After 15 fruitful years since its inception and three successful cohorts of Peace Work Institute, YMCA Europe Roots for Peace is embarking on a new journey towards peace. Preparations for the first roots expert pool meeting is completed and the team of experts will travel to Tirana, Albania, on the 7th of November, where for four days they will have an introduction into future plans and start preparing for the upcoming collaborations with different NGOs and projects.
15 individuals from our much larger expert pool connected online ahead of our first event for this initiative in Tirana, Albania. They were formally welcomed by Eglantina Lula (General Secretary) and heard more about the sessions and content from presenters and staff.
The Roots, and especially its Peace Work Institute component, has by now achieved a state where the issue is no longer to form an expert pool for the Peace Work Institute participants but rather how to form an expert pool with the Peace Work Institute alumni. In addition to learning through Peace Work Institute, its alumni meanwhile have gained experience doing local community peace work. On top of it, all of them also bring their professionalism in different fields (teachers, social workers, IT, communication, arts, business and NGO management, etc.) to the Roots. This is a huge resource to be tapped for implementing the Roots activities as well as organising post-event support, accompaniment, and encouragement.
Out of 71 Peace Work Institute alumni selected, 15 will be invited to the Pool of Experts, with replenishment as a possibility based on availability, commitment and capacity. Annual Upskilling Workshops will be organised for them, also involving external expertise on special topics. The final year Workshop will focus on the project Reflecting on Peace Practices process analysis.
The members of the Pool of Experts will be involved in the facilitation of the project components and key activities as narrated below. This component will also contain a “helping-the-helpers” approach, as most of the experts will be coming from war affected or conflict prone situations, such as Armenia (incl. Karabakh), Georgia, Russia and Ukraine, etc.
