The Challenge of Peacebuilding for Ex-Prisoners and Ex-Combatants

I would like to start by this discussion by reading two poems. It may seem odd to read poetry as the way to initiate some ideas about the challenge of peacebuilding for ex-prisoners and ex-combatants, but in this case both poems capture an actual conversation, one from this context in Northern Ireland and one from Nicaragua. They provide for us some starting points…

The poems written a decade ago from conversations in two very different places of the world have a commonality and a near timeless relevance because in the simplicity of an ordinary conversation they pose perplexing questions: How do people and communities caught in cycles of violence heal? How does genuine change happen that moves people and whole societies from patterns of violent to constructive interaction?…