Mediators Beyond Borders International

Focusing on Internet Accessibility. Member Spotlight: Chris LaHatte

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Chris LaHatte is a member of the three-person MBBI Ombuds Team. With over 40 years of experience as a lawyer, Chris is a member of the International Ombudsman Association and the International Ombudsman Institute. He has published papers on Ombudsman issues in New Zealand Lawyer and in the International Ombudsman Association Journal. He is also apart of the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand (AMINZ).

The Work of an Ombuds

An Ombudsman, Ombudsperson, or the gender-neutral Ombuds is an official charged with representing the interests of a group by investigating and addressing complaints reported by members. Ombuds are independent, impartial, and neutral in their review of facts and complaint investigation, but most importantly, they are Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) practitioners.

The MBBI Ombuds Team has jurisdiction over issues regarding:

  • Actions carried (or the absence of) by MBBI, including the Board of Directors and management
  • Activities or behaviors you believe are unfair
  • Discrimination, particularly on the basis of race, gender, or disability
  • Bullying by someone in your team or your team leader

Please contact the Ombuds lead at ombuds@mediatorsbeyondborders.org, or if you prefer that the Ombuds lead to contacts you by phone, please send an email providing a number, date, and time where you may be reached.

Chris LaHatte has been a part of the MBBI Ombuds Team since 2016 but has been attuning to the specifics of mediation and ADR for the past 20 years. Through his legal career as a Barrister in New Zealand, he became aware of the fortitude of mediation as a more effective method of problem-solving than traditional law settlements. And ever since, he has tried to continually incorporate restorative justice practices as a way to focus on healing harms and resolving long-standing issues instead of solely coming to a consensus. He has a profile on Mediate.com highlighting his extensive legal and mediation career.

ICANN Increasing Internet Access

In 2011, Chris took a major change in his career by becoming the Ombuds for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global body administering the domain name system. ICANN is a multi-stakeholder organization where policy and governance are driven by bottom-up consensus decision-making. There are many diverse interests including government representation, intellectual property interests, civil society advocates, Regional Internet Registries, and representatives from the other main Internet players.

Although this role ended when he joined as one of the three members of the MBBI Ombuds Team, Chris is still passionate about ICANN’s international advocacy work. Especially as he lives in New Zealand and many of his clients are thousands of kilometers and many time zones apart, Internet access is a huge part of his career. If the time zone happens to land upon 3 am New Zealand time, Chris will gladly wake up as “solving the problem is more important than a good night’s sleep.” Luckily, as technological innovations continue to rapidly spread across the globe, Chris has seen the ease of implementing global ADR and mediation techniques. Cellphones and Internet access, in many cases, has become more of a vital tool for survival than electricity.

The world needs much more peace mongers and much fewer warmongers

With the increasing expansion of cellphone use, people have instant access to money transfers, international news, local weather predictions, research about their communities, and a method of communicating with anyone anywhere. A large computer is not necessary anymore to complete all of those tasks, so cellphones are becoming increasingly critical globally. They are immensely versatile and influential to human progress and development and have used as a social welfare benefit for homeless and/or displaced people.

To that end, Chris is a member of InternetNZ, a New Zealand organization that does domestic advocacy for expanding Internet access. Furthermore, ICANN, Chris’s first Ombuds role, has a Universal Acceptance Initiative focusing on expanding access to more people AND in more languages. A multilingual Internet is one in which, “users around the world can navigate entirely in local languages.” ICANN also has a published Roadmap for the Universal Acceptance Initiative detailing how it plans to accomplish this goal. Chris is an adamant supporter of this Initiative.

Article by Ben Lutz, MBBI Writer

Grieving the Loss of a Great Peacebuilder, Akinola Olawore

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It is with a profound sadness that I am sharing the tragic news of the unexpected loss of a great Nigerian peacebuilder, Akinola Olawore. Akin passed away this week in a tragic swimming accident.

Akin’s big smile was a familiar sight at MBBI’s Congresses, from which he regularly took home beautiful items for his lovely wife. He was an ambassador for peace and a champion of MBBI’s mission, who served on the organization’s Board of Directors, chaired the Rotary Working Group through which he spearheaded the MBBI-Rotary Partnership, and supported women in mediation. 

As a longtime MBBI member and a champion of building a more peace “able” world,” Akin dedicated himself to advocating for mediation and including underrepresented stakeholders in peace processes. He collaborated with fellow peacebuilders, members of MBBI, his Rotary family, and others to support MBBI’s International Training Institute (ITI) for women peacebuilders in West Africa.

