Cynthia is the Founder and President of everyday gandhis® project. For fifteen years prior to founding everyday gandhis®, Cyndi was a consultant offering bilingual mediation and conflict resolution training for schools and organizations in California and New Mexico. She produced a series of award-winning educational videos with teacher's guides on mediation with children ("The Breakthrough....choosing a new road", winner of the National Educational Media Network Silver Apple Award.) Cyndi is a graduate of the College of Creative Studies, University of California Santa Barbara, and holds a Master's Degree in Human development and a K-12 Teaching Credential from Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California. She has studied conflict transformation with John Paul Lederach and at the Eastern Mennonite University Conflict Transformation Program. In January 1999, Cyndi enrolled in a course at the Conflict Transformation Program at the Eastern Mennonite University. She was astounded when she heard the stories of the peacebuilding work that was happening in high conflict regions all over the world. That summer, she returned with a cameraman to begin recording the stories of these 'everyday gandhis®'. Intending to tape three interviews, she returned with fourteen. That was the beginning of the everyday gandhis® project. Founded in 1999, everyday gandhis® project is a 501 C (3) non-profit corporation seeking to tell the story of how peace is created. Based in Santa Barbara, California, the work of the everyday gandhis is focused at this time on the unfolding story of peace in war-torn West Africa, particularly, Liberia. To this end, they are supporting and documenting several strategic, community-based peacebuilding initiatives, with an emphasis on indigenous peacemaking, and traditional mourning and community-building ceremonies. Everyday ghandis has equipped and trained five grassroots camera teams in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana to document stories of peacemaking and to create a living narrative of peace in the region. These teams form the peace media initiative known as Peace News Network, PNN™. In close partnership with the Liberia Chapter of the West Africa Network for Peace Building, everyday ghandis recently opened an office and digital editing facility in Monrovia, Liberia. William is everyday ghandis West Africa Program Coordinator and first Peacebuilder-in-Residence at everyday gandhis® project. His work is presently rooted in West Africa, particularly his home-country Liberia where the everyday gandhis® project is working with local groups, mainly women and traditional healers (ZOs) to support the reviving of indigenous cultural practices through traditional mourning and feasting ceremonies at the community level. As a Trauma Healing specialist, William has extensive and impressive background in community reconciliation and peace building and has worked closely with several communities on issues relating to trauma healing, peace and reconciliation. He coordinates five peace media teams in West Africa, based in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Northern Ghana and the Buduburam Refugee Camp near Accra, Ghana. Through this peace media collaborative which is a joint initiative of the everyday gandhis® project and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), several grassroots peacebuilders have the opportunity to view and tell the stories of peacebuilding in their own words. The goal is to infuse stories of peacebuilding in the 'mainstream media'. As Peacebuilder-in-Residence, his work aims specifically at educating the local community in Santa Barbara and within the United States about peacebuilding experiences and its principles. William is eager and available for lectures and workshops in schools, for appearances and interviews with the media, and for conversations and discussion groups with civic organizations. Abroad, William has participated in and conducted numerous training workshops in Peacebuilding in a number of countries in Africa and Europe. In 2003, he served at the regional West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) Secretariat based in Ghana as Program Coordinator for the Capacity Building Program in Conflict Prevention, Good Governance and Peacebuilding for Civil Society Organizations and ECOWAS in West Africa; he was research fellow and visiting trainer to the Responding to Conflict Programme in Birmingham, UK in 2002; and in 2000, he was guest lecturer in the African Studies course at the International People's college in Denmark. Prior to that, William was Chief Trainer of the Trauma Healing, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding project of the Lutheran World Federation in Liberia, working with traumatized victims of the brutal and devastating civil war in Liberia. Bridging's website is: http://www.HeavenToEarth.com Bridging's International Healing Art Project website is: http://www.HeavenToEarthArt.com

• published: 20 Jun 2007
• views: 3599