Bio

Naomi Enns is the director of LCC’s Center for Dialogue and Conflict Transformation (Peace Center) and an instructor in Conflict and Peacebuilding Studies for the faculty of International Relations and Development. Naomi is a grassroots peacebuilder and trauma practitioner grounded in the Anabaptist Mennonite faith tradition. She holds a graduate certificate in Humanitarian Action Leadership from Eastern Mennonite University with a focus on conflict and peace formation.  She is a Well Gates Scholar with a Master of Education degree from Central Michigan University. Her thesis researched adult narrative teaching modalities with marginalized communities and vulnerable persons experiencing conflict in Ndjamena, Chad.  Naomi also has a Bachelor of Science Registered Nursing (BSRN) degree from California State University Fresno. With over 20 years of experience in community health nursing and capacity building, Naomi has taught at the University of Manitoba and Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Naomi has extensive NGO international leadership expertise having lived in fragile societies in Africa and the Middle East. Naomi engages students as an instructor, peacebuilder, and humanitarian practitioner skilled in empowering communities and training others in Conflict Transformation, Community Health, and Trauma Resiliency. Originally from the USA, Naomi is a resident of Canada, married for 37 years to her husband Douglas with three adult children and two grandchildren. Naomi has more than a decade of extensive grassroots contextual experience in peacebuilding, conflict transformation, nurturing dialogue processes that empower communities, leading workshops in peacemaking and trauma resiliency, providing leadership and program oversight while mentoring NGO partners and staff in relief, development, and peacebuilding in countries such as Chad, Lebanon, Syria and over a dozen countries throughout Europe.  In Europe, Naomi’s NGO leadership nurtured networks for multiple peace centers and partnerships towards healing divisions through human encounters. 
 
Naomi’s recent publications include: “Connecting the Cycle at Both Ends: Engaging Donors in a European Context” in THE HUMANITARIAN MACHINE: REFLECTIONS IN PRACTICE, Routledge, 2021, “Réflexions sur la construction de ponts de Paix et de Résilience,” CHRIST SEUL JOURNAL,  France, Août/Septembre Edition 2020. Naomi is a reflective humanitarian peace builder and trained trauma practitioner who is passionate about building bridges between academic theory and praxis and the use of creative engagement and dialogical processes to build shared understandings between cultures and communities of conflict.