Akin was deeply committed to such efforts, as evidenced by his leadership position with these initiatives. He will be missed deeply by family, friends and all with whom he came into contact.

We will share updates on what we will do in his memory at a later date. All of the MBBI family joins in sending our prayers to his family and all those who mourn his passing. More on his life and contributions can be found at: https://mediatorsbeyondborders.org/who-we-are/organization/board-of-directors/

Sincerely,

Dave Joseph, Chair, Board of Directors

Mediators Beyond Borders International

People building peace

Workshop: The Art and Science of Mediative Practice (Nairobi, Kenya)

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Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI) is partnering with the Local Capacities for Peace International (LCPI) to provide an experiential, interactive, multidisciplinary program that integrates neurobiology, the arts and more. 

The Art and Science of Mediative Practice:  From the bush to the board room, and every space in between is a regional International Training Institute (ITI) in Mediative Practices in Nairobi. The training will take place July 14 through July 19, 2019, at Biblica Guest House (Dennis Pritt Road | Caledonia, Nairobi 00200, Kenya).

Register here

Believing that mediators can accomplish what bombs, machetes, and guns cannot and that those at the heart of the conflict must be involved in the resolution process, this workshop is designed for policymakers and practitioners. The training is designed for those seeking a greater understanding of:

  • Conflict & Conflict Management Tools
  • Mediation & How to Practically Apply Techniques in the Mediation Process
  • Dialogue & its Role in Building Relations – Restorative Practises
  • Designing and convening Mediation and Dialogue processes

*Participants will also Role Play and have interactive exercises as well as simulations during the training.

Register here

Integrating the diverse skills and expertise of trainers experienced in a wide range of processes across the globe, this workshop is customized for practitioners in the region wishing to enhance their peacebuilding and mediation skills with state-of-the-art neurobiology research, communication skills, and planning methods.

Participants will receive certificates and be eligible for Kenya accreditation and six, monthly coaching and mentoring sessions provided by the trainers, and for an Advanced ITI. 

The cost for this training is $750. Applicants may submit a request for discounted rates to the planning committee at info@mediatorsbeyondborders.org.

Only 30 participation spots open for this training. Register now.

Trainers:

Roselin Odede (Kenya)

Millicent Otieno (Kenya)

Indrani Govender (South Africa)

Prabha Sankaranarayan (USA)

Webinar: The Implications of Equity in Conflict Work

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Join us in a conversation on The Courage to Be Partial: The Implications of Equity in Conflict Work by Ei Ei Samai, Principal at Samai Culture Design, on Monday, July 22, 2019, at 12:00 PM ET.

Drawing upon lived experience as an immigrant woman of color in the US and 20 years of professional experience in social justice work, Ei Ei will share her journey unlearning “fairness as identical treatment” and what it means to embody equity as a personal liberation tool and operationalize equity as a collective transformation framework. 

This webinar will:

  • Define courage
  • Examine words such as neutrality, Omni-partiality, and equity
  • Highlight the harm of identical, unseen, and unrepresented treatment
  • Exchange concrete practices for personal and collective transformation

Register here

 

Ei Ei Samai uses neuro, social, and design sciences to facilitate the growth of brave people, teams, and social contracts. Her skill-building as a mindful cross-cultural communicator began when she learned Vipassana meditation as a 4-year-old. She began her journey with justice work as a working-class immigrant teen at a Silicon Valley High School in the 90s, later participating in student and women of color spaces in college to learn from liberation movement builders such as Angela Davis and Grace Lee Boggs. She gained her aptitude for system and pattern thinking through a combination of Pre-Med and Religious Identity studies. 

In addition to holding a Master of Science in Organizational Management and Transformative Leadership, she is certified in advanced facilitation, experiential training, community mediation, conflict transformation, restorative justice, ecological model of leadership, human system design, and in Conversational Intelligence® by the late Judith Glaser. In 2019, she was chosen as a Courage Catalyst in the first cohort of Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead™ Facilitator Training.

With over 20 years of experience in social impact, Ei Ei holds grounded expertise in shaping bold conversations in areas such as educational equity, diversity and inclusion, social and environmental justice, trust recovery, client experience, team dysfunction, collective impact strategy planning, program and service design, family and community engagement, collaborative partnerships, knowledge management, and organizational culture. Click here to read more about Ei Ei and her work. 

Please note that the deadline to register for this webinar is one day before the event. We will send the Zoom access link to registrants after the registration closing time and on the day of the event. For further information about this our other webinars, contact us at webinars@mediatorsbeyondborders.org.

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