Dear friends of mediation,
We wish you a happy and inspiring 2018! “May this year be bright, colourful and multifaceted for all of us!”
On this occasion, we would like to thank all our partners for the fruitful exchange and successful cooperations which we hope to continue in 2018. Also many thanks to our 2017 interns: Anna Emil, Sina Scheibel, Harutyan Voskanyan and Nelly Seilacher.
In this letter, we look forward to the year ahead, with a reminder about the Multitrack Peace Mediation Training course and the available scholarships.
As a member of the Initiative Mediation Support Germany (IMSD), we are happy that we will have the opportunity to continue our joint efforts to support and consult with the German Foreign Office on an extended and more systematic use of mediation in German foreign policy in 2018. Among other activities, the IMSD has drafted a recommendation paper for the anticipated German coalition talks. The paper suggests future steps to systematically implement the mediation related aspects of the German Government’s new policy guidelines on “Preventing crises, managing conflicts, building peace”, published in June 2017 . Currently, we are handing over the rotating coordination of the IMSD to CSSP – Berlin Center for Integrative Mediation. We would like to express our gratitude to Laura Hunder, who managed the IMSD coordination last year and has supported the inmedio team since 2014. She will move on to new challenges in February 2018. Thank you, Laura! We will miss you dearly and wish you all the best for the future.
Furthermore, we hope to be able to continue our support for dialogue and the networking of dialogue actors in Ukraine, as well as – after a one-year pause – in South Caucasus and Nepal . We may have the opportunity to support inter-communal cohesion in Myanmar and introduce the sha:re approach in Sri Lanka. Moreover, after a year of intensive outreach activities, we hope to start implementing a Russian-German dialogue on ‘Steps towards a meta-narrative on what went wrong since the end of the Cold War’.
Most of these activities will now be handled by inmedio peace consult ggmbh, our newly formed not-for-profit company.
Starting in March 2018, we will be running our 15-day Multitrack Peace Mediation training course for the sixth time, in collaboration with CSSP. The trainers will be Ljubjana Wuestehube, Dirk Splinter, Christoph Luettmann, Norbert Ropers and Ambassador Guenther Baechler. We are currently accepting registrations. As always, we offer two scholarships, covering the course fees. If you would like to apply or recommend a person from the Global South or a conflict-affected region who is in a relevant position to utilize mediation skills, please let us know by 18 January.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or feedback.
With very best wishes from the inmedio berlin and inmedio peace consult team
Laura Hunder, Elisa Kassin, Holger Specht, Dirk Splinter, Willibald Walter and Ljubjana Wuestehube