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Daniel Zylbersztajn
B.A. hon. (SOAS),  M.A. (Goldsm.),  M.Sc. (Brunel),
Member of NUJ for PR / Press

Oxford Group

Oxford Friends Of Neve Shalom-Wahat al Salam (NS-WaS)

Peace is Possible
An Open Forum
Chaired by Bruce Kent,

Vice Chair of The Movement for the Abolition of War

The Friends’ Meeting House, Oxford
Sunday 17th May 2009 at 6pm - 8.30pm

Free Tickets available from the Friends’ Meeting House, from 1st May
Donations Welcome, to bring NS-WaS children to Woodstock

Joining Bruce on the panel will be:
Susan Denton-Brown, Chair of the Gandhi Foundation
Iman Monawar Hussain, from the Oxford Central Mosque, mentor, and teacher; has led a number of groundbreaking initiatives in the fields of peace and interfaith education
Lisa Slater, Headteacher, Woodstock C.E. Primary School, which maintains a friendship link with NS-WaS Primary School.

6.00 Welcome and Introduction

6.15 to 7.15 Bruce Kent, Susan Denton-Brown, Imam Monawar Hussain, and Lisa Slater will each speak for 15 minutes about their involvement with peace issues.

Break for refreshments
Time for discussion about issues aired and questions to ask the panel

7.45 to 8.30 Any Questions chaired by Bruce Kent


Profiles of Panel Speakers:
BRUCE KENT needs little introduction. For most people he has, since the 1980s and before, been the most dynamic, deeply involved and high profile peace activist in Great Britain. Some of us are old enough to have been inspired by him when he was General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. His many appearances on TV and radio have made him a household name. For the last 10 years he has been committed 'Movement for the Abolition of
War' (MAW) of which he is the current Vice President

SUSAN DENTON-BROWN first became associated with Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam (NSW-aS) in 1988 when, as Head of RE and Citizenship at Tanbridge House School in Horsham, she was asked to pilot and promote an education project 'Dealing With Conflict', based on the conflict transformation methodology of the School For Peace based in NS-WaS. She has maintained strong links with the village and was herself trained there to be a facilitator between groups in conflict. An advocate of non-violent approaches to conflict and education for peace, she won a Farmington Fellowship at Harris Manchester College in 2002 to research the life and teachings of Mohandas Gandhi, and their relevance to current global issues. After several years of association with the Gandhi Foundation she now has the role of Chair.

LISA SLATER Head Teacher of Woodstock CE Primary School writes "Our School has enjoyed links with the Primary School in NS-WaS for five years, and we are proud to have this special and very privileged connection. As educators we have the capacity to influence attitudes and challenge perceptions. The link between our two schools actively promotes community cohesion and working towards a society in which there is a common vision and sense of belonging. We want our children to appreciate and value the diversity of people's backgrounds and circumstances. Our work with NS-WaS Primary School provides a real context for Citizenship Education within our curriculum, and to developing a shared understanding. Having gained at a personal level from visiting NS-WaS, I believe a reciprocal visit from pupils at their primary school would benefit not just the pupils involved, but the wider communities of both schools."

IMAM MONAWAR HUSSAIN read Theology at Oxford University majoring in Islam and the West. He trained as an Imam at the Muslim College in London. Monawar has spoken at many educational institutions and forums throughout the UK and has taken part in several TV documentaries about Muslims in Europe. He is currently trialling a programme he devised himself entitled 'The Oxford Muslim Pupils Empowerment Programme', seeking to engage Muslim pupils within a school context, that has been highlighted nationally by government. He is also the Muslim tutor at Eton College. He served as a commissioner on the 'Commission for the Future of Volunteering', and continues to support the work of volunteers in England. Passionate about interfaith work, he has led on a number of groundbreaking initiatives in the fields of interfaith and peace education.

Day Workshop for Teachers & Education Profs. Brighton 24/4- Conflict- Mediation-Community Cohesion-Global Ed.

British Friends of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al Salam is a genuine UK registered
charity that provides training for teachers amongst others.
Please forward to Head of RE, Head of History, and headteacher!
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Forthcoming Workshops
24/04 Brighton


I am writing to you about a unique opportunity for teachers to take part in our workshop on 24th of April 2009 in Brighton. We offer the only resource that properly addresses the Israeli / Palestinian conflict and at the same time offers conflict resolution skills to teachers and students alike. You may have heard about us before, but since then we have been praised by a variety of bodies. As such we have only last month been recommended by TES "Peace Teachings on Gaza", and the NUT International team, who carried out research on resources regarding conflict in the Middle East.


