Maureen Inglis, a professional mediator from Australia, is also a peace advocate, and a dispute resolution coach. Having specialized in workplace conflict resolutions, she renders requisite skills and know-how in administering workplace’s disagreements which may lead to dysfunctional teams, stress, trauma, harassment or bullying. Through her own established brand, Maureen Inglis Consulting, she provides customized need-based sustainable solutions by the means of mediation, coaching, training, and facilitation of problem-solving processes.  

I believe solutions are within the capacity of individuals and my role is to draw them out from the people.

When we asked about her journey starting from the field of business management and human resource development to mediation, she explained, “mediating disputes was something I have been unconsciously practicing since my childhood.” She fondly remembered her childhood incidents where she used to be the one advocating peace between the people involved in conflicts.

Create Impact Through Dialogue

Her association with MBBI commenced in 2016 when she became a part of MBBI’s Sierra Leone Project. “Through MBBI, I have had the opportunity to meet and work with great mediators and peacebuilders around the world. MBBI supplements my goal to peacefully resolve the conflicts and create an impact through dialogue.” She encourages everyone who wishes to contribute to global peace and dialogue building to join MBBI.

Maureen’s participation in the Sierra Leone Project provided her with a meaningful experience in her career as a peace advocate. The project’s team collaborated with local partners to transform communities through non-violent dialogue and communication skill-building workshops, focusing on ‘Building Unity for Peaceful Elections 2018.’ “We also conducted interviews to develop an ongoing needs’ analysis and consequently with the assistance of a Rotary Global Grant, plans are currently being developed to intensively train women and youth leaders in Sierre Leone.” She is also coaching a local MBBI’s partner in Kenema as he develops strategies to develop and support peacebuilders in the sixteen chiefdoms of the region. Simultaneously, there involves an unmitigated passion and an audacity in consecrating personal time, working hours, family time, and even finances, to such labyrinthine peace processes, she explained.

Maureen’s style as a mediator is more facilitative in nature with a significant focus on pre-mediation assessment and coaching. She believes that such preparatory approach helps in building amicable solutions during disagreements between the parties. While sharing her most cherished aspect of any dialogue process, she expressed her strong interest in the intercultural aspect of mediation. She described it by illustrating, “while Australians tend to have a certain sense of humor in their conversations, it is possible that it may be misunderstood, or offend or even annoy the other party coming from an entirely distinct culture.” She remarked that she has “a natural ability to connect to and work with diverse people in diversified situations.”

Turning Interests into Skills

To turn her interests to skills, she obtained several certifications and accreditations like BRDGES Intercultural Certificate, Resolution Institute’s accreditation, International Mediation Institute’s accreditation, and attended an International Advanced Mediator Course – Italy (The Dispute Resolution Partnership, UK). She strongly suggested that blossoming mediators/peacebuilders shall take up such training and earn accreditation from their respective national institutes.

From several years of prosperous experience as a mediator, she imparted, that active and patient listening, open-mindedness, respecting parties’ cultures, professional demeanor and self-control are the golden rules for every successful peace process. Mediation/peacebuilding provides her both personal and professional contentment allowing her to feel fulfilled at the end of the day. “It brings you to a unique position where you have the ability as well as the opportunity to create a positive impact in the lives of others.”

Article by Divya Sugand, MBBI Writer.

Mary Hellwig is a mediator and a facilitator of restorative justice processes. She has identified empowerment as one of the many benefits or impacts of mediation and alternative dispute resolution. Empowerment, in this context, promotes and strengthens participants’ self-determination to lead the charge for peace and social cohesion. It keeps participants moving forward in the process to determine their own future. 

It has the power to bring a resolution that works for all sides,” Mary told MBBI during an exclusive interview on December 20, 2018. She believes that mediation helps parties to identify practical and flexible solutions that are reflective of their competing needs, demands, and interests. “It is a win-win. It helps people to find their voice and enables them to move forward,” she noted.

Internal Conflict

Mary specifically stressed the “healing power of mediation.” In these processes, the emphasis is affixed on you (the participant)—your role and contributions are invaluable aspects of these processes and their outcomes.

Personally, Mary has experienced the “healing power” of mediation firsthand. She fought a silent, internal battle that was deeply rooted in a work-related dispute that started in the early 2000s. This conflict eventually led to her parting ways with her employer at the time. “It became increasingly clear to me that I couldn’t stay [at that job]. I was not skillful enough in dealing with the conflict. My personal anger was barring me from listening and talking to others. I realized that I had hit the wall, and needed to grow more,” she said, admittedly.

