAN WALSH
Neil Ryan Walsh the Director and Coordinator of the HumanDHS Japan for Equal Dignity (JED) project.
He is currently working with the Kaminokawa-machi board of education as a member of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET Program). Neil has recently completed a part time internship with the United Nations Department of Public Informations Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (12/05 6/06), he also works as an assistant to media psychologist and disaster relief expert Dr. Judy Kuriansky. Neil has also worked in the areas of psychotherapy research, psychological research, and psychotherapy and assessment.
Neil was a co-author of, Theatre for Peace in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, with composer Lorenzo Toppano and psychologist Judy Kuriansky In Programs for Peace in the Holy Land edited by Judy Kuriansky and published by Praeger Press. Neil was also the co-author with Evelin Lindner and Judy Kuriansky of Humiliation or Dignity in the Israel Palestine Conflict in Terror in the Holy Land, edited by Judy Kuriansky and published by Praeger Press. Neil has recently presented, “The Impact of Humiliation on Conflicts and Disasters: Enhancing Dignity in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” in a panel on terrorism to the IV International Conference on Stress and Traumatic Studies. Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Student Internships at the United Nations: "Psychology and the development of Civil Society," at a psychology conference at Pace University in a panel on international psychology sponsored by the American Psychological Associations division of international psychology (division 52).
Neil has a B.A. from St. Johns University in Queens, New York in East Asian Studies and Psychology and an M.A. from the New School for Social Research in Psychology with a concentration in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Counseling. Neil has also studied at the Faculty of Comparative Culture at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan from 2001-2002. Neil is an alumnus of the McNair Scholars Program, a recipient of the National Security Education Programs David L. Boren Scholarship, the Freeman Foundations Freeman Asia scholarship, is a member of Psi Chi the National Honors Society in Psychology, and a recipient of the Golden Key and Silver Key in East Asian Studies from St. Johns University.
Please see:
•  a video of Neil's wonderful contribution to our 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
•  Yasukuni Shrine: Preventing Humiliation for East Asia, Preserving Dignity for Japan’s War Dead, abstract prepared together with Kazuyoshi Kawasaka for the Second International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, 13-15th April 2007, Institute of Discourse and Cultural Studies, & Department of Applied Psychology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, as part of the 9th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies.
 

altman
NEIL ALTMAN
Neil Altman is co-editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues: A Journal of Relational Perspectives and Associate Clinical Professor in the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at New York University. He is author of the The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class, and Culture through a Psychoanlaytic Lens and co-author of Relational Child Psychotherapy. He is a member of Psychotherapists for Social Responsibility.
Please see here Humiliation, Retaliation and Violence, in Tikkun Magazine, January/February 2004.
 

EINAR STRUMSE
Einar Strumse is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team and the HumanDHS Architecture Team.
Einar Strumse
(Cand. Psychol. and PhD in psychology) is associate professor of psychology and head of the psychology programme at the Lillehammer University College (LUC). He is also adjunct associate professor of environmental psychology at the University of Bergen. Since 1990 his research in the field of environmental psychology has focused upon landscape preference/landscape aesthetics, environmental attitudes and predictors of environmental behaviors.
Please see:
• Summary of the Special Session on the Role Played by Human Dignity and Humiliation for Environmental Psychology, presented at 11th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Norway , 23rd June -1st July, 2008.
 

KATRINE FANGEN
Katrine Fangen is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
Katrine Fangen, Ph.D., is a Professor in Sociology at the Department of Sociology of the University of Oslo. She has published several books and journal articles within the research-field of racism, national, political and ethnic identity, stigmatisation and youth subcultures.
Her MA-thesis was a study of three political youth groups in Eastern Germany in the period before, during and after the unification of the two German states (in 1990). This study examines the adaptation strategies and identity work among east-German communist youth, anarchist youth and neo-Nazi youth from Berlin, Leipzig and Weimar.
Fangen's PhD thesis (Pride and Power - a Sociological Interpretation of the Norwegian Radical Nationalist Underground Movement, Department of Sociology, University of Oslo, 1999) is a study of Norwegian neo-Nazi youths, which, similar to her MA-thesis, is based on a combination of participant observation (one year) and in depth interviews. This thesis examines identity work, ideology, style, violence, gender-differences and interpersonal interaction among the Neo-Nazis. Attention is also paid to how society can prevent these kinds of groupings, and how one can encourage young people who join these groups to leave. This study is also published in two Norwegian books:
•  A Book About Neo-Nazism Oslo : Universitetsforlaget, 2001.
•  Behind Neo-Nazism Oslo : Cappelen, 2002.
It is as well published (among others) in the following journal articles and book-chapters:
•  'Separate or Equal? The Emergence of an All-Female Group in Norway 's Rightist Underground', Terrorism & Political Violence 9:3, 1997.
•  'Right-Wing Skinheads. Binary Oppositions and Working-Class Nostalgia', Young (Nordic Youth Research Journal) No. 3, 1998.
•  'On the Margin of Life. Life-Stories of Far-Right Activists' Acta Sociologica, No. 4, 1999.
•  ”'Radical nationalism': What are the key contemporary conceptual and theoretical issues?” Sosiologisk årbok, nr. 1, årgang 5.1, 2000.
•  'Living out our Ethnic Instincts. Ideological Beliefs among Right-Wing Activists in Norway ', Jeffrey Kaplan and Tore Bjørgo: Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture; Boston : Northeastern University Press, 1998.
•  'A Death Mask of Masculinity. The Brotherhood of Norwegian Right-Wing Skinheads', Søren Ervø and Thomas Johansson (eds.) Among Men. Moulding Masculinities vol. 1 (Hants: Ashgate Publ. Ltd., 2003).
•  'Eastern Germany 1990. Youthculture as adaption to a changing society' in: Manuela du Bois-Reymond, Lynne Chisholm, Sibylle Hübner-Funk, Burkhardt Sellin (eds.): Youth in the European Context. A Scientific Reader,1994.
Finally, Fangen has published research reports on forced marriages and a study of living conditions and life quality among people suffering from HIV/AIDS. She has also published several research reports on racism and integration of immigrants. Apart from her PhD-thesis, her main publication so far is a lecture book in participant observation which has been published in Norwegian and Swedish:
•  Deltagende observasjon [Participant Observation], Oslo: Fagbokforlaget, 2004.
•  Deltagande observation [Participant Observation], Stockholm: Liber förlag, 2005.
Katrine's present study is a five year long study of identity work, integration and mental health among Norwegian Somali immigrants.
Please see Humiliation Experienced by Somali Immigrants in Norway, in Journal of Refugee Studies, 19 (1, March), 2006; Katrine developed this article from a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Humiliation Studies, Maison des Hommes, Paris, 15th-18th of September, 2004.
 

ØYVIND EIKREM
Øyvind Eikrem (b. 1973), Ph.D., is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
He is Associate Professor of Social Sciences and of Mental Health at the University College of Stord/Haugesund, Norway. He studied social anthropology, clinical psychology and philosophy at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, ending up with postgraduate degrees in all three fields. Eikrem obtained his PhD in 2005 from the same institution on a dissertation on the magic and mythic dimensions of modern economic life.
Eikrem has done extensive ethnographic fieldwork in The Netherlands Antilles and in Colombia. His research has focused on ethnicity and identity, economic anthropology, psychological anthropology, the psychological consequences of Colombian violence and terror, the nature of health and its cultural variability, and on the theory of the social sciences. He also has strong interests in art and philosophy, having published on the philosophies of Foucault, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, among others.
Eikrem has a private practice as a clinical psychologist and he is also a member of the NGO Building Peaces, working closely with Rais Neza Boneza and Vegar Jordanger. He is married and has a daughter.
 
PATRICIA RODRIGUEZ MOSQUERA
Patricia Rodriguez Mosquera, Ph.D., is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
She studied psychology at the Autónoma University of Madrid (Spain) and the University of Amsterdam (UvA, The Netherlands). She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam in 1999. Her Ph.D. involved a series of cross-cultural studies on the role of honor in emotion. She was awarded a post-doctoral research grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to continue her work on honor cultures. She worked as a post-doctoral researcher and as Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam. She is currently Assistant Professor at the School of Social Sciences and Law, Brunel University, UK. Her research focuses on the interplay between culture and emotion. She does research on a variety of emotions: pride, shame, anger, envy, and happiness. She has studied emotions in a variety of cultures and geographical regions: Southern Europe, Northern Europe, North-Africa, Middle-East, the Caribbean islands, U.S.A. Her work on humiliation focuses on the role of this emotion in insult-related conflict. She is especially interested in the situational, cognitive, and behavioral correlates of humiliation. Please see:
• Humiliation and Honor, note presented at Round Table 1 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
• Humiliation and Racism, paper presented at The National Conference on Racism in Global Context, 9th-11th November 2007, Murdoch University, Australia.
• Rodriguez Mosquera, P.M., together with Agneta H. Fischer, Antony S. R. Manstead, and Ruud Zaalberg (2007)
Attack, Disapproval, or Withdrawal? The Role of Honor in Anger and Shame Responses to Being Insulted, Cognition and Emotion, in press.
 

galvan
ROSARIO GALVAN
Rosario Galvan is an independent researcher and cross/inter-cultural empathic connector, associate scholar and editor with the Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS), Olympia, Washington, from which she holds a Certificate in Traditional Healing Arts and Sciences, having published on women’s leadership role in igniting Emotional Climate Change through the transformational power of water consciousness, disruptive innovation, and storytelling for healthy communities (from indigenous living in the Central American tropical rainforest to Afroamerican recovering from Katrina in urban settings). She also has a M.A. in Intercultural Communication from Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is a member of the Coalition to Support the Human Right to Peace launched by the Massachusetts-based Center for Global Community and World Law on 24 March 2011. Her original background includes a BSc in Biology, and postgraduate studies in Environmental Science and Land Use Planning. A passionate life-long learner, she has extensively trained in different approaches to leadership and human development, conflict-resolution and reconciliation, women’s psychology, cultural and spiritual ecology, mind-body approaches for stress relief and wellbeing, and arts-based education for social change. As an international development consultant she has worked in the private sector in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as project director, specialist in environmental and socioeconomic aspects, negotiator and mediator with indigenous peoples’ political leaders, evaluator, and advisor on civil society and government’s relations. She has twenty two years of professional experience in the environment, communication, and social sectors, fourteen working internationally across twenty three countries and four continents.
She is preparing the final draft of the upcoming book to be published by World Dignity Press The Quest for a New Global Mandate: SustainLoveAbility and the Earth Family. The book invites the international community to dare expanding the conversation on global sustainability by embracing the single most precious value that can increase dignified relationships across cultures, peoples, and the natural landscapes that they inhabit: love. It challenges  to change the rules of the international game from prejudice and negative assumptions among culturally distinct peoples to a new relational frame of mutual acknowledgment and appreciation, where love leads the way. It is an invitation to be willing to discover the unique native essence that nourishes the sense of lovability of a culture so its people feel seen, are encouraged to express the best of their potential, and can naturally reciprocate appreciation from an enhanced ability to love. It also encourages to believe (from beleven –"to love", and the Latin credo - derived from cordo "I give my heart") in the inexhaustible quality of love as a renewable resource, able to tend collaborative bridges of understanding where previously there were only estrangement and self-serving interests. The promise is a dignified life for the Earth family, eager to gather around a bountiful table, with a seat of acknowledgment and affection for each member of humankind and the other-than-human world. She draws from cross-disciplinary research and field experience making a case for women’s  and indigenous epistemologies, which together with a new participatory science of qualities and enhancement of paradoxical/creative and artistic thinking, can help to bridge the traditional divide between culture and development, economics and anthropology, nature and society,  corporate and communities, and the cognitive and intuitive aspects of the mind.
 

ARRAN STIBBE
Arran Stibbe is the Director and Coordinator of the HumanDHS Dignity Beyond the Human World Project.
Arran Stibbe has a PhD in linguistics from Lancaster University and is the founder of the Centre for Language and Ecology. He has applied discourse analysis to a variety of domains including the social construction of health, illness, disability, nonhuman animals and the environment. His current research is aimed at uniting insights from these domains within a framework of ecological linguistics. Arran Stibbe is the Director of the Dignity Beyond the Human World project, a joint project with the Center for Language and Ecology that explores how the concepts of dignity and humiliation can be extended beyond the human world. Comments and articles of any length are welcome and will be published on http://www.ecoling.net/dignity.html. In September 2005, Arran begins teaching Critical Discourse Analysis at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.
 
THOMAS CLOUGH DAFFERN
Thomas Clough Daffern is the Director and Coordinator of the HumanDHS Cross-Cultural Linguistics for Equal Dignity Project.
Dr. Thomas Clough Daffern is the Director of the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy (IIPSGP), Wales and London, UK.
Thomas is involved in peace philosophy, peace studies, and mulitfaith and multicultural mediation and he is also co-convenor for the International Peace Research Association Peace Theories Commission – meeting in 2006 in Calgary.
The International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy (IIPSGP) provides the Secretariat for Philosophers and Historians for Peace, an organisation founded in 1984 in London, and is the co-ordinating group for European Philosophers for Peace as part of the worldwide umbrella of International Philosophers for Peace. IIPSGP is furthermore connected to Scientists for Global Responsibility and stands for the reconciliation of scientific, religious, humanistic and academic approaches to peace making worldwide. IIPSGP is represented to the United Nations Disarmament and Peace Education Commission in New York at the UN Headquarters and attends regular meetings there to discuss peace education worldwide. The main centre of the Institute is situated in a farmhouse close to the River Banwy 15 minutes drive from Welshpool, from where railway connections are available throughout the UK. Please see here the International Institute for Peace Studies and Global Philosophy (IIPSGP) Newsletter, Summer 2005 and Summer 2006.
Thomas looks back on a creative educational and research output of over 15 years, spent actively involved in education and research for peace. Active on many fronts, Thomas has been involved with peace education, comparative philosophy and interfaith studies and peacemaking for many years.
The following are some of the key landmarks in his career to date:
1977-1985 - Independent scholar, researcher and peace educator into the history of global philosophy and religious ideas, the causes of conflict in society, and the possibility of peace and reconciliation between different ideological and theological traditions; initiator of Philosophers for Peace in the U.K.
1977-2004 - author of numerous philosophical, historical and literary studies on peace, spirituality and related issues, as well as a practicing poet and convener of an international poetry network.
1985-1988 - Mature student of Modern World History and Political Ideas, University of London.
1985 - 1999: Secretary General of Philosophers and Historians for Peace (UK - plus International Coordinator 1990-1995; Eurpoean Coordinator 1998-2004)
1989-1991 - Research Development Officer and tutor at Institute of Education researching the feasibility of establishing a new International Institute of Peace Studies in the University of London
1991- 2004: Director of International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy (as implementation of Feasibility Study
1990 - 1998: Secretary General, World Conference on Religion and Peace (UK and Ireland)
1993 - 2004: Co-Convener and Co-Chair of Seminar Series in Parliament on Education for Peace and Global Ethics, organizing over 40 seminars on all aspects of conflict resolution, interfaith spirituality, comparative philosophy, values and ethics and public policy and education
1993 - 1999: Editor, Love, Justice and Peace: An International Journal of Education for Peace and Global Responsibility
1994-1998: Coordinator, Gandhi Foundation School of Nonviolence
1996 - 2004: Initiator and Coordinator of the Multifaith and Multicultural Mediation Service.
Please see:
• Beyond Humiliation: Encouraging Human Dignity in the Lives and Work of All People, paper presented at "Beyond Humiliation: Encouraging Human Dignity in the Lives and Work of All People," 5th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Berlin, 15th -17th September, 2005.
• Interview with Evelin Lindner. In The Muses Journal - Love, Justice and Wisdom: An International Journal of Education for Peace and Global Responsibility, 2005/2006 Issue Eight, pp. 78-87.
• Press Release to Launch a Meeting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Middle East (TRCME), 2007.
• Wisdom Affairs: Towards a Cartography of Enlightenment, Enlovement and Joyism for Wisdom Lovers
 

JENNIFER S. GOLDMAN
Dr. Jennifer S. Goldman is an Instructor in the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University and a member of the HumanDHS Research Team. She has conducted extensive research on the role of emotions in protracted conflict. Her dissertation The Differential Effects of Collective- Versus Personal-level Humiliating Experiences focused on the role humiliation plays in exacerbating conflict. She is currently examining how leaders use wisdom to successfully transform long-term conflicts.
Dr. Goldman's research has been supported by a multi-year Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a Pre-doctoral Fellowship from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), and grants from BeyondIntractability.org and the Office of Policy & Research and the Dean's Office at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has published articles in outlets including Peace and Conflict Studies and the Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, Second Edition.
In addition, Dr. Goldman is an organizational psychologist and executive coach with over a decade of experience serving clients in corporate, academic, and non-profit contexts. She is recognized for enabling individuals to successfully negotiate and manage conflict and to align personal values with day-to-day decisions to produce extraordinary results for the mselves and their constituencies. Dr. Goldman has served as Director of Negotiation Programs at Mediation Works Inc., a dispute resolution organization based in Boston, has taught in the internationally acclaimed Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard Law School, and has served as a mediator in the District Court Department of the Massachusetts Trial Court. She earned her B.A. from Tufts University and her Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.
Please see:
• Peter T. Coleman and Jennifer Goldman, Conflict and Humiliation, note presented at the 2004 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, November 18-19, 2004.
• How Humiliation Fuels Intractable Conflict: The Effects of Emotional Roles on Recall and Reactions to Conflictual Encounters by Jennifer S. Goldman and Peter T. Coleman, work in progress, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2005.
• A Theoretical Understanding of How Emotions Fuel Intractable Conflict: The Case of Humiliation by Jennifer S. Goldman and Peter T. Coleman (2005), paper presented at Round Table 2 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
• Humiliation and Aggression, abstract prepared by Jennifer Goldman for Round Table 2 of the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.
 

JEAN BERCHMANS NDAYIZIGIYE
Jean Berchmans Ndayizigiye (USA/Africa) is a French Language Assistant at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA, and has a M.A. in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University (2000). The title of his project is Refugees from the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa & Humiliation.
Jean earned a B.S. in Civil Engineer/Constructions from Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, a diploma in General Accounting and Business Management from Stratford Career Institute, Washington DC, and an M.A. in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University. Jean is native of Burundi, a Central Africa French-speaking country; he also speaks Swahili and Kirundi. Jean's interest in peace and conflict studies comes from his experience of violent conflict in his home country and the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. He occupied different senior positions in the government of Burundi, serving as Director of Public Work Laboratories and General Director of Roads in the Ministry of Public Works and as a Permanent Secretary of Adjudications in the Ministry of Finances. He has also served as the secretary of the Burundi International Peace Committee, a member of the Nairobi Peace-Net Steering Committee, the U.S. representative at the International Center for Dialogue and Reconciliation, and a volunteer for the Harrisonburg Refugee Resettlement Service. He is a charter member of the Michel Kayoya Foundation (a foundation for Peace, Justice, and reconciliation in Burundi based in the Netherlands), researching the Burundi conflict. Please see Humiliation and Violent Conflicts in Burundi, paper presented at Round Table 1 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.

 

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ANNETTE A. ENGLER
Annette Anderson-Engler, Ph.D., is a Member of the HumanDHS Global Core Team, the HumanDHS Education Team, our HumanDHS Research Team, and our Global Coordinating Team.
Annette earned her doctorate in 2008 at Saybrook Graduate School in San Francisco, California. Her research focused on secondary trauma and displaced identity in daughters of U.S. Vietnam War veterans. She specialized in using narrative analysis as a method of inquiry by examining how daughters of war-traumatized veterans use narratives to construct social and personal meaning to their lived experiences. Annette was awarded her Masters degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Nova Southeastern University and received her BSW in social work from the University of North Texas. She is currently a member of Association of Conflict Resolution and ISPP-International Society of Political Psychology. Annette took part in Dan Bar-On's Storytelling and Dialogue work through the Körber Stiftung foundation in Hamburg, Germany (2006-2008). Her dissertation is dedicated to the work and memory of Dan Bar-On (1938-2008).
Annette will finish her second masters degree from Walla Walla University, in March of 2011, where she has been working on her MSW in advanced clinical social work. During her training, she has focused on counseling women suffering from grief, trauma and loss.
Please see:
• the notes that Annette presented at our workshops in NY: Humiliation and Displaced Identity (2004), and Displaced Identity and Humiliation in Children of Vietnam Veterans (2005).
• Constructing and Reconstructing Narratives – A Passageway to Personal Meaning and Social Change, abstract presented at the 2007 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 13-14, 2007.
•
Shared Narratives: The “Voice” of Personal and Social Identity – Are we Listening?, abstract presented at the 2009 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 10-11, 2009.
•
Humiliation Through Silent Grief in Women: When Words Are Not Enough, abstract presented at the 2010 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 9-10, 2010.

See also Annette Engler's contributions to the World Dignity University (WDU) initiative. These video clips were recorded on October 28, 2011, in Portland, Oregon, by Linda Hartling and Evelin Lindner for the World Dignity University (WDU) initiative.
• 01 Annette Engler: Intoduction, Annette Engler is being interviewed by Evelin Lindner. The recording is done by Linda Hartling.
• 02 The Role of Dignity and Humiliation for Grief, Annette Engler is being interviewed by Evelin Lindner. The recording is done by Linda Hartling.
• 03 The Role of Dignity and Humiliation for the Transmission of Transgenerational Trauma, Annette Engler is being interviewed by Evelin Lindner. The recording is done by Linda Hartling.
• 04 The Role of Dignity and Humiliation for Cultural Diversity, Annette Engler is being interviewed by Linda Hartling. The recording is done by Evelin Lindner. (Please note that Annette Engler uses the term "servitude" in the sense of "service.")
• 05 The Role of Dignity and Humiliation for Conflict Resolution, Annette Engler is being interviewed by Linda Hartling. The recording is done by Evelin Lindner.
• 06 The Role of Dignity and Humiliation for Poetry, Annette Engler's presentation is being recorded by Linda Hartling and Evelin Lindner.
 