Daniel Zylbersztajn
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Event Description

Encounter in Conflict (SfP - Wahat al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom)

A one day workshop introducing the method of encounter used in the School for Peace (SfP) in Wahat al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom (between Palestinians and Jews), as well as practically proposing unique suggestions for your own teaching here in Britain.


For attending teachers and youth workers our fully approved British education resource, "Dealing With Conflict" will be provided, which was featured in The Times Educational Supplement (TES 1990, and Feb. 2009), R.E. Today (summer 2008), and is recommended by a variety of professional bodies like DEA (Global Dimensions), DFES (for R.E.) and NUT (Teaching the Conflict in the Middle East Feb. 09).

This is a most rewarding one day injection of thought for anyone working with groups that are unbalanced and sometimes in conflict. It will give you practical skills that can be applied in a variety of learning environments. To your own students in class it will allow thinking through questions of complex identity, gives comprehension that one event may have different versions of experience and interpretation, it gives them conflict resolution and mediation skills, and a wider global outlook.
Our Teaching resource pack is line with the National School Curriculum Guidelines in keystage 3-5 in the following subject fields:

Citizenship Art
RE Geography
History Literature

Amongst others the education pack includes the only bi-national chronology in English of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict for UK school use, composed in meetings. The pack gives the general Jewish perspective on one side, and the general Palestinian on the other, which teaches students straight away that there are more than one version to each story.

Concepts could be used to fulfil schools obligations in:

Community Cohesion Mediation Skills
Interfaith Global Citizenship

The course will include:

1. Introduction to the method of the School for Peace in Palestinian / Jewish encounter. These include work with unbalances of power-relations between the participants in dialogue, based on post-colonial and psychological model theories as well as questions regarding the interpersonal and the inter group conflict.

2. Thinking behind the concepts disconnected from the Middle East as to what this could mean for your work here.

3. Examples and grasping of concepts from the teaching resource through physical role play.

4. Introduction to the Teaching Resource Dealing with Conflict and highlighting of its strengths.

5. Lesson planning for teachers using Dealing With Conflict

5. Networking with wide range of teachers and related professionals.

Your trainers are Susan Denton Brown, a former Head Teacher and current acting director of the Gandhi Foundation and Daniel Zylbersztajn who is amongst others also a trained mediator and studied violence on doctoral level at UCL until recently.


When?
Brighton, Friends House, Ship Street: April 24th 9.30-17.00

Bookings are requested beforehand, and the rate for a one day workshop is only £70 / £50 (concessions) including the full print teaching pack and lunch. This rate is severely reduced due to funding from an outside body, the normal costs would be in teh region of 300 Pounds.

More details: here (http://www.oasisofpeaceuk.org/5-dwc-01.htm)

and http://sfpeace.org/


Last not least the resource can also be acquired outside the workshop, on its own.


For more details get in contact without hesitation

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Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al Salam introduced to Shropshire

Benita Hide, the director of British Friends of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al Salam was interviewed live on air on BBC Shropshire on the 15th of February 2009 by Mike George on BBC Sunday Breakfast. Mike was curious about the fact that there was a place, where hate was not the norm and asked Benita about her personal feelings regarding the village. She explained that it was a tranquil place that made her feel at home. Asked what the secret of the village of peace was, she responded by stating it was simply to keep the dialogue open. It made great and encouraging listening to anyone on that Sunday morning. Benita Hide was in Shropshire as a guest to an interfaith conference organized by the Diocese of Hereford the day before, where she was scheduled as a reporter from a place of hope.

CPD for Teachers

February 2009

For immediate Release:

Teachers and Schools offered Dealing with Conflict Programme

We are looking for schools and teachers to work with!


Our teaching pack is suited for Citizenship Education, Community Cohesion, RE, History, English
and Geography.

We offer a number of options of training

a.) two-three hour seminar for teachers on location (e.g. 16.00-18.00) explaining how to use the pack creatively.
b.) a training day for individual teachers on the 9th of March 2009 in central London 9.30-17.00 (with teachers from other schools)
c.) direct work with your young children with our trainer
d.) bespoke special training (for example a series of two shorter workshops)

Details: Our teaching resource is ideal to help students to learn and think about conflict.

