As the CEO of TLEX Institute, which trains leaders from global agencies, Fortune 100 companies and governments in fragile states, I have seen how conflict and power struggles can become embedded in how people operate.

Even seasoned progressive leaders can struggle to disentangle identities, cultures and systems from cycles of retaliation and aggression. For the past 16 years, I have observed how global humanitarian and spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of Living Foundation, creates space for authentic dialogue and peace-building in Colombia, Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and India. Sri Sri brings expertise in how the human mind, emotions and spirit function across religion and culture, which finds its roots not in Western psychology, but in centuries-old Vedic spiritual principles and practices from India; also the origins of Gandhian principles of ahimsa (non-violence).

1. Expanding capacity for peace through meditation.

When the minds of those involved in generating tactics and solutions for peace are clouded over by resentment about the past or anxiety about an uncertain future, authentic dialogue and trust-building cannot occur. Sri Sri regularly guides all parties – including presidents, activists, religious and cultural leaders, guerrillas and terrorists – in meditation and breathing. Research suggests that meditation improves creativity and cognitive functioning, emotional stability and regulation, and response to stress – with enduring effects on brain function. Through meditation, Sri Sri seems to increase the social-emotional capacity of conflicting sides to engage in dialogue – not by talking about it, but by enabling people with mind-body tools that increase their capacity to hold and process complex emotions and see new possibilities.

2. Deep listening as an act of healing.

When those who question injustice (whether real or perceived) are silenced, made invisible, or misrepresented, anger can amplify into violence. Violence can spark a cycle of retaliation and the original reason for the violence can become lost. Sri Sri shares that “when unanswered questions ferment in the mind, they turn into violence.”

The quality of deep listening Sri Sri exhibits by being fully present and non-judgmental allows people to feel their humanity acknowledged – sometimes the one thing most desperately needed on the path to peace and reconciliation. In a meeting Sri Sri held with young black activists from Baltimore, I observed him fully acknowledge, invite, and listen to each person in the room verbalize their anger and frustration, then guide them in a meditation.

He spoke only a few words, yet by the end of the hour-long meeting, the activists were laying out a vision for a peaceful, racial justice movement.

3. Beyond blame and victimhood.

Whether bringing conflicting sides together into one room or conducting individual meetings, Sri Sri engages all sides of a conflict – leaders, victims and rebels. He moves dialogue from a perspective of victim-perpetrator to one where all involved in cycles of violence are victims. After meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos, Sri Sri was invited to engage with FARC leaders (pictured above). “When you see one is a culprit, you demand them to be punished. When you understand that the culprit is also a victim, for the sake  of peace, we can walk an extra mile,” Sri Sri said. Even if past wrongs cannot be corrected, this orientation seems to open a window of compassion and unlock the posturing of one side versus another, allowing for progress and movement.

Through spiritual practices and frameworks that connect him to the humanity of people across all sides of conflict, Sri Sri opens up new possibilities for those locked in conflict to envision social transformation through peace.

 

What can the business community do to promote peace – and why should it be interested in doing so? After all, is the business of business not business – rather than peace-making?  

The answer, of course, is that business is about more than business: today it is widely accepted that there is a triple bottom line – that businesses do not have a responsibility only to their shareholders but also to the environment and to the well-being of the broader community within which they operate. As it happens, this involves business not only doing the right things – but also promoting its own interests:  in the final analysis peace, social justice and environmental sustainability are also good for business.

Business’s main contribution to human well-being still lies in the role that it plays in promoting economic growth; in providing employment and in paying the taxes that governments use to provide social, education and health services. Despite the current conflicts in the Middle East, the 16 years since the beginning of the millennium have been the most peaceful period in human history. Conflict deaths have dropped from 300 per hundred thousand during World War II to about three per hundred thousand now. There have hardly been any wars between countries during the past decade: nearly all conflict now takes places between religious, ethnic or linguistic communities within the same countries.

