International
Peacebuilding beyond Northern Ireland
Since our founding we have worked in the Balkans, Africa, Asia and North America — capacity building, leadership training and conflict management, always in partnership with local communities and organisations.
A methodology of our own
Dialogue for Peaceful Change was a methodology for managing conflict in communities, developed by TIDES in partnership with the Oikos Foundation, the Ecumenical Association of Academies and Laity Centres in Europe, OIKOSNET, and The Vesper Society in North America.
From 2006 we delivered DPC workshops in Zimbabwe, Romania, Northern Ireland, Ghana, the United States and Canada. The programme is no longer running.
Where we have worked
A selection. Each of these was delivered with local partners rather than parachuted in.
Balkans
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Training youth workers in reconciliation and group work with PRONI from 2003, and conflict management for the OSCE Human Rights Department from 2004, delivered with the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.
Caucasus
Georgia
Mediation and negotiation training for the OSCE Human Rights Department across 2005, again in partnership with Bradford.
Balkans
Kosovo
From 2001 with Concern Worldwide in the Peja/Pec region, including the Serb enclave of Gorazdevac. The team we trained grew from six people to nearly forty, and five programmes were established. Later expanded across Kosovo with Care International.
Balkans
Macedonia
Youth worker training incorporating group skills and reconciliation, in collaboration with Swedish universities and PRONI.
Africa
Sudan
Conflict management within a food security programme for German AgroAid, linked to Do No Harm and rights-based approaches.
Asia
Pakistan
From 2003 with Concern Worldwide, an intensive mediation training programme supporting work with 80,000 refugees across four camps on the Pakistan–Afghanistan border near Chaman.
Training the trainers, and the institutions
Our staff have been part of the team delivering the Kennedy Institute’s Common Security & Defence Policy Mediation course under the auspices of the European Security and Defence College, for United Nations peacebuilding officials.
We have worked with Washington & Jefferson College training teachers and students in conflict resolution and mediation, and with Mediators Beyond Borders International training women leaders from the Middle East and North Africa, with further mediation training delivered in Turkey, Romania and Brazil.
Closer to home, we have delivered mediation training to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, St Mary’s University College, Family Mediation NI and the Housing Executive.
It is first-hand knowledge, live case experience and practical mediation on contentious interfaces that we bring into the training room.
Why it transfers
The credibility of this work rests on the fact that the people delivering it still mediate. Experience in Belfast informs the work in Kosovo, and the reverse is equally true.
Next step
Working with us internationally
We work with NGOs, international agencies and academic partners. If you are considering a programme, start with a conversation about context — that is what determines whether any of this transfers.