The pack has been especially designed for the use in Citizenship Education, RE, History, Geography, and English. Dealing with Conflict is tied in with all learning outcome requirements of key stage
3, 4 and 5.

It suits extremely well all learning areas of community cohesion, inter-faith, and inter-cultural education, as well as intra-religious, and intra-cultural work.

The pack has been recommended amongst others by DEA for global education, in RE Today, the Citizenship Foundation and recently the Association of Citizenship Education.

The entire resource is built upon the work of one of the most famous conflict resolution centres between Arabs and Jews, the School for Peace (SfP), itself based in a one of a kind peace village that runs by the Hebrew / Arabic double name Wahat-al Salam~Neve Shalom which means Oasis of Peace. For nearly 40 years Jews and Arabs have chosen to live together there, and the SfP has been running encounter workshops for young people across the divide for nearly 30 years. Very unique ways of working with people have evolved there. Detailed information on this can be found in Halabi (2004): Israeli and Palestinian identities in Dialogue. Further the village houses a pioneering modern kindergarten and primary school that teaches children bilingually and with respect to accommodating jointly Jewish Israeli and Palestinian cultural needs. Their methods were later adopted by several other schools in the region.

The details about this special place and the infamous conflict between Jews and Arabs itself, which through the teaching resource can be widely illustrated from most subject perspectives (e.g. in English through adding a literature list), are enriched by detailed teachers guidance points, that include nearly 50 suggested games and activities, some abstract, others specific, and all intended to actually discuss issues that affect young people in the schools and classes where the resource is being used, here in London. Work with it can be selective or the entire pack can be taught as a core module.

Some extracts can be viewed on our website www.oasisofoeaceuk.org (select education).

From the beginning in 1999 (this is the second updated 2006 edition) we wanted our resource to be accompanied by training that allows teachers to pick up on basic mediation skills, creative thinking around the subject, and back-ground details. All workshops are led by Susan Denton Brown, a former Head of Religious Education, who is also a trained conflict facilitator for Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam, and nonviolence trainer for the Gandhi Foundation.

If you think this could be of interest I'd be happy to discuss your favourite option from above with you (seminar on location, training with other teachers, etc...).
Below you will find a list of links that tell you more about Wahat al Salam ~ Neve Shalom, the education resource and the School for Peace.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
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1. Who is Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al Salam? Wahat-Al Salam ~ Neve Shalom
2. 10 Minute Video about Wahat al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom
   
3. Binational / Bilingual Primary School of Wahat al Salam 1.)First Lessons In Peace
   2.) Inspirations of Peace
4. TES Review 2008 Peace Teachings on Gaza
5. RE Today Summer 2008, p. 60
6. TES Review 2000 Dealing with Conflict
7. What is the School for Peace? School for Peace
8. Who are British Friends of Wahat al Salam ~ Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace) Oasis of peace
9. General Press: Church Times, Radio Four Midweek (select 21st of May) , BBC World Wide TV (27th May) , BBC World Service (20th May and June 08 Persian Service), Radio Netherland, Daily Telegraph
10. Susan Denton Brown Article (opens pdf) and Daniel Zylbersztajn

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Dealing with Conflict Information on our website:

Training and Facilitation

Introduction to The Resources

Details

Samples

The Editors

Letter of support from BF NSWAS

British Friends of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam

January 2009

Dear Dorit,

On behalf of the British Friends of Neve Shalom Wahat al-Salam, we on the Committee of the British Friends want you to know that we are united with you and all the members of the Village at this difficult time. We can only imagine the tensions that you were living under as the conflict deepened. We all place our hope now in the cease-fire that has been announced by both sides.

We are proud that the Village is a beacon for co-existence and for peaceful methods of conflict resolution in Israel-Palestine and we realise that the work we support there is even more vital today when violence is often the first resort to differences. We know that the children in the Village are receiving the best possible foundation for living with "the other" as they learn each other's language and religious customs and we applaud the groundbreaking work achieved by the School for Peace in teaching non-violent means of conflict resolution, as well as the interfaith work of the Pluralistic Spiritual Centre. The British Friends are in the process of reaching many teachers, educators and community leaders in this country, spreading the methods used at the School for Peace.

We keep you in our thoughts during these days and wish you every blessing during this coming year.

With our best wishes,

Philip Rueff, Chairman

On behalf of the Committee

Oasis of Peace UK is British Friends of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam

This is the new noticeboard of the British Friends of Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al Salam or Oasis of Peace UK.