Finding Common Points for Peacebuilding

In May, we sponsored Sawsan Shehadeh to travel to the US and attend a course at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute in Harrisonburg, VA. All expenses were paid from NPI’s education fund. Sawsan Shehadeh is Deputy Director of Nursing Studies at Nazareth School of Nursing, where she has worked since 1986. She grew up in Nazareth, where she now lives with her husband,Ghassan. They have a daughter, Lana, and a son Ehab.

I was enriched by the variety among students at the Institute and impressed by their drive for peacebuilding. 104 people attended this session, and many were sponsored by grants from NGOs or the US government. The program brought people from other conflict areas- Algeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and Pakistan, to name a few. Seeing so many young people, young women especially, interested in peacemaking, gave me hope for the future.

Sawsan Shehadeh, second from left, with classmates at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, Harrisonburg, Virginia

I found myself drawn as well to other courses and topics offered at the Institute, such as Trauma Awareness and Conflict Transformation. There were many good things about my course,Faith-based Peacebuilding. 

Talking and sharing with others was very valuable to me. Upon hearing my nineteen classmates, explain the situations in their countries from their own points of view, things we as outsiders don’t see in the newspaper, I gained clearer understanding of different situations in the world. 

I talked about the difficulties of being a minority within a minority in my country- an Arab among Jews, and an Arab Christian among Arab Muslims. For my classmates and I, talking about our faith in front of others who represent a different group, is something we were raised not to do. However, our instructor, Roy Hange, encouraged this kind of honest sharing among us, and I felt comfortable there to do that. Roy brought us stories from all over the world and encouraged us to share our stories. He used our group-work and discussions as an additional resource, connecting real-life examples to theory. All this helped us understand the common points among our faiths where peacebuilding can occur. 

This experience helped me to be a "religious diplomat". Since I was born, I have lived with Muslims and Jews. I did my nursing studies and university mostly with Jews and with Muslims. I have never had a problem with other faiths, personally. I’ve always looked at people as people- not according to our faith differences. However, what the Peacebuilding Institute has helped me do, is to better understand how others see other faiths, how they see me, and how the points of struggle happen between groups of different faiths.

I recommend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute for my colleagues. Professionally, this experience has strengthened my skills as a peacemaker in the workplace, and enabled me to use constructive methods and not rely solely on my own experience and knowledge. When students from all faiths come to me, I draw from their own faith backgrounds to encourage them, Sawsan Shehadeh (second from left) pictured with fellow SPI students from USA, Jordan, and Iraq approaching them through their own points of view. I share with them according to my own faith, as well. For example, I explain to them that, “according to my faith, you have to forgive. When you forgive, you are released”.

My faith identity asks me to be a peace-maker. My vision for my community here in Israel is that people from different faiths will see that there is a possibility to make peace. I hope that they will learn to accept and respect others from different faiths. 

In each faith,there are points on which you can build. Once you understand that it is okay to have a different faith, and you have accepted that, then you can look for those points, and you can begin peacebuilding.

-Sawsan Shehadeh, Deputy Director, Nazareth School of Nursing