Peace in our time

O ne year after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the first class of Rotary Peace Fellows began their studies. Since then, more than 590 fellows have gone on to build peace in their communities and nations, as well as across international lines. They include graduates of a two-year master’s degree program and a three-month professional certificate program at Rotary’s partner universities.

Today, these alumni are settling border conflicts in West Africa, analyzing development aid at the World Bank, briefing U.S. generals on peace-building in Afghanistan, crafting legislation to protect exploited children in Brazil, and mediating neighborhood disputes in New York City, among many other career paths devoted to peace.

On the 10th anniversary of The Rotary Foundation’s Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution, we bring you the stories of 10 fellows who are creating change locally and globally. 

Author and film producer Alex Kotlowitz also describes the importance of the grassroots approach to peace and how it is working on the inner-city streets of Chicago, where former gang members are mediating conflicts and preventing bloodshed. And Anne-Marie Slaughter, an Atlantic contributor and Princeton University professor, writes about how technology has transformed international relations, granting individuals and small groups unprecedented power to connect to one another and influence global events. Here is a collection of dispatches from the front lines.

The elections monitor

Certificate class: 2006
Rotary Peace Center: Chulalongkorn University
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Freetown, Sierra Leone
Master’s class: 2012-14
Rotary Peace Center: University of Bradford, England
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Folsom, Calif., USA
Citizenship: Liberia

Richelieu Allison grew up in Monrovia, Liberia, during a brutal civil war. Many of his friends became child soldiers, some on their own, but others after being grabbed off the street. “My mother said, ‘I am not going to allow any of my children to walk out of the house to join the rebel movement,’” he recalls. “I have been opposed to violence all my life because of my mom.”

To avoid the kidnappers, he stayed indoors, passing the time by learning to cook. He ventured out to accompany his mother on peace marches, which bore risks of their own. “We were in a march on our way to the president’s mansion,” he explains. “Suddenly bombs were firing all over the city. We had to run. I looked down and saw blood on my shirt and realized it was someone else’s.”

When the rebels invaded the area, his family fled to a refugee center. There, he formed his first advocacy group. Today, Allison, 40, is cofounder and regional director of the West African Youth Network in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which mobilizes and trains young people to help restore peace and human rights in West Africa. In late November 2010, he led a peace caravan – two buses with about 40 Rotarians and members of his youth network – to border towns in four West African countries, where they held workshops to teach conflict resolution.

Allison returned to Liberia to help monitor the successful 2011 presidential elections. “I grew up in a country that was peaceful, but all of a sudden one of the most gruesome conflicts ever seen in Africa erupted,” he says. “Look how far we’ve come.”

The Killing Fields survivor

Class: 2002-04
Rotary Peace Center: University of Queensland
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Bathurst, Australia
Endowment: Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellowship
Citizenship: Cambodia

When his Rotary Peace Fellowship in Brisbane, Australia, ended, Path Heang headed home to Cambodia, an impoverished nation where the Khmer Rouge killed more than two million citizens between 1975 and 1979. Heang, now chief of a UNICEF field office, works to improve the lives of women and children in his country’s poorest households. He manages six programs that help millions in need.

“In Cambodia, privileges traditionally are for men and older people. Women and children are not a priority. They need access to education, health care, and training for employment,” Heang explains. “In the future, I will work in other countries. Because Cambodia needs people like me, I felt obliged to come back.”

Heang, 43, meshes his peace studies with his prior experience in a weapons eradication program and his native understanding of Cambodia. “I am in a senior position because of the analytical skills and tools I learned as a peace fellow,” he says. “Now I can influence national policy for the poor in Cambodia. [This work] is not about perception. It is about evidence.” 

Reflecting on his peace fellowship, Heang says, “It changed me.” His studies explored the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia and security issues in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. At the same time, he says, he had to learn the basics of life in a wealthier nation, such as how to use an ATM.

The general’s adviser

Class: 2007-09
Rotary Peace Center: University of Queensland
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Rosslyn-Fort Myer, Va., USA
Endowment: Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellowship
Citizenship: United States

Unlike many Rotary Peace Fellows, Kevin Melton grew up far from a conflict zone. “But he’s put himself there,” says Georgetown University professor Craig Zelizer, who first met Melton when he was in high school, and Zelizer was assisting with a peer mediation program. The two have kept in touch while peace projects have taken Melton to hotspots such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan.

Melton, 29, is now back in Afghanistan, his second stint since 2007. During his first, as a manager for Chemonics (a development firm contracted by USAID), he helped farmers find viable alternatives to growing poppies for opium.