Nevertheless, conflict continues to disrupt the lives of  millions of people throughout the world – particularly in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and in several African countries. Neither is there any room for complacency:

• states with nuclear weaponry still possess sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over;
• tensions continue to simmer because of North Korea’s nuclear threat to its neighbors;
• there is growing confrontation between Russia and NATO – particularly in the Ukraine;
• China is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea;
• There are threats to the fragile constitutional settlement in South Africa;
• ISIS and radical Islamists continue to plot terrorist attacks in western countries and foment violence in an arc from West Africa to Afghanistan. 

Business can play a positive role by understanding the causes of conflict that are often found in places of poverty, ignorance, injustice and where there is an inability for people from different racial, cultural and religious communities to coexist peacefully within the same societies. Businesses can combat poverty by helping to create the circumstances in which free markets can flourish. To achieve this, they should encourage governments to adopt sound fiscal and economic policies.

The unhappy reality is that if governments do not get the economic and fiscal basics right it will be difficult to create conditions that are conducive for economic growth and social development. Businesses can help to combat injustice by supporting NGOs that are working for the establishment of sound systems of law, presided over by independent courts – to protect the fundamental civil and political rights and freedoms of citizens. They should also work for sound governance, based on accountability, the integrity of government officials and the elimination of corruption.   

In particular, businesses should work for the entrenchment of democratic systems. It is a simple fact that genuine democracies do not go to war against other democracies.

Conflicts are easy to start – but much harder to end. It’s difficult to help those caught in war zones – such as the victims of the present conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The most we can do is to assist refugees and help as much as we can those who cannot escape.   

Imagine the situation had business been able to help peace-makers prevent the conflict in the first place. Imagine how different the situation would have been had peacemakers been able to persuade then-President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq in 2003.

Perhaps the best example of how business can play a role in promoting peace is that of Alfred Nobel. Although he made his fortune developing explosives that were subsequently used in warfare, he used this fortune to promote peace through the establishment of the Nobel Peace Prize. For more than 100 years the prize has inspired and encouraged peacemakers throughout the world. Every year it has continued to focus international attention on threats to peace and on the need to resolve differences through peaceful means. Mankind has, indeed, made spectacular progress during the past seventy years – we are now living in the most peaceful era in history. However, if we wish to continue to make this progress it will be essential to address the threats to peace whenever and wherever they may arise. Business cannot, and should not, sit on the sidelines of this process.

www.nobelforpeace-summits.org

 

Children’s rights organisation KidsRights has announced the three finalists for the International Children’s Peace Prize 2016.

The prize is awarded annually to a child who fights courageously for children’s rights. Every year, the message of the new young winner has enormous impact and demonstrates to millions of people globally that change is possible. The International Children’s Peace Prize was founded by Marc Dullaert, founder and chair of the KidsRights Foundation. Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus will present the prize to the winner in the Hall of Knights (Ridderzaal) in The Hague, international city of peace and justice, on Friday 2nd December.

The finalists are: Divina Maloum, 12 years old, Cameroon – nominated for her fight against extremist violence in her country; Kehkashan Basu, 16 years old, United Arab Emirates – nominated for her environmental campaigns to protect the environment and Muzoon Almellehan, 18 years old, Syria – nominated for her work promoting girls’ education in refugee camps.

Divina Maloum’s Story

Divina is a 12-year-old girl who lives in Cameroon. After learning about extremist violence and its impact on children, she started a program called ‘I am standing up for peace’. Thousands of children have disappeared in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. They have been separated from their families and are facing exploitation, abuse and recruitment by armed groups as child soldiers. Attacks and suicide bombings in communities are killing children, destroying schools and are sowing fear.