MIRIAM MARTON
Miriam H. Marton is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
Miriam Marton, attorney and social worker, is the William R. Davis Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic, University of Connecticut School of Law. Professor Marton teaches and supervises law students representing refugees seeking asylum and other legal relief in the United States. Professor Marton also conducts research on the particular issues facing female refugees fleeing gender-based violence, both in the countries-of-origins and in the United States' legal system. Professor Marton's research interests also include training lawyers to work with survivors of gender-based violence.
Please see:
• Relevance of Sexual Violence Against Female Noncombatant Victims of Destructive Conflict in the Study of Humiliation, paper presented at the 2004 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, November 18-19, 2004.
• Terrorism and Humiliation, note presented at Round Table 1 of "Beyond Humiliation: Encouraging Human Dignity in the Lives and Work of All People," 5th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Berlin, 15th -17th September, 2005.
• Humiliation in the Home: Survivors of Childhood Rape in the United States, note presented at Round Table 3 of "Beyond Humiliation: Encouraging Human Dignity in the Lives and Work of All People," 5th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Berlin, 15th -17th September, 2005.
• Humiliation and Asylum Seekers, abstract presented at the 2011 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 8-9, 2011.

 
LENE HULBAKVIKEN LAFOSSE
Lene Hulbakviken Lafosse is also a Member in the HumanDHS Education Team and HumanDHS Research Team.
Her current project is titled "Stories of trauma, a study of space for action and possibilites." Through the telling of life stories she will show the implications of trauma in the life of young adults/adults from the Middle-East and/or North Africa presently living in Norway.
Her project will be presented as a her thesis for the Cand. Polit. degree at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo, Norway.
In relation to experiences of trauma, an aim is to undress the "dialog" between the sense of the self, the knowledge of the self, the informants’ coping strategies and their feeling of happiness and well-being.
Her scope is to reveal whether and how the category or term "trauma" is manifested in a cultural context and how the cultural context contributes to give meaning and color to the term for the individual and the collective. An aim is to reveal taboos in relation to trauma, and how shame and humiliation can be aspects of trauma that may contribute to a reassuring of the taboos.
Although Lene Lafosse’s project is funded by a social anthropological foundation, she moves towards psychology colored by phenomenology and gestalt theory.
Through the project she wants to concentrate efforts, focusing on three main academic and social concerns. Firstly she wants to contribute to the rising awareness on the implications of aspects related to trauma in our societies. Among others, one pillar for her project is the Norwegian Ministry’s focus on the economic and social costs of repercussions of trauma such as the circle of violence. Her second focus is to address collective and individual implications of trauma, and her project will have a direct address to instituions working with this and related themes. Her third concern is to show the cultural complexity that is experienced in today’s Norway, in regard to how we look at sickness and the subsequent healing process.
 
SOWAN WONG
Sowan Wong is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team, and of the Global Coordinating Team.
She has recently obtained her Ph.D in psychology from Brunel University, West London, the U.K., under the supervision of Prof. Robin Goodwin. Her thesis was a cross-cultural study on work-family conflict and marital satisfaction. She received her M.Phil and Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with Prof. Michael Harris Bond as her academic supervisor. She is interested in looking at culture influences on the attitudes, values, and beliefs of individuals, which then influence individuals' behaviors.
Selected publication:
• Wong, S., & Goodwin, R. (2007). Predicting marital satisfaction across cultures. In A. Chybicka, & M. Kazmierczak (Eds.), Appreciating diversity: Cultural and gender issues.(pp. 171-109). Kracow, Poland: Oficyna Wydawnicza "Impulse".
• Wong, S., & Goodwin, R. (2009). The impact of work on marriage in three cultures: A qualitative study. Community, Work, and Family, 12, 213-232.
• Wong, S., & Goodwin, R. (2009). Exploring marital satisfaction across three cultures: A qualitative study. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 26, 1011-1028. (Impact Factor: 0.870). 
 
VIVIAN LUN
Vivian Lun is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
Vivian has recently obtained the degree of M. Phil. in Psychology from the Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with Michael Harris Bond as academic advisor. In her undergraduate and postgraduate years, she worked on projects concerning individuals' responses to interpersonal harm and interpersonal relationship harmony. She is also interested in cross-cultural research, because she believes they help understand and respect the similarities and differences among people from different cultural backgrounds.
 
ELENA KOZOULINA
Elena Kozoulina is an Assistant Professor at the Buryat State University in Ulan-Ude, Russia. In 2005, she earned her Ph.D. from the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo. Her research interests are Intercultural Communication, Cultural Anthropology, Decision Making and Conflict Resolution. The title of her doctoral thesis is "Identity Continuity Among the Indigenous People of Eastern Siberia in Post-Soviet Space." From 2001 to 2002, she was a Researcher at the Department of Human Relations, International Center, at Keio University. From 2001 to 1999, Elena was an Assistant Professor, teaching courses on Conflict Resolution, Public Speaking, Business Communication, Business English at the Buryat State University, Ulan-Ude, Russia, Department of Economics and Public Administration. She was was awarded the Mombukagakusho Fellowship, Japan 2001-2005, as well as the Center of Excellence Research Improvement Award, Japan 2004. Elena has lived in the Russian Federation, China and Japan, and has traveled extensively in China, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, Germany and the Philippines. She speaks Russian, English, Japanese, reads French, and speaks elementary Chinese.
 

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TOMOKO ISHII
Tomoko Ishii is also a member of our HumanDHS Research Team.
Tomoko Ishii, Ph.D., is the CEO of the Human Wellness Institute (HWI) which is Voluntary Non-profit Organization (VNPO). The institute is a new research and education center promoting human wellness, especially mindfulness for victims of violence. Earlier, Tomoko worked at the Department of Stress Disorders Resarch at the Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry. She is a member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, where she has presented her work in domestic violence several times at the ISTSS conferences.
Please see:
• Most Domestic Violence Victims Suffer PTSD, The Daily Yomiuri, June 4, 2005.
• Overcoming Stress: Psychological, Physical Methods for Mindfulness, The Daily Yomiuri, September 9, 2012
, see also www.yomiuri.co.jp.
 

KEITARO MORITA
Keitaro Morita is a JED–Academic Advisor for Gender and Environmental Studies. Keitaro Morita graduated from Sophia (Jochi) University in Tokyo in 2000 (B.A. in International Legal Study). After engaging in an international environmental CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) project in a Japanese firm, in 2005, he enrolled in the master’s program of Intercultural Communication at St. Paul’s (Rikkyo) University in Tokyo. During the study, he was an intern at the Environmental Statistics Division of the U.N. Headquarters in New York. Upon graduation in 2007 (MA in Intercultural Communication), he entered the doctoral program of Social Design Studies at the same university, pursuing a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration). He has worked as a research assistant for the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) Tokyo Office from 2007 to 2008. Currently, he works as a part-time lecturer at two universities in Tokyo, as a part-time staff at WWF Japan, and as a freelance translator. His research interests overlap with the ecofeminist focus, that is, the relationship between the natural environment and gender/sexuality.
Please see some publications:
• Giving Voices to the Environmentally Humiliated and Misrecognized: Nature and Women, paper prepared by Keitaro for the Second International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, 13-15th April 2007, Institute of Discourse and Cultural Studies, & Department of
Applied Psychology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, as part of the 9th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies.
Peer-Reviewed Papers:
• Morita, K. (2008). How Can We Develop Environmentally Friendly Attitudes?: A Proposal of Environmental Reflexivity. Annual Review of the Japan Society for Intercultural Studies, 6, 95-110. The Japan Society for Intercultural Studies. (in Japanese).
• Morita, K. (2007). Materialist Ecofeminist Analysis of Global Warming. Caligrama, 3(2) (Special Issue). Retrieved January 7, 2009, from www.eca.usp.br/caligrama/english/06_keitaro.pdf (in English)
• Morita, K. (2007). Challenge to Modernity by Korean Eco-poet Seungho Choi, Centering on Gender and Sexuality. Bungaku to Kankyo [Literature and Environment], 10, 41-44. ASLE-Japan (The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment-Japan). (in Japanese)

 

JEAN-DAMASCÈNE GASANABO
Jean-Damascène Gasanabo (Damas) is also Member of our Research Team and Education Team.
Jean-Damascène Gasanabo (Damas) has a PhD in Education from the University of Geneva, Switzerland (2004) and his thesis pertains to the analysis of history textbooks and the construction of exclusive identities in Rwanda from 1962 to 1994. The Government of Rwanda appointed him as Director General in charge of the Research and Documentation Centre on Genocide, starting on May 21, 2012. The Centre is within the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide.
After his studies, Damas worked with UNESCO in Paris as Consultant in Education Sector for the project Fostering Peaceful Co-Existence through Analysis and Revision of History Curricula and School Textbooks in South-Eastern Europe (2005-2006). He has also collaborated as Programme Specialist for The United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children (2006). From October 2006 to August 2008, he was Head of Support for Communication, Research and Special Projects at Geneva Call, an international humanitarian organisation. Then he went back to UNESCO Headquarters in Paris as Consultant in the Sector of Education for the projects Education for Holocaust Remembrance and
Prevention of school related gender-based violence in post-conflict countries: from African case studies to international cooperation as well as in the Sector of Social and Human Sciences where he was responsible for producing Policy Briefs for the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme. After Paris, he worked as Senior Consultant for Spectacle Learning Media and contributed on the project A Place to Learn: Review of International Research on Creating and Sustaining Enabling Conditions for Learning.
Damas has published various articles and contributed to a number of collective works including:
• “Two families, two destinies: A Personal Perspective on the Rwandan Genocide of 1994,” published by Professor Quintard Taylor, Faculty of History, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, August 2009. See: http://www.blackpast.org/?q=perspectives/two-families-two-destiniespersonal-perspective-rwandan-genocide-1994.
• “Rwandan Genocide: Sociological, Economic and Psychological Consequences”, In Seema Shekhawat & Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra (eds.), Afro-Asian Conflicts: Changing Contours, Costs and Consequences, 1st edition, New Delhi, New Century Publications, 2008, pp. 193-216
• « Le génocide des Tutsi du Rwanda » (co-authored with Jean-Pierre Chrétien), in Barbara Lefebvre & Sophie Ferhadjian (eds.), Comprendre les génocides du XXe siècle. Comparer – Enseigner, Paris, Bréal, 2007, pp. 130-153
• 
“School History and Mechanisms for the Construction of Exclusive Identities: The Case of Rwanda from 1962 to 1994”, in UNESCO-IBE, Textbooks and Quality Learning for All: Some Lessons Learned from International Experiences, Paris, UNESCO-IBE, 2006, pp. 365-404
• 
“The Rwandan Akazi (Forced Labour) System, History, and Humiliation”. Social Alternatives (Special Issue ‘Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives’), University of Queensland, Australia, Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, 2006, pp. 50-55.
• Rwanda - Enseignement de l'histoire nationale de 1962 à 1999: Quelle construction de l'image de l'autre? Saarbrücken, Allemagne: Editions Universitaires Européennes, 2010.

 

ALYI PATRICK LALUR
Alyi Patrick Lalur (Uganda/UK) is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team, and Director and Coordinator of HumanDHS's Child Soldiers Worldwide Project.
He is currently enrolled for the Masters of Philosophy in International Peace Studies at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace with research interest in Justice and Reconciliation during period of war. He is a Director of the HumanDHS Child Soldiers Project. Patrick Lalur is also a Member of the Research Team. He is part of HumanDHS's upcoming Refugees and Humiliation Project. The title of his project is Resilience, Humiliation and Adulthood Sexual Abuse: Understanding the Psychology of Violence Among Sudanese Refugees living in Uganda.
Alyi Patrick Lalur is the Executive Director of a Non-Governmental Organization called Landmines Awareness and Survivors Support Network (LASS-NET) Uganda and a consulting advisor for research on the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of girl-child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Patrick Recently completed a comparative study of resilience among formerly abducted girls and boys.
Born in 1968 in the rural town of Gulu in Northern Uganda, Patrick attended High school at the prestigious King’s College Budo Kampala before graduating with BA (Hons) Degree in Public Administration and Psychology from Makerere University Kampala Uganda. Patrick holds two Masters degrees; MA in Counseling Psychology specializing in Psychology of war and Psychosocial rehabilitation of formerly abducted children in Northern and South-Western Uganda and MA in Peace Education with specialization in Peace Community Initiatives (PCI) project development. Please see Child Soldiers Worldwide: Uncharted Cycles of Slavery Beneath the Surface of International Shame, paper presented at the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.

 
MUGISHA KAFUREEKA LAWYER
Mughisha Kafureeka Lawyer, Ph.D., is an Economist and Policy Analyst. He is the Dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kabale University, and Member of the University Council (2005). He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Basic Research in Kololo-Kampala, Uganda. He has just returned from a seven weeks special programme in Development Law and Social Justice, at the Institute of Social Studies(ISS), The Hague, Netherlands (2005).
Please see here some of his publications:
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer (2004). The Nature, Extent and Impact of Political Corruption in Uganda. Kampala: ACCU
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer (2004). Policy Recommendations: The Challenge of Agriculture-led Industrialization in Africa. Kampala: CBR/UMI
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer and Josephine Ahiikire (2003). "The History of Kampala", in Tiyambe Zeleza (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History. London: Routledge, London
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer (1999). "Understanding the Banking Crisis in Uganda in 1999," CBR Occassional Paper No. 3
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer (1993). "Multiparty Movement in Africa: A deft for democracy", in Global Coalition for Africa. The Hague: ISS
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer (1992). "The Dynamics of Land Question and its Impact on Agriculture Productivity in Mbarara District, Uganda." Centre for Basic Research Working Paper No.25
Forthcoming Publications:
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer. "The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Rural Communities in Mbarara District,"CBR Working Paper
•  Kafureeka, Lawyer. "Land Conflicts and the Development Process in Bushenyi District: "Getting Facts Right,"CBR Working Paper
•  Kafureeka Lawyer."How Not To Industrialize, The Uganda’s Example." Forthcoming Chapter in a Book, an ENRECA/CBR Publication, Roskildie
•  Kafureeka Lawyer. "An Audit of Fiscal Decentralisation in Uganda and Social Services Delivery", for CBR Research.
 

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ROBERTA L. KOSBERG
Roberta L. Kosberg (Ph.D.) is a Professor of Communication Studies at Curry College, where she teaches courses in conflict management, gender communication, small group problem-solving and persuasive speaking. She has done extensive research and writing on the resolution of interpersonal conflict, presidential advocacy of international cooperation, and mentoring as an alternative to school-based conflict resolution programs for adolescents. She is co-author of numerous articles focusing on gender, argumentative discourse and verbal aggression.
Professor Kosberg is a mediator and trainer, specializing in family and divorce issues. She works as a volunteer mediator for the Community Dispute Settlement Center and the Boston Bar Association/Boston Municipal Court Mediation Program.
Professor Kosberg is a member of the following professional organizations: Association for Conflict Resolution, National Communication Association, Eastern Communication Association, and the New England Association for Conflict Resolution. She served on the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Association of Mediation Programs and Practitioners. In addition, she was an associate editor of Communication Research Reports, a research journal of the Eastern Communication Association.
 

 

MARY BALIKUNGERI
Mary Balikungeri is the Executive Director of Rwanda Women’s Network (RWN). Rwanda Women’s Network (RWN) is a national humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to promotion and improvement of the socio-economic welfare of women in Rwanda through enhancing their efforts to meet their basic needs. The Network came into being in 1997 taking over from its parent organisation, the US-based Church World Service (CWS), which had initiated a two-year program (1994 – 1996) in the country following the genocide in 1994. To date, RWN caters to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence across the country in the recognition that women and children bore the brunt of the genocide, and remain the most vulnerable and marginalized groups within Rwanda civil society.
Rwanda Women’s Network implements three core programs. These include provision of health-care and support through the Polyclinic of Hope and the Village of Hope, education and awareness programs on human rights and legal procedures, socio-economic empowerment and institutional capacity building for the Network. It offers training for the women in the respective program areas, with peace and reconciliation being the ultimate goal in all its programs.
Other initiatives to support its peace building programs are shelter construction and rehabilitation of the survivors of the genocide, returnees to Rwanda, widows, child-headed households and orphans. Included in the community-based activities are projects in reproductive health, nutrition, primary health care, micro-credit finance and an HIV and Aids Project.
RWN works with various local and international partners, including the Ministry of Gender and Women in Development, with whom it is currently involved in training and development of materials on SGBV for communities countrywide.
Though there remains some challenges, the organisation’s accomplishments over the years have gained wide recognition, leading to it being cited as a replicable best-practice worldwide.
Rwanda Women’s Network is overseen by a core management team of six people, with an additional four at both the Polyclinic of Hope and Village of Hope, respectively. In order to effectively work with the communities, the RWN has a broad team of ToTs that provide an important link with the grassroots in all areas of its development activities across the country.
 

MARÍA CRISTINA AZCONA
María Cristina Azcona is also a Member of the HumanDHS Education Team.
María studied at Universidad del Salvador, Argentina. She is Psicopedagoga (which means Educational Psychologist or Psycho Pedagogist).
María Cristina is working as a researcher in peace education through literature. She is born in April 5th, 1952, she has been married for 28 years and is the mother of two grown ups who are following her steps in bilingual literature dedicated to human rights and society conflicts.
During the last 25 years she has been working as a psychotherapist focused on the resolution of family and marriage conflicts. She is also an expert in psycho-diagnosis of victims in trials of family conflicts, and victims of car accidents. At the same time, being a novelist and poetess, she has authored four books and many articles and poems in English and Spanish, about family, society and Peace, published mostly in USA, India, Argentina and recently, UK.
María Cristina is a contributor to the EOLSS Encyclopaedia that was edited under the auspices of UNESCO, to whom she is a consultant in the building of a culture of peace through literature.
María Cristina is the Director in Argentina for IFLAC and founder-editor of the e-zines Bilingual MCA (Bilingual Writers and Poets for Peace) and Iflacenarg.
Among several distinctions, she obtained First Prize in Poetry at one of the most important contests of her country, organized by the Academic Circle of National Writers (C.A.D.A.N.). and has been finalist in other literary competitions in her own country and in the USA. Today she predominantly works as freelance writer and editorial advisor in both English and Spanish languages to publishers from India, USA and Argentina.
Please see Dignity and Humiliation in Argentina, a paper written by María for HumanDHS.
 
SUSMITA THUKRAL
Susmita is also a Member of the HumanDHS Education Team and the HumanDHS Research Team.
Susmita is from New Delhi, India. She has a Masters in Psychology and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Susmita has extensive research experience and has worked on an interdisciplinary research project on the lives of individuals who witnessed the partition of India and the violence that it entailed.
Her scholarly interests include genocide, war trauma and terrorism. She wishes to actively work in the area of trauma studies in a way that allows her to combine her psychodynamic orientation and socio-political interests.
 

NASEER A. GANAI
Naseer A Ganai is a senior correspondent with Greater Kashmir, the largest circulating English daily of Kashmir (India). He covers human rights and ethnic issues besides the situation along the state's troubled border with Pakistan-administered part of the state. He covered the 2005 major earthquake which killed more than 75000 people across the divided state. He also writes columns on current political and social issues facing the state. He has done research on the impact of the prevailing uncertain conditions on Kashmiri women. Besides, he has also worked as a researcher with United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund on a project entitled 'Study of Children Affected by Armed Conflict'. He furthermore presented a paper in a media conference entitled 'Conflict Reporting, Writing and Surviving', held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in November 2005. The conference was organised by the Germany-based Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung. In 2007, he was awarded with the High Court Bar Association of Jammu and Kashmir for reporting on Human Rights and legal affairs. He is a post-graduate in Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Kashmir.
 

NOOR AKBAR
Noor Akbar is also a Member of the HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team, and of the HumanDHS Research Team, and the HumanDHS Education Team.
He is a native of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and has earlier worked as a free lance journalist. He has a Master's degree in Journalism & Mass Communication from the University of Peshawar and is presently doing his Master's degree in Political Science from the same university. The title of his project in the HumanDHS's Research Agenda is Terrorism and Humiliation: To Show Empirically that Humiliation Is one of the Root Causes of Terrorism.
Noor has conducted a research thesis on the topic of Osama Bin Laden and Pakistani Press- a Portrayal Study of Daily Dawn and Daily Mashriq. (The study was an analysis of the two national daylies, one Urdu and English, after the 9/11 scenario.) Besides, Noor Akbar also worked as a Research Associate in a research study on the Pukhtoon Jirga (an indigenous institution for conflict transformation and peace building in the Pukhtoon belt of Pakistan and Afghanistan). This one and a half year study is awarded by United States Institute for Peace (USIP).
Noor has recently conducted, as co-facilitator, a series of trainings in non-violent communication, conflict transformation, and coexistence to the UNHCR Staff, implementing partners and government officials at Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
He has also been awarded a scholarship by the Center for Non-Violent Communication to participating in a fifteen days (19th to 4th July 2005) Special Summer Session with Marshal Rosenberg, at Orchidea Lodge, Switzerland.
Presently he is working as Communication Officer, at Just Peace International Inc, a nonpolitical, nonreligious, nonprofit, civil society initiative, that aims to work for JUSTICE & PEACE through conflict transformation methods in order to protect and promote constructive peace by assisting, advocating and empowering grass roots communities, organizations, governments and the civil society to enable them to allow judicious, sustainable and productive interaction to realize maximum human potential in an environment of peace, justice and dignity.
Please see here:
•  Honor Killing in Pakistan: The Case of 5 Women Buried Alive, Gothenburg, Sweden: University of Gothenburg Sweden, Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, 2010
•  How should we define genocide?, London: University of Roehampton, Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, 2010
• Women Rights in FATA Pakistan: A Critical Review of NGOs' Communication Strategies for Projects’ Implementation
SOA-3902. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment for the following degree: Master in Human Rights Practice Department of Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg School of Business and Social Sciences, Roehampton University 28th May 2010
 

koehr

SELINA KÖHR
Selina's personal goal is to work for justice, peace, and harmony on every level of human co-existence. Through her B.A. in Public Sector Administration and employment at a German city administration, she gained first-hand insight how to manage and improve urban communal life. Currently, Selina is an MSc. student in International Relations at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She wants to gain a better understanding of interactions among nations and of their individual interests, needs and wants. Furthermore she is very interested in the underlying reasons behind decisions about war and peace.
Please see:
• The Kashmir-Conflict from a Psychological Perspective: How do Humiliations and Emotions on the National Level Account for the Development of the Donflict?, paper presented at the 19th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies "In the Aftermath of the 22nd July: How to Sustain a Global Culture of Equality in Dignity or likeverd," in Oslo, Norway, 27th - 30th August 2012.
• What makes life good for you now? What would make this a world you feel is good? An historical era you would love? Open Space session convened by Michael Britton at the 19th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies "In the Aftermath of the 22nd July: How to Sustain a Global Culture of Equality in Dignity or likeverd," in Oslo, Norway, 27th - 30th August 2012. Notes taken by Selina Köhr.
• What is Humiliation?, by Kebadu M. Gebremariam, and Humiliation and Suicidal Behaviour, by Latha Nrugham, Combined Open Space session convened by Kebadu M. Gebremariam and Latha Nrugham at the 19th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies "In the Aftermath of the 22nd July: How to Sustain a Global Culture of Equality in Dignity or likeverd," in Oslo, Norway, 27th - 30th August 2012. Notes taken by Selina Köhr.

