Peace Skills

The Peace Skills: Manual for Community Mediators is a hands-on resource for leaders who seek to be agents of reconciliation by responding proactively to painful differences within their communities. The Peace Skills Set (which includes the Leaders' Guide and Manual for Community Mediators) describes skills and strategies to help individuals, organizations, and communities in conflict talk things through and become stronger in the process.

Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction xv
Overview of the manual xvii
Thoughts About Peace and Transformation xviii
Section One: Assumptions about Conflict and the Role of Peacebuilders 1
1 Assumptions about Conflict 3
2 Understanding Conflict and the Role of Mediation 12
Section Two: Introduction to Mediation 23
3 Mediation: A Tool for Empowering Others 25
4 Before Mediation: Laying the Foundation 32
5 The Introduction Stage: Providing Safety 38
6 The Story-Telling Stage: Offering Understanding 43
7 The Problem-Solving Stage: Building Joint Ownership 51
8 Additional Tools for Problem Solving 66
9 The Agreement Stage: Seeking Sustainability 75
10 Moving Toward Reconciliation: Letting Go of the Past 81
Section Three: Communication Skills and Tools 85
11 Listening Skills 87
12 Language in Mediation 94
13 Emotions in Conflict 101
Section Four: Building Peace in Communities 105
14 Designing a Peacebuilding Process 107
Notes 119
Appendix: Additional Reading About Conflict Transformation 123
The Authors 125
About Plowshares 127
About the conflict Transformation program 129
Index 131