Peace fellows discuss what Rotary Peace Centers program has meant to them

 

 

Top: Shai Tamari, a 2006-08 Rotary Peace Fellow, in a Palestinian refugee camp outside Amman, Jordan. Photo courtesy of Shai Tamari  Bottom: Rotary Peace Fellows from the University of California, Berkeley. Photo courtesy of Alejandra Rueda Zarate

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The Rotary Peace Centers program provided Alejandra Rueda Zarate, of Bogota, Colombia, with skills that she’s now using to help poor villagers in her nation’s countryside.

"Thanks to the program, I complemented my years of work experience with international knowledge and learning, allowing me to start my own initiative on rural development and poverty alleviation," says Zarate, a 2010 graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at the University of California, Berkeley, who had worked in the agricultural industry before her fellowship. "The strategic platform brings capacity building to peasants in the countryside, and has had significant results for conflict alleviation in Colombia."

Each year, the Rotary Peace Centers train future leaders who have a demonstrated commitment to peace, preparing them to promote national and international cooperation and the successful resolution of conflict. Fellows earn a master's degree in international relations, sustainable development, peace studies, conflict resolution, or related fields, or a professional development certificate in peace and conflict studies.

Working to promote peace

Your generous support of the Rotary Peace Centers Major Gifts Initiative ensures the program’s future, providing opportunities for new classes of peace fellows, and empowering the more than 600 alumni already working to promote greater tolerance and cooperation.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution. Read what some other former peace fellows had to say about how the program equipped them for their current work in the field:

• "The Rotary Peace Centers program provided me with the confidence to walk through the halls of the U.S. Congress, seek a position as a foreign policy adviser, and know that I have something to offer which members of Congress desire in an aide -- knowledge, experience, and chutzpa," says Shai Tamari, a 2006-08 fellow at Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
• "As a U.S. diplomat, the knowledge and experience I gained as a peace fellow have had a direct impact on my work with international organizations in Libya, Somalia, and Yemen," says Tim Haynes, a 2004-06 fellow at Sciences Po, France.
• "I have been working for the German development cooperation on its climate protection program, where I am able to work with developing countries to help them address their development challenges in the face of climate change. I have been granted a bird's-eye view into the issue as a member of the German delegation to climate negotiations," says Sallie Lacy, a 2005-07 fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia.

For more information:

• Read a profile of ten peace fellows in the February edition of The Rotarian
• Read more about the 2012 Rotary World Peace Symposium.
• Learn more about the Rotary Peace Centers program.
• Sign up for the PeaceNet newsletter.