   

CHRISTINE LOCHER
Christine Locher's main points of interest are training, coaching, consulting, personal and organizational transformation. Her personal mission statement is "to lead people to knowledge and freedom" and she is striving to bring body and soul back to the business world. She is working for a consulting company in the training field and is volunteering as trainer, coach and mentor in various youth and social entrepreneurship projects.
She completed a post-grad certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies at Fernuniversität Hagen in 2007 with a thesis on conflict resolution focusing on North Korea . Before that, she studied Journalism, Intercultural Communication and Psychology in Munich, Germany, with stays abroad in Japan and Ecuador. She graduated with an M.A. in 2004. In addition to her M. A., she also did a post grad intensive course in business studies at Fernuniversität Hagen focusing on strategic management and organization.
Christine has completed training as a group facilitator/transpersonal educator WYSEand a train-the-trainer program, always seeking to deepen her knowledge of methods and approaches and to add new ones to her practice. She is an integral business coach and is licensed for psychotherapy in Germany (Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie). She has also received training in Psychosynthesis, Client Centered Counseling, Gestalt Therapy, Non-Violent Communication, TRANSCEND and is a teacher for Hatha Yoga and Inner Yoga (studying in Germany and India). She is a member of the Society for Organizational Learning and of the Spiritual Venture Network.
Christine loves music and the arts, traveling and studying languages. She speaks German (including several southern dialects), English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (at varying levels). She promised several of her international friends to study their mother tongues as well, luckily without giving a deadline for it.
Please see:
The Conflict with North Korea / North Korea as a Source of Conflict. An Analysis from a Peace Studies Perspective. Presented as graduation thesis in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies at FernUniversität Hagen, 2007.
 
CRAIG DORSI
Craig Dorsi is is also a Member of the HumanDHS Education Team.
Craig is a teacher who has taught social studies, sociology and psychology, in New York. He aspires to create a life geared toward the greater good. He has completed an MA in History and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where he studied the foundations and history of education and society. Currently he works on course and mediation for the conflict resolution certificate from the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.
Recently he has focused on International Educational Development with a concentration in Peace Education at Teachers College. He is also very excited to be involved in the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies group. He has also extensive travel experience throughout the world, which he attempts to discover all of it. He has also volunteered with Cross-Cultural Solutions to teach in Ho, Ghana and Shanghai, China, as well as volunteering in Cuba.
He would like to establish an international organization which focuses on Peace Education in regions or zones that had experienced conflict. He is an internationalist, realist and most of all pro-active and goal-oriented. Progressive curriculum ideas differentiated in instructional techniques, holistic education, and an interest in cognitive development represent some of his pedagogical philosophy. He looks forward to working toward equal human dignity throughout our interdependent world.
 
STEVEN PERRY FLYTHE
Steven P. Flythe received his B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers College, Rutgers University. Following graduation Steven spent a year as a young adult volunteer in Central America with the Reconciliation in Mission Program of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (PCUSA). After returning to the United States, Steven attended Princeton Theological Seminary. During seminary, he participated in Thuma Mina (Zulu phrase meaning, "Send me Lord"), a PCUSA mission drama troupe, which brought the story of young adult mission volunteers to churches throughout the United States. After receiving his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Seminary, Steven worked for the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton, a homeless and hunger prevention agency and for three years as an elementary school counselor in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Since 1998, Steven has been a board member of the National Committee on the Self-Development of People, a ministry of the (PCUSA); he served as national chairperson from 2002-2005. Since 1999, he has been a volunteer with the Hispanic Americans for Progress, a prisoner-run social service program based at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey.
Currently, Steven is in his second year at Teachers College, Columbia University, pursuing a doctorate in International Educational Development with a focus on Family and Community Development. At Teachers College, he works as the Program Associate for Parent Education Programs at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. Outside of Teachers College, he is on the Global Core Team of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies where his focus is on conflict resolution and family education. Steven and his wife live in New York City.
 
ANA LJUBINKOVIC
Ana Ljubinkovic is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
Ana Ljubinkovic, Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in Sociology in December 2008 at the University of Essex (UK), after attaining a Laurea in Sociology from the Università degli studi di Roma (Italy) and an M.A. degree in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from Essex (UK). Her doctoral thesis entitled The Victims of Humanitarian Intervention: A Study of the Psycho-social impact of the UNOSOM Involvement in Somalia investigates long-term psychosocial effects of violence generated by military humanitarian interventions on the recipient population. Ana has four years of teaching experience in the Sociology Department, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies and Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, in the areas of sociology of human rights, refugee studies, and race, class and gender studies. She has worked as a researcher for CARE International in Kenya looking at the attitudes of Somali refugees in Dadaab Refugee Camps towards their future (2005) and, as a member of CTAR (Centre for Trauma, Asylum and Refugees), at the psychosocial needs of the Refugee population in Dadaab (2007 and 2008). She conducted a research for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Nairobi and prepared a report entitled Attitudes of the Somali People in Kenya Towards Potential Deployment of IGAD Forces in Their Home Country (2005). Ana is a core team member of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies since 2005.
Please see Milk and Urine: Intentional Humiliation as a part of Humanitarian Assistance, note presented at "Beyond Humiliation: Encouraging Human Dignity in the Lives and Work of All People," 5th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Berlin, 15th -17th September, 2005. Please see also From Violent to Subtle Humiliation: Case of Somali Victims of UNOSOM Living in the Refugee Camps in Kenya, note presented at Round Table 1 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005. See furthermore Is Hope the Last to Die? Research Study On The Situational Analysis In The Dadaab Refugee Camps, 2005, and Report on Field Research Conducted in Dadaab Refugee Camps (16.05.05 – 01.06.05), 2005.
 

STEPHANIE HEUER
Stephanie Heuer is also a Member in the HumanDHS Education Team.
Safa is currently a Technology and Computer Lab instructor for the third year at Randol Elementary School teaching grades K-5. A seasoned 10-year employee of Hewlett Packard during the 80's, Stephanie lived in Tokyo for two years implementing semiconductor software and teaching Engineering Analysis in Korea and Taiwan. She has an extensive background in software development, implementation of projects, technical writing, and project management. She lived in Norway for 11 years, and after having her two daughters, pursued a career in Middle Eastern dance instruction, which has been a interest of hers since the early 1970's. She studied dance (folkloric and Raks Sharqi) in Egypt, USA, and Norway. She has sponsored many workshops in Europe in order to educate dancers as to the historical content of dance and how that interacts with each country/culture differently. She has written several articles on dance, mostly published in the Middle Eastern Dance Journal, Habibi.
Stephanie moved back to California right before the 9/11 attacks in New York. She was moved to action by a radio interview of Zainab Salbi (founder and president of Women for Women International) and flew to Washington D.C. to interview her. Her published article, Look Beyond Despair, inspired her further to involve herself with this organization which is dedicated to helping women around the would who have been displaced by war and trauma.
Please see the educational book that Safa created, inspired by our 2004 Paris meeting and Robert Fuller's work on Rankism. She is publishing this book by herself, so please write to her for a copy, safa40@hotmail.com: I Feel Like Nobody When … I Feel Like Somebody When …
See also
• 
WWW.SOMEBODYBOOK.COM, and the cover page for theSpanish edition.
•  See also her 2008 children's book, DignityRocks!, which is now available through HappyAbout Publications.
Please see Safa's generous offer to donate 100 % of the profits of her book sales to our educational program, in honor of Don Klein! Please read her letter to ALL here!
 

MAURICE BENAYOUN

Maurice Benayoun is a transmedia artist born in 1957. His work explores the potentiality of various media from video, to virtual reality, Web and wireless art, public space large scale art installations and interactive exhibitions. Maurice Benayoun's work has been widely exhibited all over the world and received numerous international awards and prizes.
Together with Evelin Lindner, Maurice has kindly donated his time to develop the HumanDHS logo, and in 2002, Maurice Benayoun developed a vision for the HumanDHS Dialogue Home idea. The Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network envisages to create, incorporate, promote and nurture this vision together with Maurice Benayoun.
Co-founder in 1987 of Z-A (Paris) a pioneer Computer Graphics and VR lab, Maurice Benayoun, between 1990 and 1993, wrote with François Schuiten and directed The Quarxs, the first HDTV CG series widely awarded and broadcast in more than 15 countries. In 1993, he is prize-winner of the Villa Medicis Hors Les Murs grant of the Foreign Ministry for his Art After Museum project, a contemporary art collection in virtual reality. After 1993, he creates VR, Web art and interactive art installations. Among them, in 1995, the Tunnel under the Atlantic, televirtual project linking the Pompidou center, in Paris, and the Museum of contemporary art, in Montreal. In 1998, he won the Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica, Interactive Art category for World skin, a Photo Safari in the Land of War. Both works are considered by critics as major works in the field of interactive art. Invited artist at the ZKM, Germany, Ars Electronica Center Austria, ICC Tokyo, Art Center Nabi Seoul, National School of Fine Arts Paris… Professor of media art at the university Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne, he is co-founder and co-director of the CITU research center (Création Interactive Transdisciplinaire Universitaire) that he is currently co-directing.
His work has been exhibited in personnal exhibition in museum all around the World : Centre Pompidou Paris, Museum of Contemporary art of Lyon, Montreal, Kiasma Museum Helsinky, Inter-Communication Center (ICC), Tokyo, Art Center Nabi, Seoul Korea, Uiijeaongbu Art Center, Korea, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany, Ars Electronica Center Linz, Austria… Maurice Benayoun got many major awards and prizes for his work (list on the web site).
Beside his art works, Maurice Benayoun is involved in many big exhibitions, large scale events and architecture projects for the conception and direction of the interactive scenography. Just to mention some of them: the Navigation Room (1997) and the Membrane (2001) for the Cité des Sciences de la Villette, the Panoramic Tables for the Planet of Visions Pavilion for Hanover EXPO2000, the Multimedia Tour for the Abbaye de Fontevraud and the Blue Station, interactive metro station competition won with the French architect Jean Nouvel.
His work employs various media — including (and often combining) video, virtual reality, web, wireless technology, performance, public-space large-scale art installations, and interactive exhibitions. During the 1980s, Benayoun directed video installations and short films about contemporary artists, including Daniel Buren, Jean Tinguely, Sol LeWitt, and Martial Raysse. That work introduced the concept of Situation developed later by Benayoun in other media as a means to expand understanding of symbolic contexts through immersion in multimedia environments. Between 1990 and 1993, Benayoun collaborated with Belgian graphic novelist François Schuiten on Quarxs , the first High Definition TV 3D computer graphics series to be given awards globally. This series played with 3D realism as an unexpected way to question scientific truth and distortion. In 1998, Benayoun won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica, in the Interactive Art category, for World Skin, a Photo Safari in the Land of War. World Skin and The Tunnel are considered by critics to be key works in the field of interactive art — authentic artistic appropriations of technology introducing the concept of symbolic situation. His more recent works develop the idea of “critical fusion,” mixing symbolic fiction and reality in order to make visible the limits of the real world. Benayoun conceived and directed the exhibition Cosmopolis, Overwriting the City (2005), a giant art and science immersive installation presented in the frame of the French Year in China. He is presently in charge of the permanent exhibition of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, attempting to shift the meaning of the monument toward a reflection on symbolic architecture. Since 1984, Benayoun has been teaching video and media art at the Université de Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He was artist-in-residence at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, National Fine Arts School of Paris. He is cofounder and art director of the CITU research center (Création Interactive Transdisciplinaire Universitaire) Universités Paris 1 and Paris 8 dedicated to research and creation (R&C) in the emerging forms of art. Cosponsored by the Rose Goldsen Lecture Series, College of Arts and Sciences
Please see The Dump: "Bored by a vision of the world dominated by B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) that seem for so many people to be the only way to consider human interactions, I would like to start a series of works called H2H: Human to Human."

 

ABDI ROBLE
Please see his contributions to the HumanDHS World Art for Equal Dignity project.
Abdi Roble immigrated to the United States in 1989, and later moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he developed his passion for photography. He started two photography groups – the Focus Group (1998) and the African American Photographers of North America (1999). He is also the founder of the Somali Documentary Project Inc. (2003). His exhibitions include:
•  One Month in Europe with Leica (2000),
•  Leica Portrait of Cuba (2002),
•  Japan: A Leica Perspective at the (2004),
•  most recently, the Somali Diaspora at the Riffe Gallery (2005),
•  the Somali Diaspora at MAPP'S Coffee + Tea in Minneapolis, MN. (2005),
•  Against Forgetting: Beyond Genocide and Civil War at Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN. (2006),
•  the Somali Diaspora at University of Minnesota, MN. (2006).
Roble is the recipient of the 2004 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Roble is also the recipient of the 2006 Greater Columbus Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. In addition, in 2006 the South Side Settlement House honored him with the Arts Freedom Award.
Abdi Roble is a Somali Documentary Photographer based in Columbus, Ohio. His Somali Documentary Project won the 2006 Arts Freedom Award.
See here a press release on his work, and learn more about the past and present traveling exhibitions by looking at:
•  Riffe Gallery Columbus, Ohio
•  Pulse Minneapolis Paper
•  Southsidepride Minneapolis paper.
 
KENNETH HEMMERICK
Born in Montreal, Canada, Kenneth Hemmerick graduated from Concordia University, earning a BFA with distinction in Interdisciplinary Studies. He also took music at Le Conservatoire de musique de Québec where he studied viola with Otto Joachim and piano with Anton Krashinski. He also studied piano with Dr. Daisy Peterson Sweeney, his foster mother.
Kenneth has kindly contributed to our World Art for Equal Dignity Project and has furthermore kindly agreed to be the Director and Coordinator of our Prevent Suicide by Extending Equal Dignity to All Project.
Kenneth has written music scores for 10 videos and six internationally-televised films, including two award-winning National Film Board children's animations. His video Je suis bleu; like a cloud in the sky was selected best video from Concordia and won Special Jury Prize at the 7e Événement interuniversitaire de création vidéo in Montreal, and was selected for Les rendez-vous du cinéma québécois. His video works have been shown in Montreal, Hull, Vancouver, Mexico and Cuba. His music and artwork have been recently featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's ZeD TV show and Web site. He has had 20 group, juried and solo shows. Kenneth's artwork is owned by collectors in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
In addition to his creative work, Kenneth formed the British Columbia Pets and Friends Society, a volunteer pet-therapy organization that now boasts 350 members. He was also responsible for bringing humane education into the elementary school system in British Columbia with the publication of the 250-page Anthology of Humane Education Materials, and his raising substantial financial and other support from the provincial government, foundations and the British Columbia Teachers' Federation.
In 1998, he created the Web site Suicide Prevention Help for those who are despairing and are contemplating suicide. Since the site's inception over 335,000 people have visited the site and he has answered letters from people from all over the world, offering a few kind words and links to appropriate suicide support sites.
He recently published his free ebook and online course called A Guide in Humane Awareness. This material offers learners the opportunity to take time to think about, reflect upon and share experiences involving kindness, cruelty and humaneness. He created this ebook and guide because he felt that it was necessary to discuss humane concepts in a non-religious context. He writes: "All too often the discussion of kindness, cruelty and humaneness is left to religion, yet these principles are intrinsic, or should be, to human nature."
The Guide in Humane Awareness was also created to provide additional awareness and support to people who write to him through Suicide Prevention Help. He feels that if one is depressed, often a "gift" is deeply appreciated and valued, especially if there are no strings attached. He believes that people who think of suicide, frequently suffer pain that stems from feeling deeply humiliated, dehumanized, neglected and left alone. Kenneth further suggests that at the heart of suicidal impulses is a lack of awareness and understanding of kindness, cruelty and humaneness in one's life.
Kenneth is the proud father of his sons Seth and Eytan. He lives in Montreal with his long term companion, partner, and frequent collaborator, Harry Turnbull.
 
HILARIE ROSEMAN
Hilarie Roseman worked in television advertising before marriage, both in Australia and in London. After marriage she trained as a Family Life Educator with Marriage Guidance Victoria, Australia and was also an interviewer for Catholic radio and television programs. Hilarie earned her BA (1988) from Chisholm Institute of Technology, Melbourne Australia, and her MA (2000) from RMIT Melbourne, Australia (in Communication Research). She has a Diploma of Visual Arts (2003) from East Gippsland Institute of TAFE. Hilarie and her husband John have eight children and twelve grandchildren and live in Victoria, Australia.
Hilarie's "Catholic Laity Speak on Human Sexuality and Belief" has just been published by Richard Owen (Christian-book-store-co.uk) and at the present moment can be accessed here and here. This book tells the story of both the journey and the results of Hilarie Roseman's communication thesis "Catholic Access of Mass Media Messages on Sex."
At the present moment Hilarie is working with Professor Leo Semashko on his Peace from Harmony web site, and also with Professor Bernard Phillips and his Sociological Imagination Group (Phillips, Kincaid, Scheff 2002). Professor Ada Aharoni, who has a peace site at IFLAC, (International Forum for Literature and Culture of Peace), asked Hilarie to write a 10,000 word essay for ELOS, of UNESCO.
Please see:
•  Humiliation Flowering from Historical Roots: An Australian Experience, Metung, Australia, 15th August, 2005.
•  Dialogue for Survival Communication Ethics for Abrahamic Communities and for the World, Metung, Australia, 2009..
 

harrison
KLISALA HARRISON
Dr. Klisala Harrison (Ph.D., York University, 2008) is a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia. She comes to UBC from Columbia University in New York, where she was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Ethnomusicology. Dr. Harrison is the Vice Chairperson of the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology of the International Council for Traditional Music, which is a non-governmental organization in formal consultative relations with UNESCO. Dr. Harrison’s various research projects are unified by a commitment to scholarship of engaged citizenship and social responsibility. Her Ph.D. dissertation was the first academic documentation in Canada, of what is an international trend for music to be used towards the regeneration of socioeconomically depressed urban areas. Focussing on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Dr. Harrison analyzed how musical encounters and representations can help individuals to remediate and transcend stressful situations of systemic poverty, health and disability struggles, and violence. The study focussed on diverse musical genres, in inter and intra-cultural contexts, yet one section on Aboriginal Canadian song won Dr. Harrison the prestigious Ida Halpern Award and Fellowship from the Society for Ethnomusicology. In her postdoctoral research, Dr. Klisala Harrison continues to work in the area of urban ethnomusicology, but returns to the cultural domain of her M.A.: politically and socially engaged aspects of Native North American music scenes. Her master’s thesis considered how Canadian land claims debates of the late 1990s influenced the spatial organization and performance of place in public music and dance presentations by Northwest Coast First Nations. Dr. Harrison’s postdoctoral research explores musical performance in the implementation of cultural policy by urban Aboriginal Canadians, especially to transform colonial and post-colonial humiliations into lived experiences of dignity and pride. Dr. Klisala Harrison’s research on music and social responsibility has appeared in The World of Music, and is forthcoming in the following books and journals in 2010: Perspectives on Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press), Historical and Emerging Approaches to Applied Ethnomusicology (Cambridge Scholars Press; edited by Svanibor Pettan, Klisala Harrison and Elizabeth MacKinlay), Restoring the Head Hunters: Edward S. Curtis, The Kwakwaka’wakw, and Cinematic Documents of Encounter (University of Washington Press) and Musicultures.
 

