Mediators Beyond Borders International

The Power of Mediation. Member Spotlight: Teletha McJunkin

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“I made a conscious decision to come back, full circle, to mediation because I truly believe in the power of mediation to solve conflicts.”

CAREER PATH:

Teletha McJunkin is a Rule 31 Mediator with 20+ years of professional experience at a local and global level. She has worked remotely and internationally for the past five years with people from many different contexts, cultures, and countries. However, she began her career in the 1990s as a social worker working in local group homes, and at the Hamilton County Juvenile Court, where she developed an early interest in mediation. She stated, “it made so much sense to me as a way to resolve a conflict that I took my first 40-hour course on General/Civil mediation and considered starting a juvenile victim-offender program.” However, her career path led her through a variety of roles in small to large nonprofits, community-based organizations, community colleges, and international NGOs where she had the opportunity to work on her mediation skills through small and large group facilitation.

TELETHA’S PHILOSOPHY ON MEDIATION:

Teletha has a very diverse background in the field of mediation. Her training centers on the facilitative style of mediation; however, the more she learns about mediation, the more she is turning towards transformative mediation. Her mission in life is “helping people learn how to solve their future conflicts as I am in helping them solve their present conflict.” Therefore, with this in mind, after her professional training, she searched for an organization with a focus on mediation and came across MBBI. She was thrilled this type of organization existed. Her work experience in Asia for the past three years and work with a global interdisciplinary team for the past two years around mediation issues motivated her to plug into an international mediation network, like MBBI, right away. She stated, “I wanted to find volunteer opportunities that tapped my existing professional experience in the context of mediation so I volunteered with the International Peacebuilding Institute and volunteered to co-lead the Children & Youth ADR Working Group.”

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Teletha is currently working with the Children & Youth ADR Working Group. They recently conducted a survey of their members and will use the results to plan future activities. She also works with a group of volunteers helping the International Peacebuilding Institute transition their in-person workshops towards a virtual space so they can continue to offer workshops during these uncertain times. Furthermore, on a local level, she is hoping to start a Juvenile Victim-Offender program in Tennessee and in partnership with the Nashville Conflict Resolution Center.

MEDIATION AND THE PANDEMIC:

Teletha recognizes the impact COVID-19 had has on the world, especially in communities she has been able to work with in the past. However, not much has changed for her considering she has been working remotely for the past couple of years. However, due to so many more people working from home now, she states, “I have had unforeseen opportunities to help mediators and organizations transition to the virtual world. That has been very rewarding because I love to help people.”

Article by Elizabeth Gamarra, MBBI Writer

Speaking for the Future. Member Spotlight: Julie Richard

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Julie Richard is a practicing lawyer, in her home country of Canada, where she runs a practice with another lawyer, about 6 hours north of Toronto. During her undergraduate degree, she switched early on to a major in international relations and political science and found that it really spoke to her. This interest in global politics has stuck with her since and guides a lot of how she views the nature of conflict and dispute resolution.

A Foray into International Law

As part of Julie’s undergraduate degree, she spent a year in Wales, and additionally, she had the opportunity to teach kindergarten in Hong Kong for a year. This experience sparked a passion for working with children which has lasted her whole career; and developed her belief that ‘kids are such a huge resource that we don’t invest in, and they provide the biggest return.’ She, coincidentally, worked for the provincial legislative assembly around the same time and conducted research on what kind of returns they would get if they invested in education for young children, wherein she realized for herself that investing in better schooling and care for young people allows for a healthier, more productive society overall.

After university, Julie went to law school, where she specialized in administrative law and wrote her thesis on the UN and the concept of international law. This was a part of a longstanding interest in international affairs and belief in the importance of international bodies and norms; Julie understands deeply the imperfections in workings of international law, supranational organizations, and other such institutions. But, like her belief in the practice of mediation and dispute resolution, she knows that one does not always have to aim for perfection and a perfect agreement – she believes that ‘what matters is that there’s a forum’, and a method in place to communicate more effectively. Early in her career, Julie went on to work in the Attorney General’s Office in New Brunswick. She was in the Constitutional Law unit, and as she put it, ‘it was a dream come true.’ There, she had the chance to specialize in her work in aboriginal law.

