Listening to news reports can make the world seem full of problems. Yes it is; and yet that’s a glass half empty view. There is a glass half-full side, and it’s receiving less attention than it should. Many good and positive initiatives designed to promote peace and overcome problems are underway around the world.

On a visit to Bangkok, Thailand, over the past two weeks, I was lucky enough to glimpse one such initiative in action at the city’s Chulalongkorn University.

I was there at the invitation of Jennifer Weidman, Deputy Director of the Rotary Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

In a third-floor meeting room at this highly respected university, 22 Rotary World Peace Fellows were engrossed in a lecture by Alfredo Lubang from the Philippines. He was talking about the village-roots experience of implementing peace on the island of Mindanao, in his home country.

Those listening were from every inhabited continent in the world, but they shared a common interest in ending conflict and promoting peace.

The emphasis that afternoon was on protecting civilians caught up in conflict zones. (Mindanao has been a conflict zone for decades, with Muslim groups fighting for their ideals of greater autonomy or independence from the Philippine government.)

Alfredo Lubang continued, “All regimes say they speak on behalf of the people. Rebel groups also [say they are acting] on behalf of the people. In the past, with military verses military, there were certain rules of combat. Now things have changed. There are different kinds of warfare, but there should still be certain rules to protect civilians. Often civilians trust neither group and need the intervention of third parties.”

How do civilians protect themselves? He threw the question open to the class. Various suggestions flowed before Alfredo resumed, introducing a core theme, the establishment of conflict-free zones for civilians.

“Remember that there are different viewpoints from different sides,” he said. “In conflict zones, communities become polarized and there is less dialogue. The peace aim is to bring together that polarization and promote dialogue.”

The fellows listening in the room, some jotting down notes, were all funded by Rotary to attend this intensive, three-month short term professional development course in peace and conflict studies at the university. The course was established as the brainchild of Thai statesman and Past Rotary International President Bhichai Rattakul. Class 6 is the one currently running.

Applicants for this and previous intensive courses were required to be currently employed and have at least five years professional experience in a peace-related field. They also needed an adequate knowledge of English, in which the course is run.

The studies have immediate application in their fields of work and fellows are drawn from academia, from NGOs, from their various nations’ military, police, and government services, from faith-based organizations, and more. In the class I saw, two participants were journalists.

Jennifer Weidman, a lively 30-year-old from Pennsylvania who runs the courses day to day, can draw on about 30 lecturers, experts in their fields, from around the world. The program has been running for three years and already there are encouraging results from past fellows who returned home to “make a difference”.

Jennifer – she prefers to be called Jenn – mentions Richelieu Allison, a Liberian who attended the first course. Richelieu returned to the neighbouring West African country of Sierra Leone and continued his work as Regional Director of the West African Youth Network, which he had co-founded a few years earlier.

She also told me about two Sri Lankan fellows in the first course: they were Ravee, Assistant State Counsel in the Attorney General’s Office of Sri Lanka and an ethnic Sinhalese, and Theva, a Tamil civil society worker, a member of the ethnic minority that for some two decades has battled the Sri Lankan government seeking a Tamil homeland.

“At first they fought in class,” Jenn remembers, “they fought for two months. Then they started to see each other as human beings, not what they had been programmed to see. And they became good friends.”

Ravee and Theva have now returned to their respective communities, but their friendship has endured, a symbol of hope in a strife-torn country.

In addition to this intensive course, the Rotary Foundation funds two-year, masters-level courses in peace and conflict resolution at six other centres of learning around the world. Rotarians also support a PolioPlus program to eradicate this disease, and a number of global humanitarian and educational projects.

As I turn on my TV news, it’s heartening to be reminded of this good initiative. And I salute you all.

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