PANDORA HOPKINS
Pandora Hopkins is a folklorist in the broadest sense of the term; her understanding of the word folklore (like folklife or folkeliv) is similar to the more recent Cultural Studies. Her Ph.D. dissertation from the University of Pennsylvania (major: folklore) was based on several field trips to Norway where she studied the tradition of the Hardanger violin (hardingfele) through making tape recordings of the complex, aurally-transmitted music and through personal interviews. With a professional background as a conservatory-trained violinist, Dr. Hopkins found that her assumptions about oral/aural transmission, media determination, and "levels" of culture in general had to be completely reassessed. Later, after further trips to Norway, she published Aural Thinking in Norway, a study of the remarkable intellectual control over their musical resources displayed by individual musicians in this "folk" tradition. The lesson she learned in Norway – the problems with political assessment of cultural communication – informed her later work in setting up several multicultural programs (at Yale and Rutgers universities and at a community music center in Brooklyn), as well as her teaching at the City University of New York and articles published in periodicals and journals. Recently, she moved to Mexico to devote full time to writing.
Her work, though ethnomusicological in substance, is designed to tackle the (in her opinion) dangerous fallacy of dividing the world into "literate" and "non-literae" (or "preliterate") sectors - a basic assumption that underlies the perception of cultures being inferior/superior. The first item is her book mentioned above, Aural Thinking in Norway (Plenum/Human Sciences Press: 1986), a study of the cognitive nature of aural transmission. The second is one of her four articles in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 8 (2000), pp. 90-111: "Ways of Transmitting Music."
Please see furthermore:
•  Religious Fundamentalism, Dignity, and Discussion: Open Space Discussion #1, Convened by Pandora Hopkins, summary presented at 7th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Costa Rica, 6th-9th September, 2006.
•  Politics of the Absurd: Sarah Palin and the Mindset for War, in Peace and Conflict Monitor, December 02, 2008.
•  Manufacturing Shame: The Danger of Purity, in The Peace and Conflict Review, Fall, vol. 3 no. 1, 2008.
•  The Courage to Combat Humiliation, paper presented at the 2010 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 9-10, 2010

 
 


ZAHID SHAHAB AHMED
Zahid Shahab Ahmed is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
Zahid Shahab Ahmed is Assistant Professor at the National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) in Pakistan and the pioneer of the university's Department of Peace and Conflict. He also leads the South Asia Centre for Peace (SACP) and South Asia Peace Magazine (please contact sacp.pakistan [at] gmail.com for more information). He did his PhD in Peace Studies with a focus on regional peace and security in South Asia at the University of New England in Australia. From September 2009 he conducted fieldwork in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Zahid is a postgraduate from UPEACE in peace education. In July 2006, soon after finishing his course work in Costa Rica, he went to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to train young people from all over the world with his workshops on youth for peace entitled Youth Cooperation and Peace Education. While studying at the UPEACE, he also participated in the peace education curriculum development workshop (Canada), the UNESCO Chair on Human Rights conference (USA), and also spent a summer in the advanced study program on non-violent conflicts at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA.
Until recently, Zahid worked for the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES) Pakistan as a program officer in Conflict Transformation & Conflict Sensitive Management. Nowadays, many development actors are interested in doing peace and conflict assessment of their projects, and that is where Zahid fits in with his expertise.
Before finding his way towards UPEACE, he was working as a Program Officer for a Pakistani NGO (Sahil) against child sexual abuse. Furthermore, he has also worked for the Overseas Development Institute, London, as an independent researcher for a case study on the youth policy of Pakistan. He has also worked as a research consultant for the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Pakistan) and the National Institute of Health (Pakistan). The Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama (WISCOMP), India, awarded him with a conflict transformation award-2005 to conduct a research in India and Pakistan on teachers' attitudes and practices towards Indo-Pak conflict.
Zahid has also been awarded with a Youth Service Award-2005 by a Pakistani Youth NGO (Jawan Pakistan) for his work on youth policy of Pakistan and child rights awareness. Zahid has conducted research on children's and women's rights. He has represented youth of Pakistan at the World Youth Peace Summit Asia-Pacific in 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand, at the Conflict Transformation Workshop in 2004 in New Delhi, India, and at the New Tactics in Human Rights-International Symposium in 2004 in Ankara, Turkey. Zahid has widely published on various issues, such as women's and children's rights, peace, diversity, coexistence, religion, and religious leaders. Zahid has done his Master's in Sociology from University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) and graduated in Economics & Journalism from University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Zahid is committed to induce the positive spirits into the minds of people through education for peace and international understanding, which will lead to peace and stability on earth.
Please see:
•  Poverty, Family Stress & Parenting, March 2005, as well as his paper on the Situation of Human Rights in Bangladesh, 2005. See also Zahid's Report from Auroville (March 2005) and Poverty, Globalization, Social Customs & South Asian Children in Prostitution (April 2005).
•  Extremism in Pakistan and India: The case of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Shiv Sena, co-authored with Rajeshwari Balasubramanian, Colombo, Sri Lanka: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.
• Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA): Lessons from Pakistan, Peace and Conflict Review, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 12-27 [refereed Journal article]
• A review of the book entitled “Asia’s New Regionalism” by Ellen L. Frost, published in the Journal of South Asian Development.
• Terrorism and Pakistan’s security dilemma, web article.



 
ODA KLEMPE
Oda Klempe [read more]
 

frerk
EVELIN FRERK
Evelin Frerk was born in Hamburg in North Germany. Initially, she worked as a journalist. From 1977-1989, she studied Ethnology and Journalism, and travelled the Northern Sahara. Subsequently, she left journalism and made photography her medium of expression. She documented, for example, the "Hamburger Ideenkette" that was orgnised by Evelin Lindner in 1993.
 

JOSÉ CALVO GONZÁLEZ
José Calvo González (n. Sevilla 1956) est Licencié en Droit (spécialité Droit Privé) pour l´Université de Sevilla (1978). Docteur en Droit (1984). Professeur de Théorie du Droit et Philosophie du Droit (Faculté de Droit. Université de Málaga. Espagne) (1986). Magistrat Suplente de la Cour d´Appellation Civile et Pénale de Málaga (Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Andalucia. Audiencia Provincial de Málaga) (1996). Membre de la Association Française des Historiens des Idées Politiques (Université d'Aix-en-Provence. France), de l' Equipe Nuno Luzio Internationale de Philosophie pénale (Institut de Criminologie. Université de Paris II. Panthéon-Assas), du Instituto Jurídico Interdisciplinario de la Faculdade de Directo (Universidade do Porto. Portugal). Professeur du Curso de Postgrado y Maestría para el Mejoramiento en el Desempeño del Ejercicio de la Función Jurisdiccional dans le Proyecto de Reforma Judicial y Mejoramiento del Sistema de Justicia (Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas de la Universidad Centroamericana (UCA). Managua. Nicaragua), Professeur de la Maestría en Derecho Procesal y Penal de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas de la Universidad Centroamericana (UCA. Managua. Nicaragua).
Livres:
•  Derecho y Narración. Materiales para una teoría y Crítica narrativista del derecho, Barcelona, Editorial Ariel, 1996, XVII+141 pp.
- La Justicia como relato. Ensayo de una semionarrativa sobre los jueces, Málaga, Editorial Agora, 1996, 210 pp. 2ª ed., 2002, 228 pp.
•  El Cante por Derecho. Las “Carceleras” y el krausofloclorismo andaluz. (Un estudio de Etnología jurídica y Filosofía Penal), con ilustraciones de Eugenio Chicano, Málaga, Ayuntamiento de Málaga, Área de Cultura, 2003, 127 pp.
Articles:
•  "Ghettoización de la Universalidad y futuro de los Derechos Humanos", en Pluralismo, Tolerancia y Derechos, Actas de las XV Jornadas de Filosofía Jurídica y Social, Derechos y Libertades, Revista del Instituto Bartolomé de Las Casas, (Universidad Carlos III. Madrid ), Año II, Julio-Diciembre, 1995, núm. 5, pp. 405-412.
•  Veuillez voir, sur les Droits Humaines, Liberté-Securité et Paix, La fragilidad de los Derechos, Revista de Derecho. Universidad Centroamericana. Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas (Managua. Nicaragua), n m. 9/ 2005, pp. 203-218, et aussi Revista Brasileira de Direito Constitucional, núm. 8 (Ética y Constituiçao), Jul/Dez 2006 (en presse).
•  Veuillez voir aussi Harmonías jurídicas. Algunas notas (musicales) sobre Derecho y Justicia, en Mundo Jurídico 15/10/2005 (Brasil), pp. 1-8 (http://www.mundojuridico.adv.br/sis-artigos/artigos.asp?codigo=705).

 

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TONYA R. HAMMER
Tonya Renee Hammer is also a Member of the Global Coordinating Team, and the HumanDHS Research Team.
In August 2008, Tonya took up the position of Assistant Professor with the University of Houston-Clear Lake, in Texas, U.S.A. In 2008, Tonya finished her doctoral dissertation entitled: Myths, Stereotypes, and Controlling Images in Film: A Feminist Content Analysis of Hollywood's Portrayal of Women's Career Choices, at the Counselor Education and Supervision department at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas (the dissertation can be ordered through ProQuest). She summarizes her disseration as follows: "Myths, stereotypes and controlling images are imbedded in cinema. Women can be disempowered and marginalized by these images and it is important to explore the images found in this medium and the potential they have to affect women’s career choices. The content analysis of 81 films revealed themes including but not limited to the idea that relationships should be secondary to careers in women’s lives; women are secondary to men in the workplace; women in power are depicted in isolation; women are portrayed in traditional careers more than non-traditional careers; regardless of career choice women are often depicted in a negative light and women of ethnicities other than White are not adequately represented in mainstream media, in any area, much less with regard to career choices. Through film women are learning that they are secondary to men in one more area of society and that, in essence, there is nothing wrong with this perception."
Her Masters degree in Psychology and Counseling is from the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in Belton, Texas and her bachelor's degree is in English from the University of Texas, Arlington. Prior to entering the counseling field she was a paralegal for fourteen years. She is currently working as a case manager with Communities in School, San Antonio, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help students stay in school and prepare for life. Communities in Schools' main focus is working with students who have been determined by the state to be “at-risk” a classification in itself that can be humiliating regardless of the conditions that led to the labeling. Tonya's current research areas include, incorporation of relational cultural theory into career counseling, the use of film in counseling, and the issues of humiliation and shame surrounding malpractice claims against therapists and clinical supervisors.
Tonya wishes to work overseas after she finishes with her dissertation. She writes: "My goal or vision statement for my professional career is to teach on the college level. Specifically, I would like to teach on the graduate level in the field of counselor education. I am inspired and challenged by the dialogue that is entered into in the classroom when you have a passionate educator. I want to be that passionate educator and be able to share my passion for RCT and for social justice advocacy, including the work of the humiliation studies network. I see this being done not only in the classroom but through the written word as well. I see myself writing and publishing not just journal articles but books as well. I have always loved to write, evidenced by my undergraduate degree in English, and I would like to combine those skills with my interests in Relational Cultural Theory, as well as social justice advocacy to produce written works that would be incorporated not only into my classroom but other classrooms as well.
Personally and professionally I want to use every opportunity to further an understanding of Relational Cultural Theory and Social Justice. I see both as being vehicles through which we can interrupt or end the cycles of humiliation that occur in our everyday lives both on a personal and a global level."
Please see:
•  The Global Impact of Humiliation on Relationships and World Peace, presentation proposal together with Dana Comstock to the Third International Women's Peace Conference, Dallas, Texas U.S.A., July 10-15, 2007.
•  The Role of Dignity and Humiliation for Myths, Stereotypes, and Controlling Images in Film, abstract presented at the 2008 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 11-12, 2008.
•  together with Selma Yznaga, Shunned by Difference: The Intersection of Humiliation and Discrimination, abstract presented at the 2010 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 9-10, 2010.
 

MYRA MENDIBLE
Myra Mendible is also a Member of the HumanDHS Research Team.
Myra is Associate Professor in the Humanities Division at Florida Gulf Coast University in Ft. Myers, where she teaches Contemporary Literature and Ethnic Studies courses for the English Department. Myra was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to the US as a child. Mendible earned a Ph.D. (with honors) in American Literature and Culture Studies from the University of Miami in 1993 and then joined Florida Gulf Coast University as founding faculty in 1994. In this capacity she contributed to the design of the University's Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies degree, which introduces students to a series of social, political, and cultural issues in their historical contexts; she also served as co-founder of the English program, developing curriculum, formulating goals and outcomes, and serving in an administrative capacity as English Program Leader. Dr. Mendible has presented her interdisciplinary research at both national and international conferences. In 1996, for example, she delivered a paper at the University of Havana, where she reconnected with the land of her birth. In the summer of 2004, she participated in an invitation-only roundtable on Womens Leadership at Oxford University in the UK, where she spoke on the issue of gendered humiliation. Dr. Mendible has published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Genders: Innovative Work in the Arts, Humanities and Social Theories; International Fiction Review; Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction; Florida Law Review; Feminist Media Studies, and the Journal of American Culture. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled, Mediated Humiliations: Culture, Politics, and the New Mass Media and is the Editor of a forthcoming anthology on the history of Latinas representations in US film and media (University of Texas Press).
Please see:
• Mediated Humiliations: Spectacles of Power in Postmodern Culture
Abstract presented at the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.

•  Post Vietnam Syndrome: National Identity, War, and the Politics of Humiliation, in Radical Psychology, Vol. 7, 2008.
 
RINA KASHYAP
Rina Kashyap is currently a Fulbright Scholar at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, (EMU). She is the Chair of the Department of Journalism at Lady Shri Ram College (LSR), University of Delhi. She has held this position since the inception of the department in 1995. She is also a faculty member in the Department of Political Science in the same college. While at EMU, she will be co-teaching the course, Women, Trauma, Leadership and Peacebuilding at the Summer (2006) Peacebuilding Institute at EMU.
Rina is deeply involved in conflict analysis and peace studies. She provided leadership for the exchange program between LSR and Kinnaird College (KC), Pakistan, which has been recognized as an important civil society initiative in the Indo Pak peace process.
Gender and conflict studies are an area of special interest. Her latest work in progress is a literature survey on shame and humiliation and the exploration of that phenomenon in the context of India. The study can be seen at: The Subversion of the Colonial System of Humiliation: A case study of the Gandhian Strategy. This paper was presented at Round Table 3 of the 2005 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict held at Columbia University, New York, December 15-16, 2005.
 
ZHANG XUAN
Xuan is a PhD student at the Department of Psychology at Boston College and a visiting scholar at the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory at the Department of Psychology at Northeastern University. Prior to that, she conducted her graduate studies at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, China and was a psychology student at the Department of Psychology in Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Two of her research papers were published in Chinese psychological journals. Her goal is to raise Chinese students' awareness of mental health.
I was born into a big family 24 years ago, with a history professor grandpa, a manager father, two accountants — mom and grandma — and a loving great-grandma. I grew up in the campus of Liaoning University, located in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province. Surrounded by so many people loving me much and expecting much from me, I started piano training from the age of four, and was educated in the best primary, junior middle, and senior middle schools. I became an excellent student with good grades and versatile talents, in other people's view.
However, in the winter of my second year in high school, I got caught by depression and suffered a lot together with my family for several months. During that period, I experienced so much pain that I didn't believe I would ever get well again, until I met with a psychologist from Belgium and read some books about depression that helped me a lot. It was during my recovery period that I developed my interest in psychology, with the longing for helping people alleviate this pain of heart. Therefore, after I went back to high school, I set my goal on joining the best psychology department in China (at that time) — the Department of Psychology in Zhejiang University — and luckily, I was matriculated by it as the only student in my province.
While I was feeling the biggest happiness, wanting to do something to help people, as soon as I got in the university, what welcomed me was another setback. My idea of waging a campaign to raise Chinese students' awareness of mental health was considered unrealistic. After realizing that my power might be too small as a freshman in psychology, I decided to first concentrate on learning as much as I could to accumulate knowledge and experience. So, during the past few years, I studied with heart, conducted research at my best, and participated in activities related to psychology, as much as possible. Up to now, my efforts paid. With good grades, I was recommended to the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Science for my graduate studies. Two of my research papers were published in Chinese psychological journals. And I gained a lot of experience through helping with some professors' graduate teams, participating in some social events, and organizing psychology related activities.
My journey in the field of psychology has just started, and with a career plan that I explain now, I still have a long way to go. I want to spend the first ten years on studying and learning about the status quo of psychology in China and the more advanced psychology abroad, probably primarily focusing on the academic field. For the second ten years, apart from doing more research, I wish also to collect experience in practice, to see if I can find my focal point. Then, at the age around 40, it might be time for me to apply what I have learned from knowledge and practice, and make it useful for society at large. Of course, I expect to meet difficulties on the way. So I guess I have to leave 10 year for myself to make errors and correct them. During my fifties, I hope I can make a real difference. I hope I will have the ability to help people in ways that are optimal to them and me. I hope to develop this career and pass on what I learned and gained to younger people. If I could do all of this, I would be most gratified. My overall goal is to study and work for Chinese psychology.
 
NUNO LUZIO
Nuno Luzio
 

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MICHEL DANINO
Michel Danino was born in France in 1956, and was drawn to India and to Sri Aurobindo and Mother from the age of fifteen. In 1977, after four years of higher scientific studies, he left for India. He participated in the English translation and publication of many books related to Sri Aurobindo and Mother, in particular Mothers Agenda (13 volumes). Among other titles, Michel Danino also edited Indias Rebirth (a selection from Sri Aurobindos works on India, 3rd ed. 2000) and India the Mother (a selection from Mothers works, 2nd ed. 2002).
Studying the roots of Indias ancient history, Michel Danino authored The Invasion That Never Was, a study of the Aryan problem (2nd ed. 2000, 3rd ed. forthcoming). He has given many lectures in Universities, colleges, higher educational and cultural institutions, about the Indus-Sarasvati civilization, the Aryan problem, Indias scientific heritage, and the challenges faced by Indian culture today. Some of these lectures have been published in four books (with more under preparation): Sri Aurobindo and Indian Civilization, The Indian Mind Then and Now, Is Indian Culture Obsolete? and Kali Yuga or the Age of Confusion.
In 2001, Michel Danino convened the International Forum for India's Heritage with over 150 eminent founder members, whose mission is to promote the essential values of Indias heritage in every field of life, especially in the educational field. IFIH recently concluded for NCERT a major survey of 11,000 school students to probe their views on culture and education. In the next few years, IFIH is planning to bring out a series of multimedia educational CDs on specific aspect of Indias heritage.
Michel Danino has also been active in forest conservation and Nature photography in Tamil Nadu.
Please see Humiliation in India's Historical Consciousness, in Social Alternatives (Special Issue "Humiliation and History in Global Perspectives"), Vol. 25, No. 1, First Quarter, pp. 44-49, 2006.
 

BRIAN LYNCH
Brian Lynch, M.D., has been in private medical practice for 20 years in Chicago, Ill, U.S.
While educated as a Family Practitioner he has come to be an almost full time psychotherapist with a concentration in “substance” abuse.
He sees himself arriving at this post partially through a rural upbringing where the “General Practitioner” was the only medical model to emulate. This was combined with an extensive undergraduate career in the Humanities, the Liberal Arts and Philosophy earning a B.A. in Philosophy and then an A.B. in general studies form St. John’s College, Annapolis, Md. These influences further combined with work as a nurse prior to medical school lead first to general medicine, but never far behind was an interest in psychiatry and ethics. All this is best succinctly summarized as a deep interest in resolving the “mind-body” problem. Work in physiology at Georgetown and then Medical Ethics at Loyola of Chicago rounded out his education.
He feels the above was only preparation for finding and then engaging in the study and application of what is referred to as “Affect Psychology” as put forth by Silvan S. Tomkins as it is his view that this, unfortunately, barely known major thinker did in fact solve the mind-body problem.
Tomkins was one of the first to single out “shame” as a non learned emotion that is innate. He links shame and humiliation and in fact sees them as a continuum and sees that continuum as lynch-pin to all human behavior. He has spoken in various venues applying Affect Psychology to Restorative Justice, Addiction, and business.
He has taught ethics at both the University of Illinois and Loyola of Chicago and continues as a adjunct clinical professor in Family Medicine at the University of Illinois. He has been director of a unique homeless outreach program and of an opiate detox program.
He is author of “How To Get Where You Want To Go: Twelve Steps To Emotional Health: Knowing your emotions and how to use them.” This is a general primer on Affect Psychology and was first meant to be for physicians. Dr. Lynch wishes now to get back to his roots as a family physician and write that original book and explore shame and humiliation in the doctor patient relationship.
Please see Brian's following texts:
• Let Us Help Him Who Did So Human a Thing, Senior Essay submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. February 15, 1976, by Brian F. Lynch, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland.
• 
Doing-Thinking-Feeling in the World, Chicago, ILL, 2006.
• 
Silvan Tomkins' Conceptualization of Humiliation, abstract presented at the Second International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, 13-15th April 2007, Institute of Discourse and Cultural Studies, & Department of Applied Psychology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, as part of the 9th Annual Meeting of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies.
• 
Silvan Tomkins' Conceptualization of Humiliation, abstract presented at the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.
• Notes on a Conference, notes prepared after the 2006 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 14-15, 2006.
• "Shame as a Unifying Concept for Most All Incidents of Violence," presentation at the National University of Mexico, September 2007.
 

KATHLEEN FREIS
Kathleen Freis is also a Member of the HumanDHS Education Team.
Kathleen is the Manager of Group Offerings for Synergos, an organization that helps bring global philanthropists together to deepen their knowledge and commitment to social justice philanthropy. Kathleen is responsible for designing, facilitating and evaluating educational and reflective meetings, events, retreats, and workshops including overseas site visits that expose individuals to humanitarian fieldwork.
Prior to her Synergos engagement, Kathleen was the Education Director at the International Center for Tolerance Education and Program Officer at the Third Millennium Foundation. 
Kathleen is dedicated to educating for peace where individuals and communities are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to preserve and protect human dignity. Kathleen earned a Master's degree in International Education Development with a specialization in Peace Education from Teachers College Columbia University. She has managed educational programs in the U.S. and Latin America, serving as Program Director of the Global Campaign for Peace Education at the Hague Appeal for Peace, Program Manager of Maestros Excelentes Teacher Training Program of the National Puerto Rican Forum, English Instructor at the Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano in Chile, and Community Center Coordinator for Centro Infantil in Costa Rica. She has conducted interactive, participatory workshops at conferences, schools and organizations, consulted educational programs in the US, Latin America and Africa, planned international conferences, co-developed Human Rights Summer Institute training manual (2006), co-edited both Peace Lessons from Around the World curriculum (2005), Environmental Protection for Social Equality: A Leaning Unit (2005), and the United Nations Global Atlas Human Rights Curriculum (2002), and wrote English for Spanish Speakers : A Linguistic Guide (2000). Kathleen has worked and traveled in Europe, the Middle East, East Africa, and Latin America and speaks Spanish. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
 

ZAHUR AHMED CHOUDHRI
Zahur Ahmed Choudhri is also a Member of the Global Advisory Board, and HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team.
Zahur Ahmed Choudhri, provided his services to the government of Pakistan for more than three decades. And he recently retired from his position as a Director (Research), National Centre for Rural Development & Municipal Administration, Government of Pakistan. While being working for the government of Pakistan, he acted as a team-leader for several research projects with international organizations, i.e. UNICEF, UNCRD, UNDP, LOGOTRI-UNESCAP, FAO, ILO, SAARC, IFAD, CIRDAP, APO, AARDO and IUCN.
Mr. Choudhri is also in the visiting faculty of couple of national universities in Pakistan, and sharing his life-long development sector experiences with the students of rural sociology, forestry and rural development. He has also been writing on ranges of issues and also has co-authored two books. Both books are looking at the notion of development through the lens of Islam, mainly answering the very crucial question, how various concepts and approaches of Islam teaches for development and peace from individual to a state and global level.
 

JESSICA E. CICHALSKI
Jessica E. Cichalski is also a Member of the HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team.
 

