Fiji, Solomon Islands, Nagaland (East India), Pakistan, Ruanda, Zambia
Sierra Leone, Columbia, Philippines (Mindinao and elsewhere)
Mexico, U.S., Canada, Puerto Rica, Romania, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Palestine
Lebanon, Finland and Chile.

Fr Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R. joins members of the group for this photograph

Message  from Dr. Gert Rueppell 

  "I am deeply shocked, I can not think this is possible, even in the worst times of war through which we went, we never had a wall and we always could get the children together in camps to play and interact with each other, I am really shocked". Melhem from Beirut/Lebanon, stands on the bridge in Parkside and turns the stone, which landed on the bridge in the group of 28 Peace Educators from 20 different countries, who spend a week in conference in St. Clement's Retreat and Conference Centre, Belfast (18-24 June 2001). The stone had landed from the "Catholic side" on to "Protestant territory" thrown be kids who aimed at each other over the divide of what is the "Peacewall" through that unpeaceful park.
This excursion into the work of the Corrymeela Community within Belfast, was part of the exposure program of a consultation for which the World Council of Churches had called Peace Educators from all regions and conflict zones in the world together. The aim being, to reflect together methodologies for peace education conflict management and mediation. The situations, from where participants came ranged from ethnic-religious conflicts in Fiji, via the Bangsa Moro Liberation struggle in Mindanao Philippines. the conflict in Sri Lanka and post genocide Rwanda, the conflict in the Middle East in particular Palestine, to the situation of battered women in Rumania. the conflicts of majority populations with the indigenous First Nations in Canada, to civil war stricken Columbia.
Within the framework World Council of Churches Decade to Overcome Violence this Consultation of is the first Networking Consultation and the first Networking Consultation on Peace Education on a global ecumenical level ever organised by the Council. It is organised by the team on Education and Ecumenical Formation, together with the WCC desk for Peace Concerns. The aim of the meeting is to strengthen co-operation and mutual commitment, leading to an interactive network for exchange of methodologies, but first of all of stories of success and distress, among each other.
Melhem has started to work on a plan to do a camp for protestant and catholic children from Belfast, with Lebanese Children. Like him others have taken a lot of learning from the context of Belfast and the work of the Redemptorist Community as well as Corrymeela Community or ISE. They came to Ireland as strangers and they left as a close net of mutually committed, among each other, as well as with those in Northern Ireland who work for a Future for Peace which will enable people here like anywhere to live across divides, without the fear of the different.

Dr. Gert Rueppell
Education and Ecumenical Formation 
World Council of Churches