Youth-Centric Peacebuilding. Member Spotlight: Emma Nowotny

Emma Nowotny joined MBBI in 2017 – a native of Bolivia, Emma is currently in Lisbon, Portugal doing her Master’s in Psychology of Global Mobility, Inclusion, and Diversity in Society. With her background in the practical application of peace culture and conversations and her work with at-risk youth, she is an excellent example of the ways that MBBI brings together members from all different career paths. With an undergraduate degree in Psychology, her interests range from the psycho-social effects of poverty on young people to guiding governmental and international policy based on amplifying the voices of youths.

International Peace Training Institute 

 Emma started her work with peacebuilding at a young age; she began volunteering at 15 with a charity that raised money to buy Christmas gifts for Bolivian children, which reached over 60,000 kids who came from all over the city. Emma says that at age 15 this was the “first time I opened my eyes to a reality that wasn’t mine”. Being from a middle-class family, she cites this experience as the first time she saw the reality for many Bolivians, and she quickly got very engaged in this work. She volunteered with the same organization until she was 23. She learned about youth in her country in ways that changed the trajectory of her life and have led to her current pursuit of higher education.

Emma was a participant in the South American Cohort of MBBI’s International Peace Training Institute. This program, MBBI’s flagship, supports women to lead a range of conflict resolution and transformation processes in their communities, regions, countries by increasing peacebuilding projects in the participants’ home countries that improve conditions and involve more women in creating social change. Emma notes, “I had the best experience being able to learn the best practices of mediation and to build up my network of peacebuilders across the continent.”

Peace Culture Workshops

One of the ways that her training and volunteer work evolved was into workshops on Peace Culture with the UN. This program strives for the promotion of interreligious and intercultural dialogue, understanding, and cooperation for peace. It was through these workshops in schools on Peace Culture that she says taught her that poverty and inequality is a form of violence, concepts that would go on to shape her future work and academic goals.

Emma is not a mediator by profession, but her work has encompassed many aspects of peacebuilding through work with different at-risk and high-risk populations of youth, children, and adolescents. She has worked to amplify their voices, to work towards the improvement of their quality of life in terms of education, citizen participation, and whatever other needs they have that need to be met.

UNICEF

Before beginning her Master’s degree, Emma worked as a UNV with a placement in UNICEF, to create spaces in order to hear directly from young people in Bolivia, to listen to young people, and to see how moving forward their needs can be addressed in a political and policy agenda. She served as a link between their needs and wants and the work that needed to be accomplished within the government.

Emma has consistently used the skills she gained for the IPTI in her work with youth in workshops. Her emphasis has been to “create activities and a space in which there are trust and open communication.” For example, she learned about the importance of checking in with emotions before and after the sessions, which often touched on sensitive topics. Emma says that the MBBI training and then her experiences in these workshops have helped her gain skills in communication and facilitation.

Before getting involved with UNICEF, Emma had experiences working with youths that had a clear impact on her understanding of the complexities and trauma in poverty and compelled her to continue in this field.  One group that Emma worked within 2015 included adolescents (ages 12-16) who worked night shifts at brick factories while also attending school during the day. The work involved an acceptance of a difficult fact, that it was impossible to fix the system that forced these teenagers into this stressful lifestyle. However, the workshop aimed to provide them with a safe space to talk about their lives, and to provide them with the skills to cope with their emotions and manage stress. She was proud that she was able to bond with the teenagers and to learn more about working with youth. Emma left this work with a grasp of the limitations of the work, and the limits of her own knowledge, and she began to apply for Master’s degrees in order to learn to apply her practical experience from a more academic angle. 

Advice and lessons

After working with youth her whole life, Emma has good advice for those who want to work in the field of peacebuilding and mediation. She says that the only way to do the work is to ‘go ahead and do it wholeheartedly.’ But the key is to check on oneself constantly – this is a path that requires a lot of energy and empathy, and has intense rewards and so much beauty. However, there will be a lot of tough moments, and if you are able to do the job it is worth it. Part of her self-care involves the importance of personal boundaries. She maintains the “importance of personal boundaries with work, which are non-negotiable”

Article by Lizzy Nestor, MBBI Writer