OLGA R. PEREZ
Olga R. Perez is a mediator in a not for profit program in New York that provides intensive therapy, social work and mediation services to adolescents and families where there is high risk of child placement (due to behavioral problems) or where the child is transitioning from placement back into the family setting. There are often issues of abuse and neglect. In addition to individual work with the families, the agency develops different support groups or workshops intended to strengthen the family relationships and the therapeutic treatment. So, although her main task is to conduct individual mediation between family members (mostly between teens and their parents), she is planning a group/workshop around conflict resolution. She would like to develop a workshop that as much as possible addresses core notions or feelings that give rise to destructive behavior and violence.
Olga is an attorney who always worked in public interest and several years ago chose to get involved in volunteer mediation work. She felt attracted to working with teenagers. Her legal work was always providing direct legal services to the poor or in civil rights. Her current job as a mediator brings together her public interest concerns and her passion for conflict resolution.

 

HARSH AGARWAL
Harsh Agarwal is also Co-Director and Co-Coordinator of the HumanDHS Stop Hazing and Bullying Project.
He has worked with several leading National and International Organisation including the United Nations both in India and abroad. He has worked closely with young people from more than 40 different countries which has increased his understanding of different cultures, societies, human behaviour, and social issues. He is a founder member of the youth social organisation called Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), which is fighting against ragging (hazing) in India. He was recently appointed as a consultant by the Ministry of HRD, Department of Higher Education, Government of India to analyse, examine and suggest recommendations to form a National Policy Against Ragging. Having himself faced ragging at a Medical College in 2000, he struggled against the system for two years to get justice, which has been acknowledged in a book titled "The Avatar Way of Leadership." He is a Science graduate from the University of Delhi and has taken a break from studies to broaden his understanding of diverse social issues. He is keen to pursue his higher studies and research in the field of Public Policy, Globalization, Governance, and Leadership studies.
Please see here:
•  Conversation Between Harsh Agarwal and Michael Britton on Ragging, 2007.
•  Ragging: Can we ever solve this problem?, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2008.
•  A four and a half minute song with video on ragging produced by CURE on YouTube, and downloadable as high resolution version of this song and video, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2008.
•  Is it Ragging or Stockholm Syndrome in our Campuses?, New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2009.
• Psychology Behind Ragging, paper presented at the seminar “Legal Awareness Programme on Anti-Ragging” in the session “Understanding Psychology Behind Ragging” chaired by the acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, organised by the Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA), in the Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute (VPCI) Auditorium, New Delhi, India, 20th March 2010.
• Helplessness of anti-ragging Helpline number (1800-180-5522), New Delhi, India: Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), 2010.
• Three Stages in Ragging, New Delhi, 2011.

 

MARÍLIA BORGES COSTA
Marília Borges Costa did Graduate and Undergraduate studies in Letters and Foreign Languages at the Universisty of São Paulo, Brazil. Her Master's thesis in Chinese-American literature is entitled "Diasporic Threads in the Narratives of The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston". She taught Portuguese at Beijing University in 2004-5 and at present is teaching English and Portuguese at Beijing Union University.
Please see here:
• Fios diaspóricos nas narrativas de The Woman Warrior, de Maxine Hong Kingston. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, doctoral dissertation, 2002.

 

BRIAN WARD
Brian is also a member of the HumanDHS Gobal Coordinating Team and host of the second HumanDHS Dialogue Home (2011).
Brian was born in New Zealand in 1952, and is from Irish and Scottish descent.
He has spent all of his life in New Zealand and is a professional traffic and transportation engineer. He credits himself to be a systems thinker and has a deep interest in sustainability particularly in the areas of renewable (solar photovoltaic) energy and dignifying human relationships. Brian is a trained mediator.
His website www.fivepower.net (evolution through the Age of Aquarius) represents a worldview and he welcomes dialogue on anything from it. He is a little skeptical of astrology but has found a creative and harmless connection with it.
Brian says: A few years ago I discovered a freedom after realising I had lived most of my life under a conditioned state and in an environment that was not sufficiently compatible with my true self. Through much reading, meditation, and gathering an understanding of many other cultures I managed to understand my previous mental models and discover what I now understand to be right for me. I guess you can call this a completion of self actualisation, enlightenment or post-individual consciousness.
To Brian, understanding the pervasiveness of evolution and observing its effects of systematic and continuous improvement, offers him an ability to observe the incremental changes for the positive.
Links:
• The video-taped conversation with Brian Ward for the World Dignity University initiative that took place on 5th September 2011, in Timaru, New Zealand. The interviewer is Evelin Lindner. The discussion touches on systems thinking, sustainable business principles, and equal dignity. Brian is the sole director of a startup business in the renewable energy field (in New Zealand).
• Submission to the New Zealand Government Green Paper on Vulnerable Children, October 2011.
   

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CHELLIE SPILLER
Chellie Margaret Spiller is Indigenous Maori (from the Ngati Kahungunu tribe) and Pakeha (a New Zealander of European descent). She has a Masters in International Relations from Victoria University and a doctorate in Maori business from the University of Auckland. Currently Chellie is a Post Doctoral Fellow at Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty for Maori development at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). She has received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to extend her studies on relational wellbeing and wealth in Maori business to include Native American organisations.
"Many businesses believe the sole purpose of business is to produce a profit. From a Maori perspective, however, the purpose of business is to create well-being. My doctoral study showed that Maori values inform the creation of relational well-being across five dimensions: spiritual, cultural, social, environmental and economic. The value-embodied in the relationships created by the business accrues to become the value-added proposition of the firm in the market. My research also offers important insights for the global business community by demonstrating how business can deliver wealth in terms of its original meaning from the old English word 'welth', meaning 'to be well' and thereby operate more sustainably."
Chellie’s paper on relational wellbeing and wealth was judged to be one of the best papers at the leading international Academy of Management Conference and was published online through the Journal of Business Ethics, July 2010. An “author created” copy of this paper is available on her website. An experienced international businesswoman she, also works with her husband Rodger offering training, coaching and transformational leadership development weaving leadership insights from Maori business with the best of other approaches.
 
SARA KHAN
Sara Khan is currently a lecturer and research coordinator at Center for Media and Communication studies at International Islamic University Islamabad. She has an academic background in Media studies as well as gender and peace studies. In line with her Journalism studies, Sara Khan worked for several publications and media outlets. She has been involved in several research and consultancy services related to gender and education with different international organizations in Pakistan. Sara’s master thesis was a study of The Role of Media in Conflict resolution: An India-Pakistan Case Study, she has also analyzed Islamic feminism in Iran towards negotiated gender roles in her research thesis Islamic Feminism; Is It the Way Ahead. Her work has taken her to India as a workshop facilitator on Gender and Peace; to Indonesia, as a workshop facilitator on Gender and Islam, respectively; to Fletcher School of Law and diplomacy at Tufts University, as a Presenter on Gender Issues in Pakistan and various other initiatives; Admittedly, these tours chalk her out as with over-varied interests, yet they all lead to one aim, dynamic Peace.
 

TINA OTTMAN
Esta Tina Ottman is also a Member of the HumanDHS's Research Team, and Director and Coordinator of HumanDHS's World Films for Equal Dignity Project.
Born in Manchester, UK, and educated at Oxford University, Tina Ottman is the daughter of a German Kindertransport refugee, and has worked in teaching, journalism and publishing for over two decades. She lived for around a decade in Israel as a new immigrant, and has now been lecturing at Japanese universities for 11 years.
Currently Tina Ottman is Associate Professor at the School of Government (in the School of Law) at Kyoto University, Japan. She attempts to balance research interests in Israel/Palestine/gender with labour activism, and is a coordinator of the Japan conference series Peace as A Global Language.
Please see:
•  Culture and Conflict in Academic Organizations: A Comparative Field Analysis of two Disputes in Japan, co-authored with Lisa Rogers, in ICS - Intercultural Communication Studies, XIX (3), 2010, pp. 74-87.
 

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ANNA STROUT
Anna Strout serves as Director of Special Projects and Events for the non-profit arts education organization Urban Arts, where she has worked with a diverse population of students to create documentaries, animated films and music videos, and personal narrative pieces that share their stories and address issues affecting their community, from teen homelessness to the power of language to represent or misrepresent, from living with diabetes to the struggle of undocumented youth to attain equal rights. Over the years, Anna also has lent her skills to productions broadcast on PBS, The History Channel, The Learning Channel, and Court TV; multi-media DVDs, world music releases and academic publications; museum exhibits at The New York Historical Society, the National Buildings Museum, and The Museum of the City of New York; and cultural history programs for Voices of a People's History.
   

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JORGE SAETA
Jorge Saeta (Jorge Saez-Guinea Ruiz) is the Director and Coordinator of HumanDHS's World Photography for Equal Dignity Project.
Jorge Saeta is a photographer and visual artist who was born in 1975 in Zaragoza, Spain. He studied sculpture in the Arts and Trade School of his home town of Zaragoza. Working as a graphic designer, he developed his passion for photography. For more than six years, Saeta’s lenses have focused on social reportage, travel and indigenous people, portraying the circumstances of places and their people, with their personal stories in the background. He has captured images in the remotest of places, representing old ways of life and evoking deep, intense human emotion. He collaborated photographically with The Sacred Childhoods Foundation, an international NGO registered in the UK, which provides aid to children the world over, reporting about children's situations in the remote islands of Indonesia. His other collaborations include Medicos del Mundo Spain (MDM), Volunteer Civil Group Italy GVC, AIFO Italy, Merlin England. In September 2009 he was awarded the Documentary Architecture Award by the World Folklore Photographers Association in the contest "Humanity Photo Awards" sponsored by UNESCO for his collection: Traditional Dwellings of Indonesia. (http://www.worldfpa.org/hpa2009.asp) Since 2005, he has travelled to East and Southeast Asia repeatedly, photographing Timor Leste, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, China, Japan and South Korea. Jorge specifically devoted three years to Indonesia, traversing all the main islands and visiting many of the smaller ones. He engaged in humanitarian work after the December 2004 Tsunami, living regularly with local Achenese, which allowed him to experience and absorb the stark realities of post-disaster life. Currently he lives in Kyoto, Japan.
 

BILL LELAND
Born in San Francisco, California in 1940, Bill has had a variety of life experiences which have contributed to his continuing lifelong learning. His formal education brought him an undergraduate degree (B.A.) in history from Amherst College and a graduate degree (M.A.) in counseling from Stanford University. Bill’s entire employment career has been in either education or in the nonprofit sector.
While greatly enjoying counseling, he resigned from being Associate Dean of Students for Counseling at Stanford University in 1972 with the intent of becoming more actively involved in social change and environmental activism – commitments which he pursues to this day. Within this context, Bill also was for more than nine years Director of Community Development at a Community Development Financial Institution. In that capacity he developed a range of programs advancing economic justice and serving people who were underserved. The variety of nonprofit experiences have included work in conflict resolution, international computer networking (beginning in pre-Internet days), organizational development, social and economic justice, and environmental sustainability. He currently is Executive Director of a nonprofit non-governmental organization which acts to preserve coastal watersheds through community stewardship, monitoring, and education. Bill has also served on a variety of nonprofit Boards of Directors.
Throughout these experiences and to this day, Bill, for the most part happily, has wrestled with the question of how he can be most effective in contributing to fundamental change which can lead us to a world with more joy and love and less suffering. His current thinking leads him to believe in the central importance of the development of mutually empowering relationships in both our individual relationships and in institutions in all sectors.
Bill’s four children, born between 1966 and 1982, continue to bring into his life great joy and love as well as four wonderful grandchildren. He continues to learn much from them and has had the opportunity to experience co-parenting and home schooling with them.
Striving to live simply has added grounding to his life as have his attempts to nurture and to attain some balance between mind, body, and spirit. The blessing of good health provides the gift of being able to participate in long-distance running which he hopes to be able to do for many more years.
Some of Bill’s current thoughts can be found at his blog.
Bill is delighted to have begun his connection with the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies Network and looks forward with keen anticipation to deepening that connection and experiencing increasing synergy, mutual empowerment, with this fine group of colleagues.
Please see:
•  Dignity, Humiliation, and Mutual Empowerment for Fundamental Change, abstract presented at the 2007 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 13-14, 2007.

 

ALEXANDER PATRUT
Alexander Patrut is also a member of our HumanDHS Education Team.
Alexander Patrut, né Berger, Ph.D., studied Applied Cultural Studies and Pedagogy at the University of Lüneburg (Germany) and did his Ph.D. on the History of Mass Media and Environmental History. He is member of the Centre of Excellence “Paul Celan” at the University of Bucharest (Romania) and works as a self employed proofreader and coach and as a supervisor of Master's Thesis at the University of Lüneburg. Furthermore he does an additional study of History, German Literature and Pedagogy at the University of Trier (Germany).
Please see here some of his publications and articles:
•  „„Traum der Volkssouveränität – wir stehen am Ende des Anfangs.“ Ein Beitrag zur demokratischorientierten Presse und Publizistik im Vonnärz-Mecklenburg (1819-1848).“ In Michael Heinrichs und Klaus Lüders (Hrsg.), Modernisierung und Freiheit. Beiträge zur Demokratiegeschichte in Mecklenburg-Vorpommem. Schwerin: Stiftung Mecklenburg und dem Innenministerium des Landes Mecklenburg-Vorpommem, Redaktion. 1995, S. 282-305.
•  „Die Leitartikel der Lüneburger Volkszeitung „Vorwärts“ und ihre Verfasser nebst einer Skizze der pressepolitischen Situation im Königreich Hannover.“ In Wolfgang Beutin und Peter Stein (Hrsg), Die deutsche Revolution in Norddeutschland. Frankfurt am Main 1999. S. 169-181.
•  „Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Naturschutzgedankens im lokalen Kommunikationsraum 1918-1933.“ In Informationsdienst Naturschutz Niedersachsen. 19. Jg. (1999), Nr. 3, S. 170-174.
•  Heine und seine Zeitgenossen: Strömungen und Auseinandersetzungen im deutschen Vorrmärz. In Wolfgang Beutin (Hrsg), Die Emanzipation des Volkes war die große Aufgabe unseres Lebens. Hamburg 2000. S. 267-285.
•  „„Der Häring wird ein Sanskülott“. Zum politischen Engagement des Journalisten Willibald Alexis.“ In Wolfgang Beutin und Peter Stein (Hrsg), Willibald Alexis (1798-1871). Bielefeld 2000, S. 141-157.
•  „Analyse der Forstverwaltungen hinsichtlich ihrer Thematisierung der Waldfunktionen.“ In C. Katz und M. Mayer (Hrsg.), Evaluationsbericht des Projektes „Feministische Auseinandersetzung mit den für Waldnutzung und Waldschutz zuständigen Akteuren/innen im Rahmen des NFFG.“ August 2002.
•  „Tagbericht: Verhandeln, Verwandeln, Verwirren: Interdependenzen von Ethnizität und Geschlecht.“ DFG-Graduiertenkolleg „Identität und Differenz. Geschlechterkonstruktion und Interkulturalität“ 12.11.2004-14.11.2004, Trier.
 

INGE A. DANAHER
Inge Danaher has spent most of her working life in the IT industry and most of it working for the Shell Company of Australia in various capacities from Analyst Programmer through to Senior Project Manager.
Her final role prior to retirement was in the strategy area responsible for standards and quality of projects and Project Managers in the Asia Pacific region. Inge had a fair amount of exposure to different cultures. Born in Germany in the post-war period of the early 50’s she migrated with her family to Australia in the early 60’s. The experience of being a foreigner in a new country and one that came from a country that at the time was still under quite a cloud from the Nazi era was an experience that deeply affected Inge and her outlook on life. It took her many years to make peace with the humility and shame that was inflicted simply by world events over which she had no control.
Whilst working for Shell Inge and her husband worked for 2 years in Malaysia and the last few years of her working life she travelled extensively throughout Asia and to Europe and the US. In the early 80’s Inge, her husband and family spent 2 years working in the North West Australia on an Aboriginal Mission. This gave them a chance to get to know and understand the plight of Australia’s Indigenous people and an appreciation of the difficulties that face all those who are working to improve their lives. During this time Inge, together with a church Historian, translated a book about the early history of the area from German into English. This was an enjoyable experience and helped her to understand what life was like in this region prior to the arrival of Western Man. The book was published in Germany by the same publishing company who published the original German version.
In 2005 Inge’s health and that of other family members forced her to volunteer for an early retirement. She is currently recovering from an immune system disorder and is housebound most of the time. This illness also prevents her from travel so her main involvement in activities outside the home is via the internet which she manages from her couch bed. This has given her time to turn to one of her literary interests in life, and that is writing poems, some of which have been published on this website.
On the home front Inge is happily married with 2 sons and also has 2 granddaughters. Her interests are her family, her church, family history, reading, writing and when well, walking and travelling in this beautifully diverse world. She is also involved in a voluntary capacity with the Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia as Facilitator of their Carers Programmes but unfortunately this work is currently on hold until she recovers her health. Inge has recently joint the board of the Australian Autoimmune Foundation (AAF) who are helping Doctors and Patients with treatment options and the availability of drugs and other requirements in Australia. The AAF also works together with the Autoimmune Research Foundation (ARF) which is based in the United States and run by Professor Trevor Marshall and his board. Professor Marshall is the Scientist behind the Marshall Protocol which is a research project performing internet based clinical trials to cure people from Th1 Immune System disorders. Inge is participating in this research project mainly as a patient but also helping out with moral support for some of the patients in her local area. She has also helped out from time to time translating between German and English.
Inge believes in the dignity of all people and has done much soul-searching about the injustices that are inflicted upon innocent people everywhere. She is a Christian who believes all men are equal in the eyes of God and God is the final arbitrator of justice. Inge believes that we are all God’s children and all things that are good come from Him, regardless of creed or belief.
 

ATLE HETLAND
Atle Hetland is also a member of the HumanDHS Education Team.
He is a Norwegian citizen. He has since 1984 mostly worked outside his home country, including as a Norwegian diplomat, international civil servant and in other functions. He has set up home in Nairobi Kenya but has during the last several years spent most of his time in Pakistan, with visits to Afghanistan.
He is a Mass Media Candidate (Volda), Fil.Kand. (Gothenburg), Cand.Mag. & Cand.Polit. (Oslo), Fil.Dr./Ph.D. studies (Stockholm/Oslo), with further research with affiliation to his old Scandinavian universities and the East-African Universities of Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi.
He is a specialist in development and refugee education and research and has spent more than 25 years in these fields, including an initial decade at the University of Oslo, incl. as editor in university publishing/audiovisuals at Universitetsforlaget, and as Head of development studies (RIU), before he left for posts in East-Africa, where he has spent about one and half decade, some years in U.S.A. and West Africa, mainly working for UN organizations, the World Bank, Embassy of Norway/Norad (Tanzania), and head of ICED/Kenya, and recently 5-6 years dealing with education and other refugee issues in Pakistan, with several visits to Afghanistan, as a consultant working for UNHCR, UNESCO, and other organizations.
His recent publications include, Learning Away from Home, a large foundation book in refugee and emergency education (285 pp), with two shorter versions. Alhamra Publishing, Islamabad, 2006-2007 (contact@alhamra.com). The book is available on the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies – INEE’s Website.
During the project he was professionally affiliated to Hazara University, Mansehra, Pakistan. Most of his earlier research was on North-South issues, university/research linkages, development ethics, moral education and other issues, with most of his fieldwork/empirical data from East-Africa.
He continues researching and writing, in small multicultural teams composed for each project, currently about East-Africa, notably, (a) nomadic education and refugee-hosting areas (Turkana, Kenya) and (b) education in Afghanistan. He says that both projects are in need of donations and sponsorship in order to be completed the research and publish the books and films/DVDs.
During his years in Pakistan he has been a frequent contributor to two major dailies, notably, “Dawn” and “The News on Sunday”, and he has contributed to TV programmes and guest lectured at various universities, government departments and NGOs.
Email: atlehetland[@]yhaoo.com
Please see here:
•  Learning Away From Home: A Foundation Book in Refugee and Emergency Education - Cases: "Basic Education for Afghan Refugees" - BEFARe and Other Refugee and Returnee Education Activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan 1980 - 2005 (Expanded Volume), Islamabad, Pakistan: Alhamra Publishing, 2006.
•  Cosmopolitan No More? Atle Hetland reviews The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2007.
•  Education Denied - Why does Pakistan not have Education for All?, article for The News on Sunday, 17.02.2008.
•  Words and Wars, article for the "Political Economy Section" in The News on Sunday, Lahore, Pakistan, 14.12.2008.
•  The Know NORWAY Book: Background for Understanding the Country and Its People - Pakistan and Afghanistan Edition, Islamabad, Pakistan: Mr. Books Publishers and Booksellers.
•  The Right to Aid, in The Nation, 19th August 2010.
•  Morals of Aid, in The Nation, 26th August 2010.
•  Studying Society, in The Nation, 2nd September 2010.
•  Rights Issues and the Social Sciences, in The Nation, 20th September 2012
•  Education First, in The Nation, 27th September 2012.
•  Peace Within Ourselves?, in The Nation, 4th October 2012.
•  The Two Cultures, in The Nation, 24th January 2013.
•  Owners of Dreams, in The Nation, 21st January 2013.
•  Religion, Media and the Economy, article for The Nationon on Thursday 28th March 2013.
•  Everything Is Local, not Only in Africa, article for The Nation on Thursday 4th April 2013.
•  Politicians' Qualifications, article for The Nation on Thursday 11th April 2013.
 


JENNIFER KIRBY
Jennifer Kirby is also a Member of the HumanDHS Global Coordinating Team, and of the HumanDHS Research Team, and the HumanDHS Education Team.
She graduated from Appalachian State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Biology. At the university she published her senior thesis on "The Nature of Holocaust Survivor Poetry: The Power of Poetic Expression." She is currently the Administrative Assistant/Event Coordinator for Appalachian State University's Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies. As she continues her academic interests, Jennifer plans to pursue graduate education in genocide and peace studies while incorporating her interest in humiliation studies within her field of study.
In her free time Jennifer loves reading, traveling, and spending time with animals of all kinds.
 