An Emphasis on Child Protection Law

For the last 10 years, Julie has been running her own practice in the small town of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Her firm takes on standard legal cases, but as part of the practice, she works for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer, a position in which she is contracted to represent children in child protection matters and in custody battles. During this practice, she started working more and more in mediation and alternative dispute resolution – not as a mediator but as an advocate for the kids she is representing. As part of her specialty in child protection and aboriginal practices and law, she began to engage in dispute resolution practices more generally, including engaging in talking circles in indigenous communities. In this work, she always strives to recognize and be sensitive to the aboriginal process, from which forms of restorative practices we use in mainstream culture originate.

Although she works in law, her aim is to promote communication in family and child protection cases, with the goal of reducing instances of harm and separation.  

Within a custody battle, Julie notes that there is always a disclosure meeting during the court process, which she conducts with the parents. Although this is not a formal mediation, Julie notes that the value of it is similar to mediation practices, in that there is a goal to communicate openly, tell them what their children want them to understand, and try to find a resolution that will allow them to move on as a separated family in a peaceful manner. As a child advocate, it is much like mediation practices in that the goal can be set to work together to solve a problem that both parents face – rather than a win-lose scenario.

Advice for Future Mediators

Julie has an understanding of conflict and dispute resolution that is both complex and extremely straightforward, and the idea can be applied all the way up to global conflict “it doesn’t matter if it’s with your neighbor or between states when there’s no communication and there’s no awareness of a process that’s available, that’s when the issues flare up, and it doesn’t matter the size of the conflict; the goal in any dispute resolution process ‘shouldn’t necessarily be an agreement, but one that fosters tolerance.” Julie also applies her dispute resolution skills in civil litigation cases, but the part of her practice she holds nearest to her heart is ensuring children are heard. When prompted to give advice for any young people who want to work in mediation, peacebuilding, or strive to make the world around them a better place, Julie says that one just has to realize that we’re all interconnected as people, and it does not matter how small your process is; ‘no matter where you are, you can do well, and you can help’.

Article by Lizzy Nestor, MBBI Writer

Meet the Board: Dana Moldovan

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Mediators Beyond Borders International is a nonprofit organization governed by a Board of Directors, comprised of 17 remarkable individuals. This article is part of the Meet the Board series—putting faces to the decision-makers, guiders, and advisors of MBBI. 

Dana Moldovan comes to conflict resolution from an unusual background. An electrical engineer by training, Dana was a partner in a start-up software company that was acquired by a public company, and she retired from her engineering career early in life. “Being a software engineer, the world was black and white: there was one solution and one right answer,” she says. “But in conflict resolution, there are so many shades of gray between 0 and 1.”  

From her home-base in Los Angeles, Dana became involved in Rotary International‘s humanitarian work. Her Rotarian work took her on travels around the world, including Central America, India, Nigeria, and Romania. As she traveled, she says: “I started realizing that no matter where you are, it’s important to know how to talk to people. The communities that have needs have many conflicts, and you need to know how to address them.”  

Rotary connected her with Pepperdine’s Masters of Dispute Resolution program, which in turn connected her with Mediators Beyond Borders. In 2013, Dana presented at MBBI’s Istanbul Congress. It was there that she began to build a connection between MBBI and Rotary International. “I saw this as a good connection,” she says. “Rotary has 1.2 million people around the world, focused on service above self, but not necessarily the knowledge behind peace and conflict resolution. MBBI had that knowledge.” A few years later, after serving as the 2015 MBBI Congress Chair for the Romania Congress, Dana was asked to join the Board. 

An area of particular interest for Dana is training and educating. She is actively involved in MBBI’s Institute for Peace Training for Women. “We need women in more peace processes. Women, when they see conflict, approach the problem with peace in mind,” she says. “MBBI’s program empowers women with peace, conflict resolution, and leadership skills.”  

And, much closer to home, Dana is an advocate for the Peace Conversations Facilitation for Rotary International. The program trains Rotarians in how to have meaningful conversations and to facilitate discussions on touchy subjects. “Rotarians are people of action. They want to do things. They want the training to help with conflict, to mediate or to train,” she says. “So I’ve done trainings, both on my own for my Rotary district, and as a development of MBBI.” 