Through the program ‘I am standing up for peace’, Divina stimulates the civic and voluntary engagement of children in the fight against violent extremism. She interviewed 50 children about the dangers of violent extremism and she organized group discussions with children and young people on beliefs and extremist attitudes. Based on her engagement with these children Divina developed the program and it now operates in all ten regions of the country and has reached nearly 5.000 children through awareness raising campaigns and workshops in kindergartens, elementary and high schools. Her goal is to keep the peace in Cameroon and to raise awareness of the dangers of violent extremism and radicalization. In the future, Divina wants to extend the program beyond Cameroon, helping children to become resilient to extremist speech. She wants to be an inspiration in the fight against violent extremism.

 

Muzoon Almellehan’s Story

Muzoon is an 18-year-old girl who comes from Syria. Three years ago, Muzoon and her family were forced to flee their country and they found shelter in a refugee camp in Jordan. The war has put almost half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. 4.8 million Syrians have fled their country, and another 6.5 million are displaced within Syria; half of all Syrian refugees are children. Refugee children are extremely vulnerable; malnutrition and diseases brought on by poor sanitation, are threatening the health of children. Occurrences of early marriage and child labor have risen dramatically among Syrian refugee children, and the longer children are out of school, the lower the likelihood they will return and get an education. This, together with the lack of educational opportunities, has left almost 3 million Syrian children out of school.

Muzoon is aware of the importance of education and therefore she embarked on a campaign to ensure that every Syrian refugee girl had access to a good education. She convinced countless parents to send their children to school, rather than marry them off at an early age. Early marriage is a particular problem in refugee camps, where parents see it as the only way to protect their daughters. Muzoon went from tent to tent in the refugee camp and talked to children and their parents. She persuaded many children to go and to stay in school. Her campaign garnered global media coverage and high praise from refugees, international decision makers and journalists. This gave her a platform to meet world leaders, convincing them to do more and spend more to ensure a proper education for Syrian refugee children. Muzoon and her family moved to the United Kingdom in the summer of 2016, where she continues her advocacy for Syrian girls’ education.

 

Kehkashan Basu’s Story

Kehkashan, a girl of 16 years, was born and raised in the United Arab Emirates. She fights to safeguard the future of our planet. Environmental degradation is a real threat to children and their rights. All over the world children are suffering from the harmful effects of man-made environmental disasters, such as toxics and pollution, and climate change. Yearly more than 3 million children under the age of five die from environment-related causes and conditions. The consequences of climate changes, like floods, droughts and hurricanes, destroy infrastructures, food, water supplies and houses and make it sometimes necessary for families to flee from their homes. Heavy rainfalls and temperature changes have an impact on water and sanitation and therefore they can increase water-borne diseases. Young children are the first to get sick and every day, 6.000 children die of waterborne and sanitation-related illnesses, including diarrhea and malaria. A healthy environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of other children’s rights.

Kehkashan became an environmental activist at the age of eight, raising awareness in her neighborhood about the need to recycle waste. In 2012, she founded her own organization, Green Hope, which runs all kinds of activities witch children such as recycling, cleanups on beaches, tree planting and awareness campaigns. She has reached over 3,000 school and university students with awareness-raising workshops and conferences about the environment and sustainability. Green Hope also does relief work, both nationally and internationally, for people in poverty or despair. Green hope is active in ten countries and has over 1,000 members worldwide. Kehkashan has also spoken at numerous national and international conferences, such as the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil and the COP 20 UN Climate Change Summit in Peru, on the vital future of our planet. She has written a children’s book called “The Tree of Hope” to even educate the smallest children on the protection of our planet.

 

Clad in black sweatpants, red jackets and white helmets, the hundreds of cyclists pedaling the treacherously steep, narrow mountain passes to India from Nepal could be mistaken for a Himalayan version of the Tour de France.

The similarity, however, ends there. This journey is longer and tougher, the prize has no financial value or global recognition and the participants are not professional cyclists but Buddhist nuns from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.