In September 2009, he returned to work for USAID in Arghandab, where he helped warring tribes and ethnic groups work together to rebuild the nation. A year later, he became a policy analyst for NATO security forces in Afghanistan. Melton advised General David Petraeus, commander of NATO’s international forces in the country, and now works with his replacement, General John R. Allen, on peace-building and counter-insurgency efforts in the face of imminent troop withdrawals and uncertain sources of future humanitarian aid. Melton says his job in Afghanistan relates closely to his peace studies, which focused on grassroots strategies. His fieldwork, an assignment on Afghanistan at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, also proved a valuable antecedent, he says.

“In this field,” Melton says, “people have almost instant respect for you as a Rotary Peace Fellow, and they trust you are working on something for the long term.” 

The reality teacher

Class: 2006-08
Rotary Peace Center: University of Bradford
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Corpus Christi, Texas, USA
Citizenship: United States

In Ethiopia, Cameron Chisholm , 31, worked to prevent cross-border clashes and cattle raids as part of his Rotary Peace Fellowship fieldwork. He quickly observed that the peacekeeping strategies were geared more toward a culture of spears than the reality of AK-47s. “I realized there was a huge gap in the field. There was no place for practical skills training in a holistic way. In Addis Ababa, I started scribbling a plan,” Chisholm says.

After his fellowship, he accepted a job with the World Bank, where his team delivered daily security briefings to the bank’s president, and where he met experts sympathetic to his vision of establishing an institute that would bridge the gap. Among them was Rotarian and former Ambassadorial Scholar Peter Kyle, then a World Bank lead counsel.

A year later, in 2009, Chisholm founded the International Peace and Security Institute, based in Washington, D.C. He is now also an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Kyle – winner of the 2009-10 Rotary Foundation Global Alumni Service to Humanity Award – serves on the institute’s board of advisers.

The organization hosted monthlong symposiums in Bologna, Italy, in 2010 and 2011, which some described as a “peace version” of the famed World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The gatherings brought together world leaders, academic experts, and seasoned peace workers to develop and deliver hands-on training based on their personal experiences. The institute will host similar events this summer in Bologna and The Hague.

“Cameron has done a good job at getting a blue-ribbon board and starting the annual training institute, a clear outgrowth of the peace fellowship,” Kyle says. “This is the next stage of peace and conflict resolution training.”

The consultant

Class: 2007-09
Rotary Peace Center: Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Citizenship: Kyrgyzstan

In mid-June 2010, ethnic violence erupted in southern Kyrgyzstan, killing hundreds of people. As part of a UN rapid assessment team, Zumrat Salmorbekova , who had recently graduated from the Rotary Peace Centers program, traveled there after the four-day outbreak had ended. After interviewing local residents and collecting and analyzing data, she concluded that women and children remained in grave danger.

“One day the people started to kill each other, but afterward they still lived on the same street,” says Salmorbekova, 38. She recalls a woman asking her neighbor, who was from a different ethnic group, “Why you left the night before the violence and didn’t tell me anything?” Her report proved crucial in preventing further bloodshed.

Salmorbekova has an understanding of Central Asia that comes from growing up there and working directly with local people. . “You can’t get it any other way,” says one of her professors, Robert M. Jenkins, director of the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of Kyrgyzstan, Salmorbekova also works with the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) as an expert on the Ferghana Valley.

Before becoming a peace fellow, she focused on peace-building efforts in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Frustrated by the failure to prevent violence in the region, she applied for the fellowship to search for solutions, she says.

The decision was difficult, Salmorbekova recalls. It meant moving her husband, Syrgak, a social scientist, and their two sons to the United States. In North Carolina, her Rotarian hosts provided key support, finding schools for her children and an apartment and furnishings for the family. She remains in Chapel Hill as a consultant on international peace and development, and her eldest son was recently admitted to the University of North Carolina.

The neighborhood mediator

Class: 2002-04
Rotary Peace Center: Universidad del Salvador
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Lexington, Ky., USA
Citizenship: Panama/United States

Just as border incursions can explode into wars, rifts between inner-city neighbors can blow up into jail time and criminal records. Rochelle Arms , 33, helps them resolve conflicts – which might involve road rage, a love triangle, or a family issue – without violence. As the restorative justice coordinator for the New York Peace Institute, Arms works with people arrested on minor assault charges who are referred to her for mediation by the Manhattan and Brooklyn criminal courts.

Whether the problem is a border dispute or a fistfight, the principles for mediating conflict are similar, Arms says. She looks for the underlying cause of the anger and recognizes that self-determination is key. A good mediator provides a safe space that allows the parties to speak the truth rather than what they believe they “should” say, she says.   

The lesson comes from her Rotary Peace Fellowship training, which included an applied field experience in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she saw that ending violence alone won’t sustain peace. “Peace is something you build and requires maintenance,” she says.