In her search for healing and inner peace, Mary found solace in seeking knowledge and wisdom. She trained in nonviolent communication with Marshall Rosenberg, and circle communication (The Way of Council) with Jack Zimmerman and another with Kay Pranis. She also trained in community mediation, civil and divorce mediation, as well as a variety of restorative justice processes like Family Group Conferencing and Victim-Offender Dialogue.

She began to use these skills in her work with several nonprofits in the St. Louis area as well as volunteering with local court processes in restorative justice. One highlight of all that work was being able to attend and co-present, with a St. Louis colleague, a workshop on Restorative Circles in a school setting at MBBI’s 2015 Congress in Bucharest, Romania. She was inspired by its theme: “Courageous Conversations and Dangerous Dialogue.”

Listening to the stories of other peacebuilders at that conference, intrigued Mary beyond measures: “I was totally in awe from the stories of other peacebuilders. I was so moved by what people had experienced. And this made joining MBBI exciting.” That opportunity instantly attracted her to MBBI. She joined thereafter and quickly became an active member of the organization’s Child and Youth ADR Working Group.

MBBI Helps Continuous Growth

Mary felt that she was thrown again into personal imbalance with the last United States presidential election “I realized that I was afraid and out of fear, grew angry. I felt that I was unable to get beyond my personal anger. I just felt that I couldn’t talk about it.” Listening to what other MBBI members are experiencing elsewhere around the globe has contributed immensely to Mary’s healing process:

Listening to other peacebuilders deal with even bigger issues and seeing the level of integrity they bring to that has helped me a lot. Seeing other people who have been through difficult circumstances and are able to talk about it continues to inspire me.

Mary is happy that MBBI has “exposed” her to issues around the world that she “didn’t even know about.” Additionally, MBBI’s monthly webinars are helping to further bridge the gap between Mary and her inner peace. She says MBBI is inspiring her “to keep growing.”

Community Conflict Services

Mary Hellwig possesses knowledge and experience in family group conferencing, a restorative justice process for families that experience separation due to abuse and neglect. She is also skilled in community mediation, using circle communication in a variety of situations and victim-offender dialogue.

She currently directs a Missouri-based nonprofit that seeks to advance the use of Restorative Justice practices and community mediation in the state’s St. Louis area. The Community Conflict Services of Metro St. Louis has developed and implemented a restorative justice program, based on Talking Circles, for schools. Talking Circles, according to Mary, are used to build communities in the classrooms. They empower students to experience the power of being able to have a say. These processes work to increase caring classroom climates and healthier school communities. Teachers receive hands-on training in the use of circles and CCS’s staff accompany them in circles throughout the school year.

An article by Fatoumata Bility, MBBI Writer & Peace Synergist

Dorina Prech is an active team member of the Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI), Kenya Project. She has been a member since 2012, joining after attending MBBI’s international peace conference held at her university. With a background in mediation, peacebuilding, and conflict studies, Dorina is a community mobilizer and a pastoralist people’s activist championing peace and security in conflict-prone areas of Kenya.

If there is something that breaks your heart and gives you sleepless nights, it is a sign that this is what you are meant to do. That is the duty of the mediator. For me, it is the insecurity and disempowerment of the pastoralists in the Horn of Africa.

Northern Kenya is one of the most socio-economically marginalized regions in Kenya, resulting in glaring inequalities between its counties and the rest of the country. The ongoing instability in the Horn of Africa and the persistent inter-ethnic violence continues to threaten regional, county and local peace and cohesion. In the North Rift region, deadly cattle raids and widespread violence is common, as communities clash over water and pasture resources for their most valued source of livelihood: livestock.

Language Bridging Peace

Dorina is from a community deemed ‘one of the most violent in Kenya’, largely due to negative media perception. She felt compelled to change the conflict situation in the North Rift. As a member of MBBI’s Kenya Project, she participated in the design of the Warriors to Peace Guardians framework.  The goal of the program is to enable ethnic communities – largely the youth – in remote Baringo, Laikipia and Samburu counties to interrupt the existing cycle of violence through the adoption of conflict analysis and mediation promoting sustainable co-existence and fostering social stability environment through nonviolent resolutions of conflicts. The Warriors to Peace Guardians framework was successful as it built a broad, diverse, and inclusive network of peace guardians in the three communities.

The Warriors to Peace Guardians framework main goal is resolving the disputes between the warring communities; however, it places a large emphasis on finding common ground and shared aspects between the communities. This method, entitled the Peace Caravan, helps deescalate tension and decrease the outbreak of violence between communities with the end goal of poverty alleviation. Dorina has been a large advocate of cross-community engagement in order to facilitate a more peaceful and a prosperous Northern Kenya. The Warriors to Peace Guardians framework utilizes the influence of local professionals to educate their communities about the need to embrace peace and live in harmony with their perceived enemies. 