SALMAN TÜRKEN
Salman Türken is also a Member of theHumanDHS Global Coordinating Team, HumanDHS Education Team, and HumanDHS Research Team.
Defining himself as a cosmopolitan, Salman is interested in studies of all levels of analysis that influence and change both individuals and societies in this globalisation era. Influenced by critical social psychology, ideology - understood as common sense, as legitimising and reproducing unequal power relations which might also lead to humiliation in intergroup relations - is now the main research topic for him.
Salman holds a MA degree in psychology from the University of Oslo, where he for the time being holds a position as a lecturer in social psychology. In his MA thesis (2006), Salman developed a brief cross-culturally stable scale that measures global identity, arguing that more and more people around the globe transcend national and territorial boundaries, identify first and foremost with their shared humanity (rather than seeking parochial ends), and show responsibility for and "engage the distant other."

 

AMI DAYAN
Ami Dayan is and Israeli/American playwright, director, performer dedicated to producing plays from diverse backgrounds and theatrical lineages, with strong sociopolitical relevance to current affairs, and unwavering artistic integrity. Ami studied, and worked professionally in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. His play The End received the 2002 Westword Award for Best Original Script. His free adaptation of Nobel Prize Laureate Dario Fo's A Tale of A Tiger has been performed worldwide since 1994, including a celebrated Off-Broadway run, followed by a 2005 Helen Hayes Award Nomination for Outstanding Non Residential Production. His 2006 production of The Man Himself, by Alan Drury, received rave audience and press responses in Colorado, Washington DC and NYC. His production of Ilan Hatsors MASKED garnered him the 2006 Westword Award for Best Actor in a Drama, before transferring Off Broadway were NY Magazine selected it as one of the three Theatrical Events of the Year (2007). Ami's upcoming production Conviction by Oren Neeman, was commissioned by The Denver Center Theatre Company, and will have its American debut in 2008.

 
SYLVESTER LAHAI
Sylvester is currently working in South Sudan as an International Protection Officer for Nonviolent Peace force. He had earlier worked as a Civilian Peace Keeper in Sri Lanka for the same organisation, serving as a child protection officer in the eastern and northern provinces of the country. As a Sierra Leonean, he volunteered with local NGOs assisting in the reunification and reintegration of former child soldiers during and after the end of the bloody civil war in his country.
He writes: "At the height of the war in the 90's in my country I volunteered to serve as a relief officer for displaced persons and refugees trapped behind hostile territory. The inspiration of serving humanity grew after my personal experience during the war. In 2003, during the DDR scheme in Sierra Leone launched by the United Nations, I served as a psycho therapist for child soldiers and ex-combatants under a NGO iEARN-SL (international Education And Resources Network-Sierra Leone). This NGO works with youth nationwide on social values and conflict resolution. During my brief time at iEARN-SL, I wrote a short article (post war employment among youths) about the devastating aftermath of the war on youths. In 2005, I enrolled for a post graduate course on Conflict Analysis at the United States Institutes of Peace, focusing on Kosovo and Rwanda, and then courses on Logistics management for peace keeping mission at the United Nations Institutes of Training and Research Programme of Correspondence and Instructions. Am presently serving as a procurement officer for SCHOLAR (a UK based charity organization) in the Gambia.
The humiliation issue is of vital importance to me because of the sufferings and humiliation I saw the people of my country, especially women and children (child soldiers) experienced during the decade chaos in Sierra Leone,not forgetting the Gambia also, where women are looked upon as only child bearers and nothing else.
My hobby is reading and writing poetry."
 

wanjiru
JANE WAMBUI WANJIRU
Jane Wambui Wanjiru, originally from Kenya, is now working with an International organization in Sri Lanka called Nonviolent Peaceforce, who works with children, women, and communities affected by conflict. Prior to that, Jane was a volunteering for children and women affected by HIV/ AIDS, communities affected by conflict and with poverty eradication activities in different communities in Kenya. She writes: "I am interested in Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies because I am in a journey to build a better world, a world of equal dignity for all, I wish to fellowship with members here, I wish to share and gain knowledge here and share with others out there who may be limited in accessing this sharing."
Jane writes further about herself: "I have been involved in various income generating activity programs with local youths through garbage collection in our locality, and HIV/AIDS awareness in the Mathare, Huruma, Kariobangi areas in Nairobi, Kenya, with youth groups, women groups, matatu drivers and touts. I volunteered in a local informal school and home for the aged. I have basic counseling knowledge, which has been of great help to me in facilitating issues with teenagers who have been involved in the abuse of drugs and other substances. I first enrolled for first aid because I wanted to know how I can help in case of emergency when called upon. Collecting views on constitution reforms was the most eye opening experience, it’s not easy to understand a constitution that the locals feel belongs to the politicians and other key community leaders, helping everyone, including me, to know that the constitution binds every single person in the country was a big lesson. In most of the above activities I have been using theatre and local songs to help the participants have the ownership of the process. One time there was a gang that terrorized community members in a local slum in Nairobi and we went to offer our support to the families that were affected because some lost their loved ones, and others were traumatized because of the dead bodies lying around. We solicited for foodstuffs and clothes for some of them. I believe in sharing my knowledge with all the people and organizations that I interact with."
 

BHANTE CHIPAMONG CHOWDHURY
Chipamong Chowdhury is a contemplative scholar, researcher, practitioner of Theravada Buddhism and an engaged Buddhist activist/monk and a member of the HumanDHS Global Core Team and co-coordinator of the HumanDHS World Gender Relations for Equal Dignity (WGenderRED) project, is also a Board member of the Alumni Association of the PIGPBS, University of Kelaniya, and member of American Academy of Religion and Sri Lanka Association of Buddhist Studies. Chipamong Chowdhury comes from an ethnic minority group in Bangladesh known as the Marma. Before he joined the University of Toronto, Canada, he studied in Burma, Sri Lanka, and the US (Naropa University) from where he received a degree in Pali/Theravada/Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies.
He studied in Burma, Sri Lanka, USA, and Canada from where he received graduate and post-graduate degrees in Buddhist and South Asian Studies. He has given many talks on Buddhism and Asian spirituality in various institutions and presented papers in many international conferences, including Columbia University, George Mason University, Waterloo University, Wilfred Laurie University, Concordia University, University of Colorado, Syracuse University and University of Toronto. Currently, he is teaching at the Tallinn University in Estonia on Buddhism, Politics and Modernity and Buddhism, Women, Sexuality, and Female Asceticism.
Please see:
•  Feminine Spirituality and Its Dignity: History of Buddhist Feminine Philosophy, abstract presented at the 11th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS) in Norway, June 2008.
•  Inner Peace and Outer Peace: A Buddhist Contemplative Perspective, abstract presented at the 2008 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 11-12, 2008.
• Practicing Non-violent and Working on Peace, abstract presented at the 2009 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 10-11, 2009.

 

ANTOINETTE ERRANTE
Antoinette Errante is an Associate Professor in Comparative and Historical Studies of Education in the School of Educational Policy and Leadership at The Ohio State University. Her research has focused on the evolving nature of educational policy and learning contexts in colonial and post-colonial societies, with a particular emphasis on lusophone and sub-saharan Africa. As a result of her long-term relationship with Mozambique in particular, she became interested in the role that communities and schools play in assisting war-affected children and what other societies such as the United States can learn from these efforts. Antoinette has had an opportunity to work with Mozambican traditional healers and psychologists and from them she learned the importance of understanding trauma and healing, conflict and reconciliation as cultural practices in which humiliation and dignity play a crucial role. Antoinette attributes her sensibilities toward humiliation and dignity to her life-long lessons as a sibling of a brother with mental retardation, Bruno. Antoinette was born in Naples, Italy, raised in New York, and when not working is either cooking or or engaging in earnest—if not always successful—gardening.
Please see:
• Of Broken Hearts and Tangled Fury: Institutionalized Shame and Humiliation in the Education Sector, abstract presented at the 2008 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 11-12, 2008.
 

eligashi

ELMAZE GASHI
Elmaze (Eli) Gashi has more than eight years experience working with foundations, local and international non-governmental organizations, and USAID-funded projects in Kosovo. She has a proven track record of working well in a team environment as best demonstrated through her successful organization of Kosovo NGO community support, and her development of a number of national public information campaigns, e.g., "Electoral Law", "Gender Equality" and "Get Out the Vote." Ms. Gashi has demonstrated a good understanding of CSO sector development issues. While working with USAID's Star Network of World Leaning Program in Kosovo and the United Methodist Committee on Relief, Ms. Gashi was responsible for evaluating grantees and assisting grantees with developing strategic plans, program designs and fund raising strategies. Ms. Gashi's understanding of the Kosovo's CSO sector is further enhanced by her work for the Swedish Kvinna till Kvinna (KtK) Foundation where she was responsible for evaluation of KtK grantees' strengths and weaknesses and recommending both organizational and programmatic trainings. Ms. Gashi's is fluent in Albanian, Serbian and English.

 

anthoine
ALISON ANTHOINE
 

HELENA HALPERIN
Helena Halperin teaches English at Roxbury Community College and History at the International School of Boston. She is a founder of Jitegemee, Inc., which educates at-risk children in Machakos, Kenya. She also chairs the US Board of Nonviolent Peaceforce.
In 1989-1990, when Helena was teaching in a village school in Western Kenya, she spent her free time talking with the families of her students about their lives. Inspired by the courage and resourcefulness of the women she met, she returned frequently from 1995-2005 to interview a wide range of women for I Laugh so I Won’t Cry: Kenya’s Women Tell the Stories of Their Lives (see also http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com/).
 

camilla
CAMILLA HSIUNG
Camilla Hsiung, MA, received her master’s degree in psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in May 2007 after 2 decades of ungratifying work in the corporate world. She has since discovered a more meaningful calling in social science. General areas of interests include social psychology, personality, and neuropsychology. She has written papers on aggression and terrorism, personality disorders, and has worked as an interventionist in a motor research lab which resulted in completing her master’s project and thesis on the neuropsychology of young children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy. She has also done research coding and analyzing data for studies about sexuality trainings in China. (Some of this work will be published in an upcoming edited book by Dr. Judy Kuriansky which will be due out this year.) She has traveled to faraway places to meet international clinicians and students in cross-cultural exchanges such as Buenos Aires, Cairo, and Beijing. One of her goals in China is to contribute to bicultural/international psychology aimed toward improving the role of women and their relationships, eradicating the abuse of women and children, reducing stress and preventing mental illness. In the near future, she endeavors to pursue a doctoral program and to conduct research related to social psychology that would serve to further the understanding of the complexities of the human condition for promoting a more humane global society.
 

bjoerlo

ANNE-GRETE BJØRLO
Anne-Grete Bjørlo attended Oslo Librarian School from 1978 to 1979, studied orthomolekular medicine (nutrition and health) and rehabilitation at Harstad College from 2001 to 2003. Anne-Grete has worked as a manager of small local libraries, and had her own tourist business in North- Norway, guiding, museum, cafe and bed& breakfast. She is now the manager of a local library in Koppang in the Stor-Elvdal Municipality in Norway. There is an asylum reception center in Stor-Elvdal, where she meets asylum-seekers from different countries. One of them was Abou Bakar, see below. And it was he who introduced her to Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and Evelin Lindner. Her dream is to create a small scale Oasis of Peace where writers and peaceworkers can come and recharge their batteries - or find the quiet oasis while writing. Still it is on the dream-stage - but since every creation starts with a dream - it might well come through! (See also Dialogue Homes for Equal Dignity).

 

ruse

VIDAL RUSE
Vidal Ruse has a degree in law, specializing in public law, and activist experience in the field of trans- and homosexual people's rights. While recognizing the importance of the legal side, Vidal finds it important to find and address the cornerstones of honor culture that are forming people's beliefs in order to facilitate the change coming from within. Fields of special interest: support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, elderly people and women, environment, spirituality, philosophy.

 

aboubakar
ABOU BAKAR JOHNSON BAKUNDUKIZE (21th September 1980 - 11th March 2013 in a car accident in Tanzania, but always with us in our hearts!)
Abou Bakar Johnson Bakundukize has a BA in Sociology and is closely working with refugees. He worked with Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA) Egypt as an interpreter and his responsibility was to provide assistance by preparing testimonies and legal arguments for asylum seekers who were interviewed for refugee status at UNHCR for the first time. In 2007 he took a professional Diploma of International Human Right and Refugee Law at The American University in Cairo (AUC), under Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. This helped him to work as a Legal Advisor for refugees and also assist with appeals if the asylum was rejected based upon criteria regarding legal issue in the claim. At the same time he working with Students Action for Refugees (STAR) and was involved in the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) team to coordinate the legal and psychosocial needs of asylum seekers involving gender-based violence. He participated in the GBV committees at the UNHCR as well as in community projects designed to prevent and appropriately respond to GBV. He is currently enrolled in the Masters in International Conflict and Resolutions program at the American University in Cairo, and is working on his first book which is entitled Voice of Shadows. Voice of Shadows offers a topical and informative analysis of forced migration in the age of globalization, identifying mass displacement as an outcome of conflicts and contradictions in the global system. It looks critically at histories of migration, exploring the constructed nature of the refugee and considers the changing patterns of migration and the refugee experience of displacement, flight, and the search for asylum. Additionally, it offers a critical analysis of refugee policy in Europe, North America and Australia and advances the case for open borders.
 

katrina1

KATRINA VREBALOVICH
Katrina Vrebalovich is an artist with roots in Norway and connections in Egypt and all around the world. Her mother is Britt Boutros-Boutros-Ghali. She has her education from Parsons School of Design, N.Y.C. Her creative works are in painting, jewelry and wearable art, murals in mixed media, mosaic and sculpture.
She describes her work and mission as follows: "My art in its naive beauty and hope may just be a nice start in a journey of reprogramming our thoughts to responsibility, care, solution orientations beyond governments. Canada has started a organization called Art Matters. They think the way I do, in the sense that we have to find a common language that activates and connects us in the heart. I will never forget your giant balloon happening in Germany with all the ropes keeping our planet balanced (see Ideenkette): with mere release of a few ropes we can integrate the understanding of how important it is for us to work tirelessly for balance... within and without. Yoko Ono said: "We all want peace but we cannot achieve this by thinking about war." The vision of how we live on our planet and how we participate with each other is entirely up to us to create."

 
herklotz
STEFFEN HERKLOTZ
Steffen Herklotz graduated with a degree in Afghanistics from Humboldt-University Berlin in 1985. At present, he is an employee at Haus Pro-social in Berlin. In his daily work as a receptionist and supporter of the social working team, he experiences and learns how the increase of human dignity affects young people, and how the young are eager and grateful learners. They deal with human dignity without mental reservations. At an early age, they can manifest the values of human dignity and mutual respect and appreciation in their communications, meetings and common events. As they interpret world problems, they demand a peace education that can guide them to equal human dignity across country boundaries as well as boundaries of confessions, ages and skin colour.
Steffen speaks the Afghan languages Pashto and Dari and learned about the country's history, its politics, culture, and religion. Like many other people, he is concerned when he sees the country in difficulties. He proposes applying the aspects and principles of HumanDHS. The country, as well as the entire region, deserve a future free of cycles of humiliation.
 

maysoon4

MAYSOON A. OBAID
Maysoon A. Obaid is ...

 

aune
BÅRD AUNE
Bård Aune is a Norwegian radio journalist/producer based in London, UK. He is currently with BBC World Service at Bush House in the News and Current Affairs department. Philosophically disposed and freethinking, he aims to contribute to the promotion of ideas of sustainability through the radio medium, by presenting the listeners with unexpected angles to known challenges. "A world threatening to collapse, with its peoples connected by interdependence, require a united effort to recover and sustain. The only way to unite is through education, making the big and complex issues easier to comprehend."
 

solheim
KAMILLA SOLHEIM

Kamilla holds a Masters Degree in “Multicultural and Developmental Education” from Oslo University College (2003). Her choice of thesis brought her to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to conduct her research: War Don Don – A study of the Reconciliation Process in Post-War Sierra Leone, with a particular focus on the Young Ex-Combatants. Following her graduation in 2003 Kamilla continued her international and educational engagement and worked in a Norwegian educational project at the Provincial Teacher Training College in Siam Reap, Cambodia, for a few years. Returning to Norway, she and her husband wanted to move to the country side and ended up in a small coastal town in the south of Norway.
Kamilla is a person who gets strongly involved in challenges where she is, and now she is dedicated to work to raise the level of competence among young people, and especially women, in the region where she lives.
For three years Kamilla has worked as an educational consultant in an organization called Travel for Peace. This organization aims at bringing youth from Norway to Europe, especially to Germany and Poland, to visit the concentration camps and learn about the dark sides of European history, as well as creating an understanding of the beginning and the birth of the International Declaration of Human Rights.
It was through her work for Travel for Peace, Kamilla met Evelin, when Evelin received the price – Fangenes Testamente, in June 2009.
Today Kamilla is self employed, involved in local as well as international projects.

 

aspoegaard
RACHEL ASPÖGÅRD
Rachel Aspögård is an author/freelance writer, photographer, and peace activist. She has been working in the peace activist arena as a writer and photographer For the past 20 years. Rachel has experienced war first hand which is what caused her to begin practising Buddhism, as well as work in peace activism for SGI (Soka Gakkai International UN-NGO). She is also a supporter and has a big interest in the science of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies. Rachel’s current work is reporting on the Swedish Network for Nuclear Disarmament, as well as her continued studies at London University.
 
eide

ELISABETH EIDE
Elisabeth Eide is senior researcher (PhD in Journalism studies) at Culcom, Oslo University, until July 2010 on leave from her position as Associate Professor at the Journalism Dept, Oslo University College. She is also temporarily linked to the University of Bergen. She has published a number of books and articles related to journalism research in a postcolonial perspective. Lately she has co-authored two volumes on the international coverage of the Mohammed Cartoon Crisis (2007, 2008). She has spent three years in India and Pakistan and frequently travels to Afghanistan. This experience has inspired the publication of five novels. See her personal website.

 

pate
TODD PATE
Todd Pate is a writer, actor, and musician who lives in New York. His plays, As Long a Time as a Long Time is in Longtime Land, Following Annie, Behind All Lines, and Too Far Gone Out in the Middle of Nowhere (March 2010) have been produced in New York City. Todd wrote two plays, Bird's Eye View and Brazil, with The Insight Project, a creative project through CASES (Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services). Through the insight project, Todd met with first time felony offenders, talked with them about their life experiences, and constructed dramatic pieces around those experiences. Todd has acted on stage extensively in Chicago and New York over the last decade. Todd can also be seen playing the lead role, Brennon Sunday, in the film Cold, Blue, Eternal, scheduled for release in June of 2010.
 

kabore

TANGA KABORE
Tanga Abdou Fulgence Kabore is the President of the Burkina Faso African Union Clubs/Président de la Fédération Panafricaine des Associations et Clubs de l'Union Africaine (FEPAC/UA). This fédération was established in Ouagadougou in 1993 and organizes the network collaboration of 34 national members. The mission of FEPAC/UA is to mobilize the African population for the African Union mission, vision, and ideals. FEPAC/UA is active in the promotion of peace, good governance, and sustainable development, as well as in election monotoring.
Tanga Abdou Fulgence Kabore has a license in development and adult education and is a candidate for a Master's in International Development Studies, under the supervision of Fenneke Reysoo at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies/Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHIED) in Geneva. He wishes to draw attention to "La Charte de KOU KAN FURA," as first universal declaration of human rights. The people who have inspired him are Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara, Julius Nyerere, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.

 

abarbanel
AVIGAIL ABARBANEL
Avigail Abarbanel is a psychotherapist/counsellor, group facilitator, presenter, public speaker, writer and amateur singer, cook and baker. She has worked in private practice in Canberra Australia for the past 11 years. Avigail was born in Tel-Aviv Israel in 1964 and has lived in Australia for 18 years between 1991 and 2010. Avigail and her husband Ian Barnes moved to the Scottish Highlands in January 2010 and plan to open a private practice in Inverness. Avigail has been an activist for Palestinian rights since 2001. Her contribution is mainly through writing and public speaking. Her articles are published on her website. Avigail is committed to humanistic values in her work and in life in general. She is interested in helping to build societies that enable individuals to develop to their full potential and in growth promoting relationships and systems. Avigail is interested in models for activism and social and ecological change that are non-adversarial.
 
akguen
UGUR AKGÜN
[read more]
 

altintas
MURAT ALTINTAS
Murat Altintas is a chemistry student in Bogazici University. He lives in Istanbul, Turkey. He is willing to be a teacher to train young children all around the world.
 

larsen
NOORIT LARSEN
Noorit Larsen is also a Member in the HumanDHS Global Core Coordinating Team and the HumanDHS Mapping and Assessment Team.
Noorit Larsen has graduated with an LLB degree from the University of Haifa, Israel. During her bachelor degree she developed a growing interest in human rights and related disciplines, as well as took part in the ‘human rights in society’ legal clinic. After finishing her bachelor degree she moved to Norway to live with her husband who is Norwegian. She has recently graduated with a master's degree in Medical Law and Ethics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Among her areas of interest and research expertise are: human rights, medical law, international healthcare law, distribution of natural resources, public international law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence and law and development. She hopes to do her Ph.D. in Norway in the latter subject; she believes the reciprocal relations between international law and international development are not only interesting and fruitful but from her perspective – inevitable as well. She also believes there is research in a relatively small scale in the area of law and development.
 

muthien
BERNEDETTE MUTHIEN
Bernedette Muthien co-founded and directs an NGO, Engender, which works in the intersectional areas of genders & sexualities, human rights, justice & peace. Her community activism is integrally related to her work with continental and international organisations, and her research necessarily reflects the values of equity, societal transformation and justice. She has published widely, written for diverse audiences, and believes in accessible research and writing. Amongst others, she co-convenes the Global Political Economy Commission of the International Peace Research Association, is a member of Amanitare, the African network of gender activists, Africa Editor of the international journal Queries, and serves on various international advisory boards, including of the international journal Human Security Studies. She is co-founder of an indigenous scholar-activist network, the KhoeSan Women’s Circle, in addition to convenor of an international listserv of Native scholar-activists, Gender Egalitarian. Muthien was the first Fullbright-Amy Biehl fellow at Stanford University (1994-1995), and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Cape Town (Dean’s Merit List), and Stellenbosch University (Andrew W Mellon Fellow, 2006-2007) in South Africa. Her current research centres on the Egalitarian KhoeSan – Beyond Patriarchal Violence, in other words, how social and gender egalitarianism are coterminous with nonviolence, as well as showing that nonviolent and egalitarian societies have existed throughout time and continue to exist at present.
 

diouf
BIRAME DIOUF
Birame Diouf is a community activist and a social entrepreneur with a track record in establishing and managing youth and community centres, initiating international exchange projects and developing projects for and with at-risk youth. Birame Diouf came to Norway in 1986 when he was granted a scholarship. He studied business administration, development Studies and International Youth work and worked for the City of Oslo before returning back to his home country Senegal in 1998 to create Centre Fagaru. Centre Fagaru is today a small but unique nature reserve and a resource centre located nearby Saloum river delta national park, which is Senegal’s second largest national park. Back to Norway in 2005 Birame Diouf is still deeply involved in further development of Centre Fagaru while working for the City of Oslo and leading a not-for profit foundation he established in 2009 to run various projects and initiatives at national and international level.
Bearer of a cultural heritage and living traditions that include specific duties and responsibilities, Birame Diouf is visiting Senegal very often to lead and assist in various community events and traditional ceremonies geared at promoting community well-being and social cohesion.
 

kathrani

PARESH KATHRANI
Paresh Kathrani completed his law degrees in London and worked in a non-practicing capacity for six years assisting asylum seekers with their human rights claims. He left legal practice in order to complete his PhD in International Refugee Law and Legal Theory at the School of Law, Kings College, London. He has been a visiting lecturer at a number of institutions and is currently based in London where he is a module leader for Public and Constitutional Law and a contributor to an undergraduate human rights course. Paresh has a keen interest in how globalisation affects human rights and has written articles, given talks and provided consultancy and training in fields such as human trafficking, refugee policy and human rights enforcement. He is currently the Executive Director of the Centre for Global Morality.

