Media.Knet.Ca

Three Turning Point volunteers: Victoria Freeman, Mary Alice Smith, Dorothy Christian and a colleague, Jessie Sutherland, were invited to attend the Caux conference by Initiatives of Change Canada. Ms. Sutherland had attended Caux for five weeks in the summer of 2002 as a ‘Caux scholar’ and recommended Turning Point volunteers as speakers and delegates to the August 12-17 , 2003 conference. The conference provided an opportunity to share lessons learned in working with K-Net and the Turning Point web environment.

See the report from the conference written by Mary Alice Smith.

Ms. Freeman and Smith are founding coordinator/moderators. Dorothy Christian was invited as an Advisor to the Turning Point website, at its inception, and has been the main volunteer moderator of the Talking Circle for the past year. After visiting the website in January 2003, Jessie Sutherland contacted us to explore our shared interests in reconciliation between indigenous and settler peoples in Canada.

The conference host, Initiatives of Change, was founded as the ‘Moral Rearmament’ movement in the 1930’s. It is a global network of "people of different faiths engaged in the every-day process of ‘remaking the world’". IOC , maintained largely by volunteers and donations with a minimum of structured organization, "helps people to become agents of change, using their homes, through conferences, seminars, training courses, publications, music and stage productions, or some other action to address a need in their community or country. " (see attached appendices/handouts from IOC for further background).

The conference theme for the week that we attended was ‘Conflict Prevention through Human Security" responding to the 1993 UNDP Development Report. Over fifty countries were represented - "a very eclectic mix of peoples from diverse cultures, faiths, nationalities and age groups."

The invitation letter outlined the theme as follows:

• Understanding peoples’ fears and needs, and preventing outbreaks of violence can break the vicious cycle of insecurity and violence. Prevention depends on many things, including acknowledgement of past wrongs and current fears, addressing root causes, rectifying serious imbalances in the quality of life experienced, and improving environmental sustainability.
• The significance of this theme in Caux is to express how personal experience and insight can help to further the notion of human security. Central to this is the necessity for interaction amongst conference participants, and between speakers and their audience.