Next stop, the United Nations!

Yes, that's right. I've actually managed to land a job at the United Nations in Geneva, working for an NGO called the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO). I will be working on the Peace and Disarmament program, so will be able to put my degree to the test in a real life setting. As part of my job, I will have to write a journal, so this blog is good practice.

It turned out, for various reasons, that the Nonviolent Peaceforce wasn't the right thing for me just now. I was a bit apprehensive about the commitment, the (hot) climate and ... to be honest, the conflict there. I really believe in the notion of pacifists putting their lives at risk, if necessary, in the pursuit of peace, and I still hope that one day I can do that sort of work. But the reality of eighteen months seclusion with an organisation that is still finding its feet, was too much for somebody like myself with limited field experience. I also realised that I was more interested in conflict resolution / peace building work than peacekeeping.

QUNO is hoping to expand its disarmament and peace work to include peacebuilding, which will be particularly interesting for me. I hope that the UN will give me the grounding and international experience in disarmament issues as well as to allow me to make a contribution to its peacebuilding program. Who knows what my next step will be at the end of the one year placement in Geneva.

PS: I'm also apprehensive about the (cold) climate in Switzerland
PPS: No, I don't get to wear the cute cap!!

Garden of Peace

I am staying at the Gandhi-King-Mandela Farm (also known as the Garden of Peace) which is an intentional community in rural India. The founder is also one of the founding members of the Nonviolent Peaceforce, so there is a nice link there. Conditions are .... basic. They are in the process of putting the roof on the toilet block and we are in negotiations about getting some toilet paper for us westerners. I share a tent made of banana leaves with a lovely girl from Sweden called Lotta and as I write this I am recovering from a common complaint here - the collapse of my stretcher. Internet access is non-existant, (except via a half hour jeep ride into the nearest town, Vellore) and telephone communication requires a half hour stroll in to the village. This "log" will be contributed to the blogsite when I return to civilisation!! The picture attached is of the "Buddha Smiles School" on the farm we are staying. This is the building where we are conducting the assessment and training, and behind it are our tents. Some of the poor village children visit the farm and eat with us. It's their holidays at the moment, but they are here to practise for an upcoming concert. We have decided to plant trees here as part of our gift back to the community that is looking after us.

The people are lovely here and it's really great to meet likeminded people struggling with a similar urge to make a difference - one guy, Jose, probably articulated the feelings of many of us here: "Finally I am not the black sheep".

Theory into Practice: Preparations for India

Here's a photo of me, at my desk at home. My flatmate instructed me to look interesting :-) This is pretty much where I'm sitting right now, trying not to get too distracted from the task at hand - writing something about Nonviolence in Iraq before I leave for India.

The purpose of the trip to India is to find out if I'm the right person, or I should say one of many suitable people, to put the theories of Nonviolence into action. Eighteen of us from around the world are getting to know one another by email as we prepare for the first stage of the Nonviolent Peaceforce recruitment process. It's comforting to find out that most of the group are not dissimilar to me - the differences being where they studied Peace & Conflict and what sort of NGO they have worked for.

Already we have been given numerous papers on the application of nonviolence to Sri Lanka, updates on the current conflict, immunisation/insurance type information and a personality test! For the next week, and possibly month, we will be tested with role plays about situations of real conflict, challenged by our own cultural insensitivities and will hopefully begin to build a supportive community.

I'm very nervous, of course.

Blogging On

There are many advantages to having a nerd for a boyfriend - one is that you get your own blog sight organised in approximately 2 minutes. It feels kindof self-important to have pages of the internet devoted to silly old me, but I once read that blogs are as much about a form of therapy for the blogger as they are about communicating with others. Anyhow, I thought I'd try it out as a way of documenting the next phase of my life, and showing pictures of what I'm up to, without overloading people's inboxes.