Holding Half the Sky

Dorina wholeheartedly follows the mantra women hold half the sky. She has seen an outstanding transformation of intra- and inter-community relations resulting from actively including women in dispute resolution processes. She advocates for women inclusion by emphasizing the importance to “come to the table with your ideas, not with your titles,” which makes an equity statement by everyone sitting at the same level and standing side by side.

The Warriors to Peace Guardians framework has seen significant successes in Northern Kenya as the community peace guardians report increased collaboration and friendly relations with sections of the community where the programme reached. One of its most effective uses is amplifying the voices of local women who during a Peace Caravan in 2009 said: “We are tired of being widows and losing our sons. Stop the conflict.” A program primarily focused on women Peace Guardians will start soon in Samburu County, and a Rotary Global grant to train the next cadre of Peace Guardians in Laikipia will kick off in early 2019.

A Brighter Future Awaits

A lot still needs to be done, particularly in terms of making peace dividends available to these communities, to sustain the peace. The Kenya team is thrilled about its collaboration with MBBI’s recent partner Rotary International and local partners to soon be launching a livestock improvement program in Laikipia. This program promotes livestock quotas, redistributes grazing areas, and creates a more sustainable lifestyle for the pastoralists.

Juggling between strengthening the work of MBBI’s Kenya Project and her full-time job in Nairobi, Dorina recently co-founded Twasoma, an initiative that taps into the skills and talents of schoolchildren in her home county, as a means of building and sustaining peace and development. She will soon be presenting at a webinar on balanced media reporting in conflict situations.

Article by Ben Lutz, MBBI Writer

Fiona White is the Director of The Conflict Toolbox, an organization centered in New Zealand that provides conflict resolution skills, life skills coaching, workshops, and courses. Advanced Mediation course run by Ken Cloke in New Zealand inspired Fiona to join Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI) in 2011 and she has been a member ever since.  She found Ken’s approach to conflict resolution both refreshing and life-changing and wanted to learn more about the work of MBBI.  Fiona attended the MBBI conference for the first time in The Hague in 2017 and generally prefers to be a quiet supporter behind the scenes. 

Fiona has gained a plethora of skills on her journey through life.  She credits her parents for teaching her the essentials of compassion, listening, non-judgment, equanimity, and pragmatism; and noticed from an early age that people were drawn to her to talk through their problems.  She has had a wide variety of jobs, including zookeeping, retail, factory work, and marketing, as well as 12 years as a teacher (and later, management) of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Her experiences in the classroom – managing diverse groups of individuals – prompted her to learn even more valuable ways to communicate. 

With a lifelong passion for language, her attention turned to Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a Diploma in Dispute Resolution (with a focus on Mediation), and mediator accreditation.  Following a training course in Conflict Coaching, Fiona felt that she had the tools to follow her gut instinct, quit teaching, and start her own business in 2010.  Originally known as Mediation Matters, after a few years Fiona realized that her particular strengths lie in Coaching, Training, and Consultation, and changed the name to The Conflict Toolbox, which better reflected the essence of what she provides. Since then, she has added Advanced Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner to her resumé.

Fiona’s work these days mostly centers around Self-care: the knowledge, tools, skills, and behaviors (including ways of thinking) that are most valuable for each of us.  She has created a Little Book of Self-care with some of these useful tools and ideas which she has shared as a free download on her website.  This work includes resolving intra- and inter-personal conflict (which has always fascinated Fiona), as well as helping people to heal from past traumatic events, resolve phobias, and create more internal peace. 

Her clients have included people from all walks of life, and Fiona’s mission is to share this knowledge and these tools with as many people as possible, to empower them to make even more useful choices (ones that ultimately create more positive peace).  In the future Fiona would like to take her Toolbox into teacher training colleges and into prisons, to equip the individuals with understanding and skills that will improve the quality of their lives and choices (and that they can pass on to their respective communities).  Her dream is to focus on creating even more peace within society, in particular through the vehicle of language: “Language is so critical in all aspects of our life, especially how we use it and its intention,” she emphasized.

One of Fiona’s favorite mantras relevant to the field of conflict resolution is: “Behind every behavior is a positive intention” (the NLP version), or “Behind every behavior is an attempt to meet a need” (NVC version).  She says that this is equally relevant to intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict and that when we take time to find out what that intention/need truly is, we gain compassionate understanding and can discover new, more useful ways of achieving that.

Article by Ben Lutz, MBBI writer

Today’s ever-changing, multi-layered conflict dynamics demand robust actions such as the empowerment of both victims and perpetrators to become key partners in building and sustaining their peace. This strategy has proven to be exceedingly effective in fostering sustained social cohesion, community resilience, and integration. One peacebuilder that is taking full advantage of this approach is Klubosumo Johnson Borh, a Liberian social justice activist and peace advocate.