Five hundred nuns from the Buddhist sect known as the Drukpa Order, have complete a 4,000-km (2,485 mile) bicycle trek from Nepal’s Kathmandu to the northern city of Leh in India to raise awareness about human trafficking in the remote region.

“When we were doing relief work in Nepal after the earthquakes last year, we heard how girls from poor families were being sold because their parents could not afford to keep them anymore,” 22-year-old nun Jigme Konchok Lhamo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We wanted to do something to change this attitude that girls are less than boys and that it’s okay to sell them,” she said, adding that the bicycle trek shows “women have power and strength like men.”

South Asia may boast women leaders and be home to cultures that revere motherhood and worship female deities, but many girls and women live with the threat of violence and without many basic rights.

From honor killings in Pakistan to foeticide in India and child marriage in Nepal, women face a barrage of threats, although growing awareness, better laws and economic empowerment are bringing a slow change in attitudes.

“KUNG FU” NUNS

The bicycle trek, from Nepal into India, is nothing new for the Drukpa nuns.

This is the fourth such journey they have made, meeting local people, government officials and religious leaders to spread messages of gender equality, peaceful co-existence and respect for the environment.

They also deliver food to the poor, help villagers get medical care and are dubbed the “Kung Fu nuns” due to their training in martial arts.

Led by the Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the Drukpa Order, the nuns raise eyebrows, especially among Buddhists for their unorthodox activities.

“Traditionally Buddhist nuns are treated very differently from monks. They cook and clean and are not allowed to exercise. But his Holiness thought this was nonsense and decided to buck the trend,” said Carrie Lee, president of Live to Love International, a charity which works with the Drukpa nuns to support marginalised Himalayan communities. 

“Among other things, he gave them leadership roles and even introduced Kung Fu classes for the nuns after they faced harassment and violence from monks who were disturbed by the growing shift of power dynamics,” she said.

Over the last 12 years, the number of Drukpa nuns has grown to 500 from 30, said Lee, largely due to the progressive attitudes of the 53-year-old Gyalwang Drukpa, who was inspired by his mother to become an advocate for gender equality.

The Gyalwang Drukpa also participates in the bicycle journeys, riding with the nuns as they pedal through treacherous terrain and hostile weather and camp out in the open.

“PRAYING IS NOT ENOUGH”

The Drukpa nuns say they believe they are helping to change attitudes.

“Most of the people, when they see us on our bikes, think we are boys,” said 18-year-old nun Jigme Wangchuk Lhamo.

“Then they get shocked when we stop and tell them that not only are we girls, but we are also Buddhist nuns,” she said. “I think this helps change their attitudes about women and maybe value them as equals.”

South Asia, with India at its centre, is also one of the fastest growing regions for human trafficking in the world.

Gangs dupe impoverished villagers into bonded labour or rent them to work as slaves in urban homes, restaurants, shops and hotels. Many girls and women are sold into brothels.

Experts say post-disaster trafficking has become common in South Asia as an increase in extreme events caused by global warming, as well as earthquakes, leave the poor more vulnerable.

The breakdown of social institutions in devastated areas creates difficulties securing food and supplies, leaving women and children at risk of kidnapping, sexual exploitation and trafficking.

Twin earthquakes that struck Nepal in April and May 2015, which killed almost 9,000 people, left hundreds of thousands of families homeless and many without any means of income, led to an increase in children and women being trafficked.

More than 40,000 children lost their parents, were injured or were placed in precarious situations following the disaster, according to Nepali officials.

The Drukpa nuns said the earthquakes were a turning point in their understanding of human trafficking and that they felt a need to do more than travel to disaster-hit mountain villages with rice on their backs.

“People think that because we are nuns, we are supposed to stay in the temples and pray all the time. But praying is not enough,” said Jigme Konchok Lhamo.

“His Holiness teaches us that we have go out and act on the words that we pray. After all, actions speak louder than words,” she said.

By Nita Bhalla, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. c The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, land rights and climate change.