For Dana, building conflict resolution skills in people around the world directly contributes to a more peaceful society. “We can make a difference in helping people understand how to talk to each other,” she explains. “There is so much division. Our lives are becoming more intense. We have access to so much information, and have so much in our lives—but we are lacking in ways to really listen to each other and understand different points of view. We are quick to jump to conclusions. How many times do you see people not listening? They’re interrupting, starting to respond before the question was finished. We are in a high-speed life, but this isn’t the right way to do it.” 

MBBI has an opportunity to help people communicate with the basic skills for resolving conflict. “Our motto is People Building Peace,” says Dana. “I think that all of us, just simple citizens, need to become peacebuilders. We often think that, ‘This isn’t my job.’ No, no: we need to be involved. We need to be advocating citizens. We need to know that we have the power.” 

Learn more about how you can become a peacebuilder here. 

Article by Emily Zmak, MBBI Writer

MBBI Supports and Trains New Network of Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth 

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Women are critical to peace. Women bring a perspective often lacking in the peace negotiations and governance agreements crafted between armed factions, factions whose male-dominated narratives vary greatly from those of women, children, and the elderly. Nearly 20 years ago, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, which acknowledged the disproportionate impact of armed conflict on females. Its call for the adoption of a gendered perspective in conflict stands as a significant milestone in global consensus: women ought to be participants in peace negotiations, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction.  

In the decades since Resolution 1325, advocacy for the recognition, protection, and inclusion of women before, during, and after conflicts continue. Women ranging from Mo Mowlam in Northern Ireland to Alaa Salah in Sudan serve as testaments to the slow-but-steady progress of recognizing women’s roles and participation. “As the United Nations called on countries to step up in encouraging women to be involved in peace processes, a lot of women networks began to pop-up,” says Mary Montague, MBBI’s 2015 Peacemaker of the Year. 

One such network is the newly-formed Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth (WMC). WMC connects women from more than 20 Commonwealth countries through a peer-to-peer network that is coordinated by Conciliation Resources and funded by the British Foreign Office. WMC has two overarching goals: first, to connect women mediators and peacebuilders; second, to advocate for the recognition of women and their participation in peace processes around the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_EPCuQXCIM&feature=youtu.be 

MBBI became involved with WMC shortly after its conception. MBBI helped train WMC members and facilitated WMC’s first strategic planning workshop. Prabha Sankaranarayan, CEO of MBBI, says, “One of the goals of MBBI’s Women in Peacebuilding (WIP) is to build networks for these women, to leverage their efforts and to attain a community of practice.” Supporting WMC was a complimentary alignment between WIP and WMC.

Mary Montague was one of the trainers for WMC’s London conference. Mary is herself a woman involved in peace processes–she worked as frontline peacebuilding during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and played an active role before, during, and after the peace agreement. She went on to be a founding member of Women Waging Peace. “One of the most important things for the participants is that the trainers are practitioners,” Mary says. “People appreciate that we’re coming from a place of real experience.”  

Mary, who has also been a trainer for MBBI’s WIP programs, advocates for women to first acknowledge themselves as peacebuilders–and then to be acknowledged by others, too. “WMC  is a group of strong women,” she says, “doing amazingly strong work in places all around the world.” Her role with WMC was to support these women with formal mediation training.    

\The training MBBI provided to WMC mirrored the success of WIP International Peace Training Institutes (IPTIs), delivered in multiple regions across the globe. “In the model, we designed [for WIP IPTIs], we give participants training, and we support them in a project on peacebuilding through mentoring and coaching,” says Mary, illustrating an experience in which she mentored four Venezuelan women via Zoom, and was able to coach them with “very practical support” in their difficult home contexts. “My principle: no matter where I go to work, I’m working myself out of a job.” 

WMC represents much more than a network for Commonwealth women. It represents the continuation of a concerted effort to include and recognize women in peacebuilding. “Women often design interventions around the needs of the community,” says Mary. She tells how, during the Troubles, it was women who were walking behind the coffins and visiting the prisons. These experiences, much like the experiences of women in conflicts around the world, were unique from those of men and were rallying cries for peace. 