Like many contemporary conflict resolution practitioners, Johnson has narrowed his focus to empowering Liberia’s ex-combatants to become strategic change agents within their communities. He terms it “from destruction to construction”—a proactive effort directed at transforming ex-combatants into meaningful citizens rather than threats.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with MBBI on November 16, 2018, Johnson stated that Liberian ex-combatants are still in dire need for trauma and psychosocial healing. Liberia, Johnson’s native land, is recovering from a 14-year civil war that destroyed its socio-political and economic fabrics to unimaginable limits. It is a small state located on the West coast of Africa. From 1989-2003, one of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars was fought in Liberia, claiming the lives of more than 250,000 Liberians and dispatching a million others to refugee camps in neighboring countries.

As the war progressed, warlords began recruiting children into fighting forces. They exploited the fact that children are exceedingly obedient and do as instructed. And it worked. [Unfortunately], children that grew up under such circumstances became staunch loyalists and were used to carry out atrocities against the peace of the state.

Firsthand Experience

A former child soldier, Johnson recalls that “young children that were conscripted were mentally destroyed. They were dehumanized beyond measures. They were made to believe that violence was an acceptable way of life. They were told that the guns in their hands were their mothers and fathers—their sole source of livelihood. They were also told that they could use guns to get whatever they wanted.”

Johnson was conscripted into the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) of former warlord and president, Charles Taylor.  He was captured and compelled to join the NPFL in early 1990:

I am one of those young Liberians who lost their youth to the war. I was conscripted at age 19. I encountered NPFL fighters in Kakata, Margibi County. It was a quiet evening. I had walked up the street in search of food when the soldiers drove by. They immediately threw me into the back of their pickup truck. According to them, I was on ill-war—meaning, I was a soldier who had abandoned his post. I was physically abused, starved, made to sleep in the cold and took bath in filthy water. Warlords believed these were the only way to prepare for the frontlines. I left the group when I got injured on my left arm in February 1993.

Network for Empowerment and Progressive Initiative, NEPI

With such a firsthand experience, Johnson was fired up to help other young Liberians that were trapped behind frontlines and being brainwashed to commit violence. In 2000, he established the Network for Empowerment and Progressive Initiative (NEPI). NEPI’s sole goal at the time was to discourage young Liberians from allowing themselves to be exploited by fighting forces.

Following the completion of the UN-run disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration (DDRR) program in Liberia, NEPI swiftly focused its mission to empowering ex-combatants to become economically self-reliant; a strategy aimed at breaking the bond between warlords and ex-combatants. NEPI successfully achieved this mission through the provision of capacity development opportunities, while paving the way for smooth rehabilitation (trauma and psychosocial healing) and reintegration.

And while communities resented the reintegration of ex-combatants, Johnson’s approach helped them realize need to accept these young men and the danger communities may further face if former fighters were rejected, such as the possibility of them preying on their communities as armed robbers.  While such efforts helped communities enjoy an extended tranquility and stability, there was one thing that had to be done before the full reintegration of ex-combatants.

They were exposed to traditional cleansing rituals as a way of ensuring that everyone was on the same page. During the cleansing process, ex-combatants acknowledged their wrongdoings, confessed, took full ownership of their actions and sought forgiveness from their victims. Traditional leaders served as chief peace brokers during these exercises.

Meanwhile, NEPI is currently on a mission to reduce abject poverty and violence among Liberian youths through economic empowerment. It currently serves five of Liberia’s 15 counties: Montserrado, Nimba, Grand Bassa, Bomi and Lofa counties. Plans are also underway to further expand into other counties once desirable funding becomes available.

Johnson has developed a transformation program that offers rigorous evidence and innovative models focused on reducing violence and organized crimes among former child soldiers, ex-combatants and at-risk street youths. The 8-week psychosocial and cash transfer program also facilitates the rehabilitation and reintegration of beneficiaries into mainstream society.

NEPI Sustainable Transformation for Youth in Liberia (STYLE)

Brief Bio

A global peace researcher, Klubosumo Johnson Borh’s peace and development works transcend Liberia’s borders into other parts of the world, including Asia, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, and the United States.  As a budget and Truancy Assessment Program (TAP) program manager at Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, Johnson has blended rigorous academic theory with real-world practical knowledge of conducting cutting-edge research and developing innovative solutions to support governments and organizations around the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. He has developed and implemented youth empowerment projects in India and Uganda. The TAP is a new prevention and intervention program designed to reduce chronic absenteeism with the use of a simple biometric tracking system, attendance, paired with a table and a fingerprint scanner. Johnson is a seasoned peace facilitator and trainer. He is a husband and a father.

Article by Fatoumata Bility, MBBI Writer