| Peacebuilding and Development Institute promotes activist spirit BY ADRIENNE FRANK
Photo by Jeff Watts
Saji Prelis, right, graduated from AU in 2001 with a
master’s in international peace and conflict resolution. Below, students converse at the Peace Café and participate in an event focused on the atrocities in Darfur.
 Photos courtesy of Saji Prelis
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Growing up in Sri Lanka, Saji Prelis ’01 saw firsthand the ugly side of human nature. The violence and brutality of the early 1980s “left their mark on me,” he says. Two decades later, as program director of the School of International Service’s (SIS) Peacebuilding and Development Institute, it’s Prelis’s turn to leave his mark. “This is the loudest office in this building,” he says of the institute’s small Clark Hall office. “And I mean that in a very positive way. The interns, the volunteers, all have that activist spirit in us, and we’re all committed to improving the lives of the people around us. It’s something that comes from the heart.” In 2001 Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer, with Prelis helping, founded the
institute to create a professional training program that would focus both on peace building and development—something of a revolutionary idea. “Peace cannot be achieved without social and economic development, and development cannot be successfully implemented without peace,” says Abu-Nimer. “But at the time, the two fields really didn’t talk to one another,” adds Prelis. Fusing the two was something new and, for Prelis, something intriguing.
“Incorporating the concept of peace building made a lot of sense to me, given my life experiences.” The first summer program in 2001 attracted 49 professionals from such far flung organizations as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations, World Vision, and other nonprofits and grassroots organizations. Enrollment has increased every summer and has brought a total of about 400 people from around the globe to AU for a week of training, academic work, and networking. “Many of these people live and work in conflict areas; they see so much,” says Prelis of the participants, who come from countries like Colombia, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Bosnia. “So for them, this is like a retreat. “And then, there are the AU students who are learning about conflicts in these countries and really looking at the theories behind them,” he continues. “The summer institute is a great opportunity for both groups to interact.” Participants are immersed in an intense, week-long program. Classes run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and are taught by lawyers, activists, journalists, mediators, and AU professors—all of whom have hands-on field experience. The curriculum is ever evolving to adapt to new world challenges, but includes religion and culture in conflict resolution, political negotiation in Latin America, and arts approaches to peace building and development. This summer, the institute will also offer a course on the media’s role in peace building, focusing on embedded reporters. Evenings are filled with grant-writing workshops, networking receptions hosted by area nonprofits, and visits to Washington cultural attractions. Participants can also retreat to the Peace Café, a coffee lounge. Prelis’s eyes light up when he describes how, in three days, he and his team transformed a dance studio into the Peace Café for last summer’s institute. “We brought in couches, carpets, plants, posters, and twinkle lights, and we had music and board games. We just wanted to create a soothing atmosphere that was conducive to rich conversations. “The whole reason I came to AU as a graduate student was the sense of community I felt from everyone at SIS. I felt very much at home,” Prelis continues. “The participants get that same sense of community, only in a very short period of time.” The institute’s steady growth pleases Abu-Nimer, swelling from 49 participants in 2001 to about 170 last summer. “We’ve become widely known among professionals in the areas of peace building and development. And in that way, we’ve brought positive exposure to AU and SIS.” He also has praise for Prelis’s expansion of the institute’s scope. Though the summer program is still the primary focus, the institute, working in conjunction with nongovernmental agencies, is now involved in projects around the globe. A youth division, started by student volunteers in 2003, is working on a child soldiers initiative. Late last year, a panel discussion on the issue, hosted by the group, was broadcast live on the Internet. “We convinced them to hold the event at AU instead of at the U.N. in New York,” says Prelis. “People in six countries, including the U.N. Secretary General, watched that event.” Zack Kassim ’04, a part-time staffer at the institute, is also working on a program that would enable master’s students in the international peace and conflict resolution program to work in the field for three months after their first year of school. “By placing students in the field, it makes what they’re learning in the classroom so much more applicable. Everything they see on the news is happening right in front of them.” Kassim, who volunteered at the institute while in school, says he felt compelled to return after graduation. “If a place gives you so much, as AU has, you have to give something back. That’s what I’m doing.” Prelis and 14 student volunteers are also working with professionals in Indonesia, Kosovo, and Sri Lanka, many of them graduates of the summer program, to establish training, capacity building, and development programs in those countries. “It’s important to do these sorts of programs in the U.S.,” says Prelis. “And it’s just as important to do them in other regions.” As the institute continues to take on more projects, Prelis, 35, says he finds himself spending more time in the office; 12- and 15-hour days aren’t uncommon. “It’s a seven-day-a-week job,” he says with a laugh. And Prelis isn’t the only one working long hours. “It’s a collaborative effort; this place wouldn’t run without our volunteers.” 
Students from the 2004 summer institute.
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