“Women have a way of looking at themselves through the lens of relationships,” Mary says. “That’s why I believe in mediation. Because it restores relationships.” 

Learn more about MBBI’s work with women in peacebuilding.  

Article by Emily Zmak, MBBI Writer

A Rotarian Creating Pathways to Peace. Member Spotlight: Michael Bardin

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Michael Bardin is long-time member and leader with Rotary International, who has been developing and leading peacebuilding projects around the world for decades now. After retiring several years ago as the chief public policy officer for Scripps Health in San Diego, Michael has taken on even more responsibilities within Rotary International and as a community leader. At a young age, Michael joined the Navy and eventually became a public affairs officer that worked between the film industry and the military. The public affairs turned to advocacy and affairs in the healthcare industry, leading to a decades-long career with Scripps. As a public policy and advocacy leader, Michael was a natural fit for a Rotary club being established in San Diego 32 years ago. Eventually, he became a Chartered member, and later the President of this club.

Championing Rotary

There have been innumerable developments and programs within Rotary that Michael has been involved with, but there several from recent years are especially demonstrative of Michael’s hard work and visions of peace that he has used in his work in RI. A key aspect of Michael’s involvement and leadership has been the development of the concept and actions of ‘Pathways to Peace’ Committee, created in 2004, of which Michael is the Chair. Michael pinpoints the origins of this committee shortly after 9/11 when several clubs came together for a district conference. The general consensus was that despite the pain, confusion, fear, and anger caused by the terrorist attacks, they understood that as an organization (and more broadly, the USA) there was a lock fundamental understanding of what was going on around the world, and especially the Middle East. There arose an opportunity to create a project called the Jewish-Palestinian dialogue (which eventually was renamed ‘Dialogue for Peace’); ‘we realized that we needed to know more about the Middle East and the forces causing problems in the Middle East’.

After 2-3 years of strategic work they were determined to put a plan of action together; “it became clear that what was needed was much more than a dialogue – they wanted a way to implement all those discussions about peace into their work, and into Rotary more generally.” Michael tells the story of a brainstorming session around that strategic process where someone used the term ‘pathways to peace’, and collectively they recognized that the true direction of everything Rotary is exactly that – a pathway to peace. Improving education, sanitation, water, whatever the areas of focus happen to be, is done out of a greater desire to integrate peace from the ground up. Very quickly the strategic planning turned to tactical planning.

Integrating Peace Intentionally

What is amazing about the Pathways to Peace initiative was that what Michael and others in Rotary started to realize, was that this same sort of thing was happening all over Rotary – an organic development of understanding and interest in the ways that peace can be integrated into action and strategy. It had come from the ground up and had spread widely, which kickstarted a broader strategic visioning process.

They started to actualize the pathways to peace – peace is one of the six areas of focus of Rotary but takes a different form because the very idea is an integration of a concept into the actions taken all over the world. Michael notes that because peace is a concept, that in itself can cause controversy – especially in today’s divided political climate; ‘the concept of peace, initially with people who are attracted to it, is the dichotomy between peace and war. Which of course is a …part of it, but it isn’t really what we’re talking about. We’re talking about progress on all human levels.’ As an example, Michael gives Rotary’s Polio Plus program, which has involved tens of thousands of people all over the world in getting children vaccinated against polio. The impact of this program has been immeasurable; besides the actual action of vaccines, the involvement of people and communities has been in itself a massive peacebuilding platform.

Polio Plus, Rotary’s worldwide program working with the World Health Organization to eradicate polio, is also one of the world’s largest peace programs. The work involving communities large and small to collaborate and vaccinate every child in every country advanced other opportunities to come together on other needs.

Water Cooperation Diplomacy Program

In recent years, Michael has also been involved in the creation of a ‘ Water Cooperation Diplomacy Program ’, which is a master’s degree created with three universities (University of Peace in Costa Rica, the University of Delft in the Netherlands, and Oregon State University in the USA). Rotary has sponsored young people from Central Asia, an area that is severely impacted by conflict over the major water basin of the Aural Sea.

When asked for advice he would give young people who are interested in peacebuilding work, he encourages chasing a passion for helping people.

Article by Lizzy Nestor, MBBI Writer