On Jan 30th to February 2nd,  our peace Center for Dialogue and Conflict Transformation held a Dialogue for Peaceful Change (DPC) training. 12 individuals from various Lithuanian NGOs, the Tampere Peace Research Institute,  and students and staff from LCC International University received their accredited DPC-Global diplomas for participating and developing skills in a 4-day training on navigating conflict and change and empathic mediative communication put on by trainers Naomi Enns, Colin Craig and Douglas Enns.

“DPC was a truly transformative experience. That is the idea I left the closing ceremony with. Starting from exploring the biology of conflict, finishing with the real-life practical skills is what this is about.” remarked a fourth year International Relations and Development LCC Student.

The student continued to share “ Let me reflect a little bit on it. I remember quite well the quote of our coach Colin Craig who said, “LCC has got so many needs and so many fracture lines” and seeing people willing to learn and develop in the direction of peaceful change is just inspiring.

We live in a time of constant conflict where each day comes with a certain cost and our community unfortunately knows it quite well. The number of conflicts and trauma everyone is going through in their everyday life is terrifying. However, there must be hope and strength to end the cycle of suffering, and to start moving towards peace, obviously when it is possible.”

 DPC was all about it, there was no pressure, no fear, no anger, just desire to learn how to move forward, how to make the right way, how to do it peacefully.