Between 15-16th May 2012, the ASHA Centre held its ‘Peace and Change: Building the Peace-Able Community’ training course.
The Peace & Change course was based on a few basic foundations, namely:
1. Everyone deserves health and happiness, not just the many or the few
2. We belong to a single human family
3. We can cooperate and not just compete
4. The essence of leadership is service
5. Anyone can make a difference for the better
6. The ends and the means are the same i.e. “we must be the change we wish to see in the world”
Participants were taught that such foundations are more than just ideals, but ways to reference their own behavior. If we truly believe that we belong to a single human family, what does that mean with how we interact with each other, how we treat each other, how we care for and respect each other? If we look at number six, if the thing that we want in a relationship is more kindness, then we ourselves must be kind; if we want to see cooperation, we ourselves must cooperate; if we want a group to be
calm, we ourselves need to be calm; if we want someone to understand us, then we need to be understanding.
The course focused on Peace and Change in two ways. Firstly, by helping to develop and access the inner resources of the individual/leader. This helped the individuals become aware of what is going on within them, their intent, their visions, their actions. It helped them to draw more fully on the whole
range of capabilities and energies in creating peace and change from the inside out. Through the development of awareness, it helped them to stay fresh and strong in the service of the need in front of them. Secondly, the programme helped to deliver the skills and abilities required to deliver this
change in practice. These are the abilities to manage people, set up tasks and projects and ensure delivery, and to develop and grow the people who work with and around them while creating change.
To create peace and change requires the understanding of and engagement with people individually and in society and the ability to work with this understanding in the service of one’s own society.
Participants in this programme were taught to be able to meet the needs of the community and society in which they live through service as transformational leaders, and help to bring about change which uplifts those it touches.