 

greene
ANDREW BENSON GREENE JR.
Born and raised in Sierra Leone, and as a student in an all-boys boarding school, Greene’s experience as an advocate became apparent in being part of the pioneers of the Bo School Satellite Press, and the Bo School drama group. He was also a school
prefect of the Bo government Secondary School in 1992/3 and later became Assistant Secretary General of the Fourah Bay College students Union Government from 1996- 1998.
This partly explains the reason for his life long quest to end violence. Civil war in Sierra Leone resulted in the separation of 12,000 children from their families. Boys and girls as young as seven were kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers. Greene later fled to neighboring Guinea where he taught English to displaced children and refugees. There he joined the campaign for good governance democracy and human rights programs, advocating for the restoration of democracy in Sierra Leone. He decided to dedicate his life to serving and teaching children who were brutalized by the violence all around them.
Since 1999, Greene joined several non-profit networks creating the first non-profit community access ICT centres that linked Sierra Leonean children and youth with the rest of the world and renowned for his tireless dedication to the work with enabling young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to engage in collaborative educational projects. He has served as a volunteer educator in Sierra Leone Projects, where he worked to locate resources so that children can communicate with others throughout the world. 'We are proud of our accomplishments so far, but we remain in dire need of financial support to strengthen our programmatic activities, train our youth, and give them a voice through the power of the Internet;' Greene once stated in a BBC interview with Tracy Logan at Bush House for the program ‘Go digital Technology’.
He is currently the Founder and CEO of the B-Gifted Foundation, an organization formed to encourage people to use their creativity, innovation and talents to target and solve current national and global problems as addressed by the MDG.
See for new updates about new awards and efforts at www.bgiftedfoundation.org and www.traversewithandrewgreene.blogspot.com.
 

ahmed
MEY ELTAYEB AHMED
Dr. Mey Eltayeb Ahmed was born in Atbara, Sudan. She has a Ph.D. in conflict transformation, gender and environmental changes, an MSc in Environmental Studies from the Uuniversity of Khartoum, Sudan, a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Planning and Management- Spring from the University of Dortmund, Germany, and a BSc in Environmental Science and Natural Resources from the University of Khartoum.
Ahmed has lectured in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, South Africa, Europe, and the United States. She has extensive experience with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and consultant groups, such as the Sudanese Environment Conservation Society (SECS), the Development Initiative Groups (DIG), the German Development Services (DED), UNDP, the United Nation and the African Union in Darfur (UNAMID), and conflict transformation and environmental changes (WP1 NCCR North-South, Switzerland).
 

rtremblay

RAYMOND D. TREMBLAY
Raymond D. Tremblay born in Timmins, Ontario, Canada graduated from the University of Carleton (Ottawa) in 1969 with a Masters in Social Work. He is a Métis poet and novelist who has a strong affinity to social justice and social well-being issues. After working in senior positions with a Children’s Aid Society and two provincial psychiatric hospitals, he currently works with the Shepherds of Good Hope, an organization that serves the homeless and the poor in Ottawa. Having experienced and recovered from personal struggles with mental illness, he now gives presentations to various groups about the importance of treating individuals experiencing mental health problems with dignity, respect and compassion.

 

wall
KARENZA T. WALL
See also the HumanDHS Clothes page.
Far, far away in an ancient land, now called India, a girl child was born in the Mohan Nagar neighbourhood of the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra State. After many experiences, some positive, some negative, but mostly mediocre if not downright boring, she arrived in the third world village of downtown eastside of Vancouver. She loved colour and shape and the combining of these elements to create more/ different colours and shapes. Often she wants to eat colours. Her name is Karenza T. Wall and she is me.
Karenza designs and makes original, one of a kind, textile based, multimedia wall hangings and banners, ranging in size from 3 square inches to street banners upto 6 x 10 ft. Her work is displayed at community centers, the homes and offices of friends, business and personal acquaintances, and total strangers. Recently she has focused on creating one of a kind surface designs on reclaimed clothing, and making pochette's, purses and textile jewellery. In 2011 she had her first eco-clothing show during the Heart of the City Festival in her neighbourhood, downtown eastside of vancouver. Most, if not all of Karenza's work is made from remnants (industrial, fabric stores, donations by friends). In the Hindi dialect spoken in her neighbourhood, chindi (pronounced chin thee - as in the), means scraps and/or rags of fabrics; rags is the trade name for the clothing industry. Karenza uses the words "chindi nation", "chindi revolution", and "chindi design" to identify her work. Karenza believes that all peoples, irrespective of economics have the right to have unique garments and accessories, personally designed and made for themselves or others. She does not believe that logos, copyrights and mass production are friendly concepts.
See also:
• Co-op radio interview March 2012.

 

newman
HARVEY NEWMAN
Harvey Newman is the director of community outreach for Transformative Communities, a social enterprise creating dynamic open source websites, web communities and enterprise platforms for business and organizations. Harvey was ordained as an Interfaith Minister 1984 and was co-founder and first president of A.I.M. as well as chairman emeritus of A World Alliance of Interfaith Clergy. Harvey is founder and facilitator of Circle of Life-Mastery, Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging spiritual/emotional growth. Harvey retired in 2004 from Synovate, Inc., a global market research corporation, after 21 years of experience in the field. For 15 of those years he succesfully functioned within the company in his self-created position of research projects trouble-shooter. Harvey is a United Nations representative for the Association for Trauma Outreach & Prevention/Meaningful World and a member of the Congress of Non-Governmental Organizations (CoNGO) Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns.
 

moore
ROSE-ANNE MOORE
Rose-Anne Moore is an associate with Redmond, Williams & Associates LLC, in Stamford, CT. She holds master's degrees in marketing and management policy from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, and in ethics from the Yale Divinity School. She has long been interested in people's beliefs, attitudes, and underlying values, and in understanding how each informs the others, thereby influencing their decisions and actions.
 

ellis
FRED ELLIS
Fred Ellis is a New York City Elementary Public School Music Teacher and Music Therapist. On February 18th 2009, his debut music CD of original songs was released. He has been teaching regular and special education students for over 20 years, he holds a BA & MS in Education from Baruch College, an MA in Music Therapy from New York University, and an EdM in Music Education from Teachers College/Columbia University.
Fred Ellis firmly believes that an optimal pedagogical approach, one that a music teacher should take in educating students to greater musicality, is one that “fulfills the academic and therapeutic needs of the students.” His objectives have been to not only teach students musical skills and knowledge, but to help children develop their mental, physical, communication, and social skills; the songs on his CD can be used to reach all these objectives.
The students of Fred Ellis are composed of children from many different nations from around the world. They have responded to the songs on this CD in a most positive way, through the music, the students would socialize, sing and play together; thus conforming the old saying that “music is a universal language.” The songs on this CD are designed to encourage socialization, as well as love and respect for cultural diversity. Through music, perhaps we as a people can form together as one big family.
 

karnick
IKE IRWIN KARNICK
Ike Karnick is a planetary citizen, a photojournalist and filmmaker whose work uses compelling words and images designed to inspire social and environmental activism. His faith embraces the human spirit; his culture is that of the human race. Karnick's early research resulted in the first film about acid rain in North America. A fine artist, his credentials are supported by numerous Canadian Arts and international awards. His current project, entitled "WORLD ON EDGE," is done in association with two divisions of UNESCO as well as the Portuguese Water Authority, EPAL.
Mr. Karnick is a prolific visual artist and journalist. In his early days he formed his own art and film group serving the advertising industry and corporate giants. The client list included J. Walter Thompson, McCann-Erikson Advertising Agencies, Coca Cola Inc., American Can Company, Olivetti and others. His career in the fashion/illustration and film industry, working on Madison Avenue, catered to the fashion and music industries and expanded his client list to include Twentieth Century Fox and United Artists in the areas of film promotion, music and advertising. Ike Karnick’s work appears in many books and has appeared in most of the world’ major magazines.
Ike Karnick's overriding concerns for the fragility of our world has directed the course of his artistic life. The author combined his efforts with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/TV and the National Film Board, Canada, to research and produce environmental films. Most notably, his work is in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Photography, the Library of Queen Elizabeth II, President Clinton's White House Library, as well as in the private collections of Anthony Quinn, Sam Shaw and Rutger Houre. One of his books was a gift to the delegates at the first "UN Law of the Sea" conference, given by the Canadian Department of Fisheries.
He hosted a classical music and political controversy show on FM radio. He has spent his life fighting for environmental causes, his images both film and still have been exhibited at myriad venues featuring environmental/political concepts throughout North America and Europe. His exhibitions were circulated widely by the government of Canada. His work has been featured internationally at numerous private galleries. Ike Karnick was the only living artist, until 1995 to show at the Rotunda at Columbia University in New York and was exhibited at the Second World Water Form at The Hague where his film One World Water was given to Gorbachev of “Green Cross.”
With the support of the President of Portugal and the President and government of the Azores, Ike Karnick published a landmark limited edition book renowned among European dignitaries. His journalistic work focuses on the world's environmental crisis of “climate change” and the world water crisis exacerbated by global warming. His focus is on the social and political issues of our day. Funded in part by UNESCO, Mr. Karnick has continued to gather data on the interface of human motivation, global economics and environmental concerns for the six-part documentary “World On Edge.”
He recently returned from a project in Africa about micro-finance in Angola. The work created a documentary called Kixicredito for Development Workshop a Canadian NGO. Parts of the work will become part of the World On Edge which deals with the association of Global Climate Change and world economics. The film was awarded a certificate at the recent World Bank – “Vulnerability Exposed” screening.
His presentations include environmental sculpture as well as film and photographic treatments. The Law of the Sea Division at the UN recently nominated him for the prestigious PEW fellowship foundation award in Marine conservation. Out of the 200 invited applicants he placed 13th in the final round of 20. At present he continues to create additional books, exhibitions and films to illustrate the "global problematique."
Note: Ike is going out to the youth of the USA and the world to expose climate change issues for action. Earth Films plans to enter the dialogue about climate change with youth since their generation will suffer the effects of industry. His team is working in all directions, including the messages designed for religious organizations to achieve rapid exposure of the issues. While climate change might be viewed in isolation it is multifaceted in that it effects the cost of health care for all Americans and the world. Coal particulates and SO2 emissions are not only airborne but find their way into fresh water with mercury showing up in areas that coal is mined. The broad approach will aid in attracting additional investment for the project in tough economic times.
 

vergara
MARIANA I. VERGARA
Mariana Ines Vergara is also a Member in the HumanDHS Education Team.
Over 15 years ago, Mariana Vergara began her search of looking for answers to the complex situations in the American public school system. Mariana Vergara works with Dr. Edmund W. Gordon on issues related to the education of economically disadvantaged and immigrant populations. They were drawn together because of their mutual interest in supplementary education and its relevance for the pursuit of academic excellence. She is an educator who specializes in educational program and family development in immigrant and low income families. She is primarily a practitioner—her mentor, Dr. Edmund W. Gordon, calls her "a scholar of practice"—who uses data and theory to understand the need for and strategies of professional intervention. To the extent that practices can be generalized, she has become interested in public policy as it relates to the intersect between family, home, community and school in the academic and personal development of children. In 2009, her research was funded by the Policy, Evaluation and Research Center at Educational Testing Services. Vergara’s work is the design and field development of a parent education and child development intervention that is titled “BRIDGE” (Better Resources in Developing Great Education) Model of Transformational Learning. In addition to direct interventions in the teaching and learning transactions to which children are exposed, Vergara gives special attention to the needs of parents who are not sophisticated in traditional approaches to the support of the academic development of children. The model recognizes the holistic needs of children; the information needs of parents; and the practical needs of both for guidance in and models for the adjustments and adaptations that both must make. She is currently a Program Associate at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also founder of Family Development Center and Morris County Parent Information and Resource Center. She is pursuing a degree of Doctor of Education at the Department of Leadership and Organization, AEGIS (Adult Education Guided Intensive Study) program at Teachers College, Columbia University; expected graduation on May 2012. Her work was published in Gordon, E. W., & Vergara, M. I. (2009). Supplements to schooling. In H. Varenne, E. W. Gordon, & L. Theoretical Perspectives on Comprehensive Education: The way forward. Volumen two of the perspectives on comprehensive education series. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Please see:
• One Person Can Make the Difference, a video about Mariana's work regarding higher education and students helping their local community, 2011.
• Mariana Vergara's contributions to the World Dignity University (WDU) initiative:
- The World Dignity University Amazon Initiative (video recorded in New York City in December 2011).
Please read more:
- World Dignity University Initiative: Co-creating Sustainability in the Amazon Rainforest with the Kichwa Community: Why, Who, What, How, Where, When (Pdf, 2012)
- Global Community - Transformational Learning: Lessons from the Amazon Rainforest Co-creating a Global Community: Mindfulness into Action (Powerpoint, 2012)
- The BRIDGE® Model: The Case for Integrating Phenomenological Documentation aAnd Participatory Action Research through Collaborative Inquiry: Transformational Learning in Transforming High Aspirations into Human Agency (Pdf, 2012)
- WDU Amazon Rainforest Initiative (Videos 2012)
- WDU Amazon Rainforest Initiative (Pdf from Powerpoint, 2011)
• Mindfulness into Action (video), 2013.
   

dong
JINGYI DONG
Jingyi Dong is a Ph.D student majoring in Educational Sociology at the Department of Education of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway, under the supervision of Prof. Magnus Haavelsrud. Her thesis is on equal opportunity for disadvantaged groups in the process of higher education. Earlier, she received her M.Phil in Higher Education from the University of Oslo, with Prof. Peter Maassen as her academic supervisor. Her thesis is on equal opportunity for disadvantaged groups in access to higher education. Also from the same university, she received her M.A in North American Studies, with Prof. Ole O. Moen as her academic supervisor. Her thesis is on diversity in higher education. At the level of undergraduate education, she received her B.A in Teaching English as Foreign Language from Teachers' University of Hebei Province, China. Her thesis endeavors to uncover that people from different countries have more to share rather than differ from each other.
Her current focus of research is on the life and study of rural students as a disadvantaged social group on the campus of Chinese universities. Her interest also extends to the background of these rural students, such as the status quo of peasants and of intellectuals on the university campus in China.
 

lewis
HÉLÈNE LEWIS
Helene Lewis is born in Namibia, currently living in Cape Town, South Africa. She holds a MSc in Clinical Psychology and is a psychologist in private practice. She has a keen interest in Psycho-history, particularly in generational re-enactment within and between groups in South Africa. She has contributed towards the Rhodes Review, writing on racism, and is currently researching a book on the woundedness caused by humiliation and consequent revenge in SA – over the past 350 years.
 

maffettone
CLAUDIA MAFFETTONE
Claudia Maffettone is the president of LuX, a consultancy company that provides support to NGOs in the organization and implementation of projects and programs. She has been working in the field of intercultural dialogue with NGOs in the UN System, and in several youth projects of the European Commission and the Council of Europe. In the past 8 years she has served on the boards of different international networks such as the World Federation of UN Associations, the YMCA, and the International Synergy Network. She is graduated in International Relations and Diplomacy with a focus on the Middle East, and has attended several mediation and conflict resolution tranings, including the Program on Negotiation Seminar at the Harvard Law School.
Please see:
• Exchange 2.0., abstract presented at the 2011 Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 8-9, 2011.
 

epstein
MARTIN EPSTEIN
Marty has been practicing Non-Violent Communication (NVC) since 2002. He completed the year long North American Leadership program, graduate of 2010 NVC Mediation Immersion program, participated in NY Intensive retreats and has taught many NVC Foundations classes, facilitated empathy groups, brought NVC in the form of Collaborative Communication to an Investment Bank as well as facilitating weekly trainings. In 2009/10 Marty worked with a team of NVC professionals on a project for a major pharmaceutical company that included many hours of training and coaching. One of Marty’s interests is studying and teaching the Sanskrit language. He has been teaching an introductory Sanskrit course for the last 20 years. Marty is the principle of effective conversation using his many years of experience and training to offer his services in mediation, coaching, teaching and training teams in companies, groups, couples and individuals. Marty has a M.S. degree from Columbia University in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.
 

dawson
CONNIE DAWSON
Connie Dawson, Ph.D. Whidbey Island, Washington, had Don Klein as her major advisor of her Ph.D. studies. She has experience as a counselor educator and a therapist specializing in the treatment of attachment disorders, and is an author of two books for parents, one of them written for parents who, themselves, experienced shame-based parenting. This has led to her current interest in how shame/ humiliation is a primary means of control in families. She is writing a book on seven implicit rules that govern interactions in a shame-based system.
 

alhusseini
LENA ALHUSSEINI
Lena Alhusseini joined the Arab-American Family Support Center as Executive Director in April 2006 after a number of years at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), where she served as International Outreach Project Manager on issues of child protection, abduction and child trafficking. Prior to joining NCMEC, Alhusseini worked for the Gateway Battered Women’s Shelter in Denver, Colorado where she developed the Shelter’s children’s program and worked with immigrant populations including Arab-American women and children on issues of domestic violence. Before coming to the United States, Ms. Alhusseini served with a number of international organizations around the world on issues pertaining to child protection and human trafficking, including USAID and UNICEF. Most notably, she established the Jordan River Foundation’s child protection unit under the direction of HM Queen Rania Al Abdullah. That organization was the first in Jordan to address the issue of child abuse. Lena. Alhusseini is a recipient of the Auburn Seminary Women of Commitment Award 2007, a Brooklyn District Attorney Extraordinary Woman of 2008 Honoree and a recipient of the New York City Council award in 2010. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Dodge YMCA, the Human Services Council of New York City and the Greater Brooklyn Health Coalition. Ms. Alhusseini is of Saudi and Palestinian descent.
 
deeyah

DEEYAH
Deeyah, a critically acclaimed singer and prize winning human rights activist, was born in Norway to Muslim immigrant parents of Punjabi and Pashtun descent. She works today as a music producer, composer, filmmaker and human rights activist and is well known for her outspoken support of women's rights, freedom of expression and peace. While Deeyah no longer performs herself due to dangerous pressures on her, she now produces projects that give a voice to others.
Her dedication to Freemuse, a non-profit that supports freedom of expression for music artists, is born from her own personal struggles. Deeyah produced the critically acclaimed, "Listen to the Banned," with Freemuse's program manager, Ole Reitov. The CD features artists from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who have experienced persecution, censorship or imprisonment for their artistic expression.
In tune with her own experiences and desire to empower women, Deeyah started Sisterhood in 2007. It is an ongoing project designed to empower young Muslim women by encouraging artistic expression across creative disciplines.
Deeyah is deeply committed to the advancement of women's issues and seeks to explore the role of women and the challenges facing them, especially in Muslim and South East Asian society. No longer in front of the camera, she aims to speak more powerfully from behind it; she is currently producing Killing in the Name, a documentary addressing the challenges Europe faces as "honour based crimes" continue to grow within ethnic immigrant communities.
In 2010, Deeyah created FUUSE, a social purpose company that provides a platform for her music and film projects. Fuuse is rooted in Deeyah's dedication to human rights and cross-cultural awareness and dialogue through artistic articulation.
In 2011, Deeyah founded AVA, an NGO born from her deep passion and dedication to support, engage, strengthen and amplify the voices of women and young people and to shed light on human rights violations against women. Seeking a world where women have the opportunity to fulfill their potential, for women to play a bigger role in contributing to the shaping of our future world-- for women to lead a life free from violence, discrimination, abuse, exploitation and oppression. AVA's work will begin with women and young people of the Indian Sub-continent, the Greater Middle East and their diaspora communities in Western countries. AVA encompasses the initiatives I HAVE A VOICE, Memini, Sisterhood and HBVA.
Deeyah's history:
Deeyah’s upbringing was steeped in the rich culture and heritage of her parents. While her mother worked with women and children as both a teacher and translator, it was Deeyah’s father’s passion for music that shaped her life. A musical enthusiast, he was a leader in the cultural exchange between Norway and Pakistan, and encouraged seven year-old Deeyah to study with Ustad Bade Fateh Ali Khan (recognized as the most prominent maestro of the Khyal Musical tradition). Cultural tradition reserved these lessons for male pupils, but Deeyah persevered and impressed Khan with her vocal talent, discipline and dedication to music; after several years of Ustad Bade Fateh Ali Khan’s mentorship, she was declared, "one of his favorite students." Later Deeyah would train with another master of North Indian Classical music, Ustad Sultan Khan. He would make the trip to Norway in order to give her lessons after proving again her devotion to the art form.
From an early age Deeyah’s unique musical abilities captured the attention of world-renowned musicians and music industry veterans. At only eight years, Deeyah immersed in a music career usually reserved for those three times her age; she performed on television and at music festivals. By age 12, she was in the studio recording duets with Norwegian pop artists and participating in collaborations with folk and jazz legends like Jan Garbarek, David Lindley Ustad Nazim Ali Khan.  By 13, she signed her first recording contract.  At 15, she released her solo debut featuring Ustad Sultan Khan, Pakistani tabla legend Ustad Shaukat Hussain Khan, and renowned Norwegian musicians Knut Reiersrud, Reidar Skår, Paolo Vinaccia, and Audun Erlien. The young Mercury Prize winning Talvin Singh accompanied her on her first national concert tour.
While her musical accomplishments shine, Deeyah has been shadowed by controversy: music is typically considered not to be an acceptable profession for a respectable woman of her cultural heritage. After years of enduring constant harassment, intimidation and physical threats in silence, Deeyah left Norway in 1996 for the UK.
For several years Deeyah kept a low profile, only participating in compositional collaborations and recording vocals for other projects and artists. In 2004 Deeyah resumed her career as a solo recording artist, as her popularity grew, the symptoms of the same problem that she had fled from in Norway resurfaced in the UK. Deeyah once again packed her bags and left for the safety of the United States. Tired of running and protecting the image of conservative segments within her community, Deeyah finally made the first step towards reclaiming her life. Out of the years of anger, sadness and frustration, her most controversial song and video to date "What Will It Be?" was born. Deeyah stopped performing in 2006 and recorded her last album Ataraxis in 2007. The album featured collaborations with Grammy winning pianist Bob James, Police guitarist Andy Summers, and acclaimed Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer.
In 2009 Deeyah was awarded the Freedom To Create Prize for “What Will It Be” and Sisterhood project.
Deeyah muses she is a product of diversity: "My life growing up was dichotomous; at home I was immersed in a centuries-old musical art form, while around me I had MTV and Western pop culture." This understanding and sense of belonging to both worlds has formed Deeyah's outlook on life and defined her as a woman, activist and artist.
Please see two ongoing projects, started in 2011:
• www.memini.co/
• womennewsnetwork.net/2011/06/15/site-dignity-honor-violence/
• Banaz: A Love Story, Fritt Ord and Fuuse, by Deeyah, presented at the Fritt Ord Foundation, in Uranienborgveien 2, Oslo, Noway, on 24th January 2013, followed by a Q&A with Director and Producer Deeyah, Detective Superintendent Caroline Goode, Campaigner Diana Nammi, and Author and Professor of Social Antropology Unni Wikan. Writer, Lecturer and Broadcaster Kenan Malik moderated the conversation. Banaz Mahmod was brutally murdered by her own family, in an honour killing. This film tells Banaz's story, in her own words, for the first time – and tells the story of the extraordinary police team who refused to give up, and finally brought her killers to justice. Film funded by: Fritt Ord, produced and directed by: Deeyah – www.deeyah.com, production company: Fuuse – www.fuuse.net.