The recruiter

Class: 2004-06
Rotary Peace Center: International Christian University
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Prospect/Goshen, Ky., USA
Citizenship: United States
Member: Rotary E-Club of the Southwest, Ariz., USA

William Daniel Sturgeon’s research focused on U.S.-East Asian relations, with an emphasis on reconciliation. As a Rotary Peace Fellow, he analyzed the Yasukuni Shrine, believed to house the spirits of Japan’s military dead and a flash point for East Asian relations. Since graduating, he has worked as journalist and is now a political analyst and speechwriter for the consul general of Japan in Atlanta.

He also is busy recruiting candidates to apply for Rotary Peace Fellowships, and encouraging alumni to join Rotary clubs. He envisions former peace fellows building partnerships between Rotary and the NGOs, foundations, governments, corporations, and other entities they represent.

Sturgeon, 34, joined the Rotary Club of Capitol Hill (Washington, D.C.) just shy of his 30th birthday, after attending a meeting for Rotary Foundation alumni. “When I was accepted as a peace fellow, the letter from Rotary International said, We look forward to a lifelong relationship with you. That always stuck with me,” he says.

So far, Sturgeon has recruited six people to apply for a fellowship – and all six were accepted. When he moved to Atlanta, he couldn’t find a Rotary club that fit his schedule but found a way to continue his membership: the Rotary E-Club of the Southwest, with 99 members in 11 countries on six continents.

The Sudan peacemaker

Class: 2004-06
Rotary Peace Center: Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Calgary, Alta., Canada 
Citizenship: Sierra Leone

In 1999, former banker Josephus Tenga was working for a Canadian NGO in Freetown, Sierra Leone, during the prolonged civil war, when political thugs attacked his house. He and his family fled, finding safety as refugees in Canada. “In Sierra Leone, I know what life was like before the conflicts started,” reflects Tenga, 56. “I know what I went through, and I know others can get through this.”

The journey led to Tenga’s introduction to the Rotary Peace Centers program, after a Canadian Rotarian heard him speak about the crisis in Sierra Leone and urged him to apply.

Through the Canadian government, Tenga has served as technical adviser to Sudan’s Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Commission, which helped pave the way for establishing the Republic of South Sudan and, it is hoped, averting further war. He also has worked to prevent the spread of conflict in Darfur and organized workshops there to promote the surrender of weapons. In eastern Sudan, he assisted with a Kuwaiti-funded project to restore infrastructure and provide economic opportunities.

Now back home in the Canadian Rockies, Tenga is organizing a peace conference involving Sudan and the seven bordering countries, focused on the flow of arms in the region.

“Violence never ends. It’s an industry,” Tenga says. “People are making money off of it, and we cannot ignore it.”

The child defender

Class: 2007-09
Rotary Peace Center: Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Brasília, Brazil
Endowment: Paul F. and Carolyn C. Rizza Endowed Rotary Peace Fellowship
Citizenship: Brazil

Katia de Mello Dantas , 34, helps stop sexual abuse against children, including pornography, human trafficking, and abduction. In recent months, she has begun to focus on protecting children from sexual predators on the Internet.

Based in Brasília, Brazil, Dantas – policy director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children – travels the region, helping to draft uniform laws and train law enforcement officers on how to collect evidence and file effective charges. The center, based in Virginia, USA, became an international organization in 1999, spurred by the “Dutroux affair” –  public outrage in Belgium over the botched handling of a serial killer case involving children.

Before taking on her current job, Dantas worked for USAID in Brazil and completed fieldwork as a peace fellow with the International Organization for Migration, where she researched the impact of cross-border movement on HIV/AIDS and other public health concerns.

She recalls that she once envisioned living in Asia, expecting that she would need to cross an ocean or two to become an international peace worker. But after working for the center in Washington, D.C., she realized she missed her home in Brazil. “My path changed, but not my goal. Peace fellows are all like Miss America, because we all want world peace,” she says.

In 2011, Dantas was named one of the Top 99 Under 33 Foreign Policy Leaders by Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.

The human rights lawyer

Class: 2002-04
Rotary Peace Center: University of Queensland
Sponsor: Rotary Club of Watford, England
Citizenship: United Kingdom

How much does an international human rights barrister resemble Colin Firth’s character in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary ? “Look at the house he’s got in London!” exclaims Francesca Del Mese , 37. The job doesn’t pay as well as Hollywood might think, she observes, but that wasn’t her goal.

An established London barrister, Del Mese sought a Rotary Peace Fellowship to transition to international work. For her applied field experience, she worked in the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. She has also prosecuted war criminals of the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. As a consultant at The Hague, she trained judges from Jordan on international criminal law and helped former child soldiers and other young abductees return to school in Gulu, Uganda.

Last year, she became the legal adviser, based in Geneva, for the UN Commission of Inquiry into atrocities committed in Syria. She has since moved back to the London area, but some dark memories have been difficult to escape, such as reviewing multiple torture cases. “Now I bank well-being,” Del Mese says, explaining why she spends much her free time walking her dog, Sadie, in the quiet woods near her home.