 

tehan
MARY CARMEL TEHAN
Mary was one of a 4 member leadership team that formed Eastern Palliative Care, the largest community-based palliative care service in Australia. She has had over 25 years’ involvement with palliative care in Australia in various roles, responsibilities and settings. With a background in nursing (general and midwifery Mercy hospital trained, graduating 0.5marks off top of the state in 1974), Mary has developed a diverse portfolio, now focusing on a public health/health promoting palliative care approach (as per LaTrobe University, Australia). She has completed a Masters in Public Health (MPH, LaTrobe University); two units of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) through the Austin Health and Repatriation Hospital CPE Centres; and a Grad. Cert. in Public Policy (Monash University).
Mary has received an Award for a 6 month Chaplaincy internship in the Liver Transplant Unit (Austin Health), and an Award from the National Association for Loss and Grief (Vic) for Outstanding Service to the Palliative Care sector for developing a Compassionate Workplace Best Practice Support Model for Life-threatening/Terminal Illness in the Workplace (illness & carers) as part of her MPH. Mary has also been Awarded recognition in the USA Marquis Who’s Who in the World 2012 (29th edition).
She is a member of Palliative Care Victoria; the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth; the Public Health Association of Australia Health Promotion Speical Interest Group; the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Compassionate Communities Network; Creative Ministries Network (Board Vice-chair); International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care; and ADEC (American Death Education and Counselling).
Mary’s work has been published (peer-reviewed) locally and internationally and she regularly presents at conferences; the latest subjects being on Human Rights, Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care (London, June, 2011); Spirituality, Ethics and Valuing the Person (London, June 2011); and Compassionate Leadership practice (Coffs Harbour, September, 2011).
Mary can be contacted through www.ultimacy.com.au.
Please see:
• "Leading the Way: Compassion in the Workplace," co-authored with Priscilla Robinson, in Illness, Crisis & Loss, 17 (2), pp. 93-111, 2009.
Abstract:
There are multiple factors in the paid workforce which affect production in terms of health and well-being; these include grieving and ‘presenteeism’. This project was about developing a model for an integrated approach to grief support in the workplace. This model involves three overlapping domains: management (compassionate leadership as per Sarros, Cooper et al, 2006), ‘workshop floor’ (befriending as adapted from Kennedy, McKenzie and Wilson et al, 2006) and the organisation as a whole (workplace ethos as per Swann, 2002; Bolman & Deal, 1991). A qualitative action research methodology was developed that included in depth interviews with Uniting Church of Australia and ‘Other’ workplaces, and thematic analyses of workplace policy documents. Results highlight qualitative differences particularly between workplaces where the ethos and befriending approach were integrated and those that were not. Conclusions drawn were that although befriending cannot be imposed, training in befriending would be a helpful approach to grief support in the workplace. Integrated with a befriending approach, compassionate leadership also needed to be acknowledged as an important leadership skill.
 

brenner
MICHELLE BRENNER
Michelle is a Holistic Conflict Resolution Consultant and Registered Family Dispute Resolving Practitioner in Sydney, Australia, and author of Conscious Connectivity: Creating Dignity in Conversation (2011). Michelle has been working for over 20 years in the field of conflict resolution. She was one of the first to do post graduate work in Conflict Resolution in Australia and one of the first to have a full time job as a mediator in local government. She has since worked as a mediator and conflict analyst within the government, health area, police force, family practice and non-for-profit organisations. She draws on her work experience, multi disciplinary research, life experiences and her Chassidic community of scholars and literature. Please listen to an interview with Michelle recorded in Brisbane in September 2011.
Michelle works together with Taura Carmen Hetaraka. For more than 25 years, Taura Carmen Hetaraka has applied his extensive knowledge of tikanga in developing programmes throughout the social and criminal justice sectors. In 2002 Carmen was one of two nationwide delegates representing New Zealand on an International Cultural Advisory Committee for Healing Our Spirits: World-Wide: Indigenous Drug and Addiction conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Carmen is a fluent speaker of Maori and has developed a number of indigenous based programmes that are applied within a number of New Zealand Prisons and schools. Furthermore, Carmen is the core cultural expert - working with several native Hawaiian organizations in developing, implementing, and evaluating a cultural education curriculum based on Hohourongo (Ho’oponopono).
See mediate.com for related papers.
Please see also:
• Holistic Law: Traditional Hawaiian Conflict Resolution - Ho'oponopono, Non Adversarial Justice International Conference, Melbourne, Australia, May 2010.
See also Carmen Hetaraka's and Michelle Brenner's contributions to the World Dignity University (WDU) initiative:
• 01 Conversation with Michelle Brenner and Carmen Hetaraka. This conversation was video-taped for the World Dignity University initiative in Dunedin, New Zealand, 31st August 2011. The interviewers are Linda Hartling and Evelin Lindner. The recording was done by Brian Ward.
The following video clips were recorded at the 17th Annual Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand, by Brian Ward:
• Video clip 05 from Brian Ward's camera: Michelle Brenner introducing Carmen Hetaraka (this is an "unlisted" video until we had time to edit it)
• Video clip 06 from Brian Ward's camera: Carmen Hetaraka (this is an "unlisted" video until we had time to edit it)
• Video clip 07 from Brian Ward's camera: Carmen Hetaraka & all participants introducing themselves (this ian "unlisted" video until we had time to edit it)
• Video clip 08 from Brian Ward's camera: All participants introducing themselves (this is "unlisted" video until we had time to edit it)
• Video clip from Adobe Connect: Dan Baron Cohen's Presentation and Carmen Hetaraka's Haka (this is an "unlisted" video until we had time to edit it; please note that the comments to Dan from the audience were sounded out, we did not know that Dan's microphone would have had to be switched off; please note also that Carmen Hetaraka's Haka is at the very end of this video)
• Video about Restorative Justice and schools, from the work Michelle did when she was at Marrickville Council. "This is an edited version of Walk the Talk, an inside story of Rozelle Public Primary School in Sydney Australia. Rozelle at the time of this video making was a world wide leading example of the possibility for social change. The school being an inner city public school was transformed through the leadership of the principal and the initiatives that she supported. Restorative Justice and Alternatives To Violence joined together as a foundation for experiencing peace education as a living system within the school environment. Both Lyn Doppler and Terry O'Connell are leadership examples of how as a whole school community, students staff and parents learnt to use restorative and alternative to violence language and practice to relate, think and learn together."
   

hetaraka
CARMEN HETARAKA
Carmen Hetaraka is a bearer of traditional oral Maori knowledge (he has studied with five elders who have conveyed their knowledge to him). He works in New Zealand's prisons, bringing Maori culture to the disproportionally many Maori men who are incarcerated. Carmen has a lot to say about the radicalization of culture, particularly of young men.
Carmen was a pillar of the 17th Annual HumanDHS Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 2011. Please see a video that we made with Carmen, Michelle Brenner, Linda Hartling, and Evelin Lindner. See also the 19th Annual HumanDHS Conference in Oslo, Norway, in 2012, and the video recording on Adobe Connect of Carmen's presentation. We would be very happy if his valuable cultural knowledge would be given the opportunity, world-wide, to become known more widely.
   

esheh
MOHAMMED ABED ABU ESHEH
Mohammed Abed Abu Esheh is a computer engineer, working with web design and programming. He is based in Hebron, Palestine, working as Hebron Study Computer Work Coordinator of the Fatah Youth Organization. He participates in most of the work of the Fatah Youth Organization. He wrote (17th June 2011): "I want to work to spread peace and resist humiliation. I want to work with you on spreading the ideas of your organization. My dream is that all the world lives in peace. Thanks."
 

beck

STEVEN BECK
Steven Beck is fFrom the United States, but currently resides in Göteborg, Sweden. He is a Masters student in “International Museum Studies” at Göteborg University and earned his B.A in History from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania.
His most recent work includes researching and drafting texts for several exhibits at the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for both the Museum’s temporary and permanent exhibition halls. His work included coming up with concepts, researching and designing exhibitions, and writing text. He developed an educational presentation at The National Civil War Museum, incorporating inventive interactive elements and has carried out a voluntary placement with the Department of Learning & Interpretation on HMS Belfast, with the Imperial War Museum.
He also collaborated on the “Gender Matters” exhibit; displayed concurrently at the Naturhistoriska Museet, Göteborgs stadsmuseum and Sjöfartsmuseet in Göteborg Sweden, the aim of which was “to create awareness of how we assign gender by exploring a gender perspective.”
He is active in community outreach, volunteer affiliations and continues to work on ground-breaking theories in terms of developing an immersive oral history museum. He believes that by using intangible history and 1st person narratives like dance, song and prose to tell the story of history, cultures and humankind, that we can highlight small scale cultures & victims of inhumane behavior throughout history and prehistory. The results of this research comprise his master’s thesis and he is weighing options on pursuing his doctorate in this area.
Over the past years, he has acted in many of the processes and positions of pedagogy, including as a teacher, a mentor, and a student advisor in the Göteborg and surrounding communities. He is a father, a brother, a son, a partner and a friend, the importance of which, in his mind outweighs any successes he has had, or will have. He carries this sense of obligation and sensitivity as a role model and a human into his everyday life and work.

 

RAHAT IMRAN
Rahat Imran has been living in Vancouver, Canada, since 1999 with her husband and son after their emigration from Pakistan. Her husband just finished his PhD from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. His area is communication, social movements, media, and impact of religious fundamentalism. In Pakistan, both worked as journalists.
Rahat is currently completing her PhD, also at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. Her current topic revolves around activist documentary cinema with a focus on human rights. Her research interests have included human rights issues, women's issues in Muslim countries, Sharia laws and their negative impact on women, the Islamization process in Pakistan, religious extremism/Talibanization and its impact on human rights, particularly on women, feminist/women's autobiography.
See, among others:
• “Cinema: Films Made by Women Screen Writers, Directors, Producers: Women Documentary Filmmakers: Pakistan." 5000-word entry by invitation in Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures. Brill, 2010.
• “Deconstructing Islamization in Pakistan: Sabiha Sumar Wages Feminist Cinematic Jihad through a Documentary Lens,” in Journal of International Women’s Studies, Vol. 9, # 3, May 2008 (pp. 117-154).
• “Legal Injustices: The Zina Hudood Ordinance of Pakistan and its Implications for Women,” in Journal of International Women’s Studies, Vol.7, #2, November 2005 (pp. 78-100).

 

femenia
Nora Femenia (Ph.D.) is also a Member in the HumanDHS Education Team.
Nora is a Peace Scholar by the United States Institute of Peace, is a Professor of Conflict Resolution and Consensus Building at the Labor Center in Florida International University, where she teaches courses in conflict management, cross-cultural communication, and organizational conflict systems design, both in English and Spanish. She has done extensive research and writing on the resolution of the Falklands-Malvinas conflict, exploring the emotional roots of war-prone governmental decision-making.
She has held full time teaching positions at Nova Southeastern University, the School for International Training and was Visiting Scholar at SAIS and American University. Nora has been invited to teach at several universities in Spain, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, and is known by her work in Spanish at www.inter-mediacion.com.
Please see here:
• Healing Humiliation and the Need for Revenge, paper submitted to the 2007 Workshop on Humiliation and Violent Conflict, Columbia University, New York, December 13-14, 2007.
   
IMRAN MUNIR
Dr. Imran Munir is currently associated with the Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. He has extensive experience in media and journalism. His current research interests include religious fundamentalism and its effect on media; social movements; journalism and media in the Muslim world; democracy; resistance; political communication;human rights. Before immigrating to Canada in 1999, he worked as a journalist in Pakistan for over ten years.
   

petersson
LARS G. PETERSSON
Lars G. Petersson (b. 1951) is a Swedish-born Londoner, activist and free-lance writer with special interest in peace, mental health, social justice and human rights. He is the author of a large number of articles and six books (three titles in three languages): Faneflugt (2004), Deserters (2005), AbuseUK (2010), Musterung (2010), Medical Rape (2010) and Hitlers Fahnenflüchtige (2012). Trained as a nurse – specializing in mental health, social issues and addiction – Lars G Petersson has persistently used his insider knowledge to disclose matters otherwise hidden from public scrutiny. For a number of years Lars G. Petersson also was coordinator for the Danish section of Amnesty International's work against the death penalty. An insider's understanding of the military he acquired as a conscripted soldier (trained as a lowest possible grade fighter plane mechanic) in the Swedish air forces at the time of the cold war. Finally, he has gathered extensive knowledge of German politics and society ever since the early seventies when he worked as a massage therapist in the state of Hesse. Lars is married to Irish Josephine, his staunchest ally, friend and collaborator. See his website.
See also:
• Abuse UK Daily Life in Britain's Nursing Home Industry, Brentwood, Essex: Chipmunka, 2009.
• Medical Rape State Authorised German Perversion, Brentwood, Essex: Chipmunka, 2010.
• Musterung Staatlich legitimierte Perversion, Brentwood, Essex: Chipmunka, 2010.
   

dias

HÉLIO HAMARANA DIAS
Hélio Hamarana Dias is an English teacher in Marabá, Pará, Brazil, the Lower Amazon, the beginning of the Amazon forest. He graduated from Centro Universitário de Brasilia - UNICEUB, in Portuguese and English in 1999. Since childhood, he was interested in becoming a bridge to connect the different parts of the world. He began studying English on his own at an early age.
He has four visions of projects. First, he plans to document the changes of the Amazon to the world, how fast these changes happened, and how the population has been displaced without having to leave. He wishes to interview the older inhabitants in Marabá, and collect their memories from the time when Marabá was a simple village, to now, when it is an almost cosmopolitan place. Fifty years ago there were almost no roads connecting Marabá, there were no farms around, only dense forest. There were o gold or iron mines; gathering fruit from the forest supported the village. Second, he plans to create a laboratory for schools around the world to work in partnership with the schools in the Amazon reagion. Students would work together online dissecting plants and animals with the help of their teachers. Third, he thinks of bringing the art and culture from the Amazon to a wider audience. In this way, Hélio envisions to bring the Amazon closer to the attention of the world. Fourth, he has been doing research over the past twenty years on intentional self-development and quality of life. His hope is to write a doctorate in this area.
See here:
• Rios + 20 Amazon Dialogue: Hélio Hamarana Dias on the Past and the Future of the Amazon in its Global Context. This video was created in Marabá, Pará, Brazil, on 29th June 2012, and in the settlement "17 do Abril" in Pará, Brazil, on 24th June 2012, when Dan Baron, Manoela de Souza, Hélio Dias, and Evelin Lindner visited this settlement. Hélio Hamarana Dias reflects on the past and the future of the Amazon in its global context.
• Rios + 20 Amazon Dialogue: Eric Vieira Carvalho Speaks with Hélio Dias about the Amazon. This video was created in Marabá, Pará, Brazil, on the 29th June 2012. Hélio Hamarana Dias asks Eric Vieira Carvalho about his views on life as young man of twenty-two in Marabá.

   

siwakoti

CHANDRA PRASAD SIWAKOTI
Chandra Prasad Siwakoti has been working as a lawyer with social issues since 1992. He has been involved in various institutions as a legal consultant. Currently, he is working as a community-based lawyer. His area of specialization is "Human Rights and Gender Justice" in the context of Economic, Social and Development Rights (ESDR). As a "social engineer" he aims at transforming society based on human rights. "Self realization" is a prime tool. Respecting, protecting and promoting human rights is at the core of respecting human dignity and worth. In the present situation, conflicts, and the humiliation connected with them, are going beyond the control of the individual and even of society. Each and every human individual must be aware of her own rights and duties. Global society is responsible in this regard.
Chandra Prasad Siwakoti has been actively involved in various legal and social organizations. He is associated with the World Vision Legal Center (WVLC) since 2006, as its founder with the Human Rights and Environment Protection Academy (HUREPA) since 1997, and, since 2011, as founder and chairperson with the Rama Devi Memorial Foundation (RDMF). Furthermore, since 2009, he is advising the Center for Conflict Studies (COS) in Kathmandu. His ultimate aim in life is to serve and make contributions to the social sector by joining hands with like-minded people around the world, for example, through the Human Dignity and Human Humiliations Studies network.

   

sundberg
STEVE SUNDBERG
Steve Sundberg is the author of Street Logic, a novel about homelessness in the United States. He graduated from Emory University, where in his senior year, as president of the Beta Alhpa Psi international honors business fraternity, he realized that the path of business did not contain the heart and passion that he wanted. That "Aha!" moment led to his decision to do work that held meaning for him, and to that end he studied psychology at the University of Massachusetts and then embarked on a career on the front lines of human services. He has focused primarily in the mental-health and substance-abuse fields, working with homeless children and homeless adults. From 2000-2005, he was part of a federally funded homeless outreach team in Boston, Massachusetts, where he witnessed the failure of the public-health system to effectively respond to the most vulnerable people living on the streets. Those experiences are detailed in Street Logic, for which Christopher Jencks of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (author of The Homeless) has named "the most closely observed, emotionally charged account of American homelessness I know". Currently Steve is working as a substance-abuse counselor in south Florida, where he teaches journal writing and creative writing workshops aimed at helping patients to tell their stories and find their own meaning and real paths in the world. He is working on several projects, including a journal writing workbook for patients in recovery, and a new novel that deals with the pharmaceutical medication abuse epidemic that has arisen among the young generation of the U.S.A.
   

halle
ELLINOR HALLE
Ellinor Halle describes herself as follows (on 6th October 2012): During my whole life, I have been a student of life. I have always been interested in talking to people from different backgrounds and different cultures trying to understand their lives, their religion or lack of religion and their culture.
People have expressed themselves very openly to me which over many years has touched me deeply. I remember a story when I was 12 years old. I was waiting for my mother in the middle of the city, but she did not come. I had no money and was not able to call her. A homeless person came over to me and asked if I could spare him some money. I said truthfully that I was very sorry, but I had none and said that I was in need of some money myself. Then he said something that I never ever will forget. He said:” I will give you some of my money.” I was so touched and from that day onward I understood that behind each appearance there is a loving heart.
I believe that the state of the earth, all the wars and individual misery, have their origin in childhood experiences of fear. I believe that nearly all the people on earth have at their core small children, psychologically spoken, who, to different degrees, are frightened and do what they believe they must do to feel safe and protected.
People create a survival strategy as children and carry this script with them all through their lives. This ”survival personality,” when growing up, prevents us from truly experiencing the beauty and awe of life because it is based on fear and was created to protect us as children. We could not have survived without it.
When we as grown-ups look upon the world and its people through the fearful eyes of that little child inside us, we will perceive the world according to our childhood experiences. Our ”babbling” inner thoughts are an expression of our inner fearful child and keep us stuck in fear without us knowing it. We are so accustomed to listening to these thoughts that we are unaware that they exist.
We need to calm down the ”babbling” inner thoughts through mindfulness, meditation or other means and heal childhood fear. When that is done, we will be able to connect to our God given centre that has been there all along. The tiny voice that has been competing with the voice of fear is suddently clear and we can get all the support we need through this voice. We only need to listen to our inner selves.
Now we will be able to show the world who we really are in all our beauty. Because we connect to our inner beauty, the world will present itself with all the love that exists. The veil of fear is gone forever.
I have dedicated my life to this quest and it brings so much joy and hope for the future to me.   
   

 

 

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