The End

I turned in my paper and presented my capstone project in front of 82 people (Matt counted).

Since I wrote the longest paper of my life to finish my degree, I thought it should have the longest title: "The Role of Education in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Case Studies on Bosnia-Herzegovina and Peru."

I am officially done with my master's degree. It is a little surreal.

Here are some pictures from Monday, our last day:

Me presenting and looking serious:

Our cohort called ourselves the Justice League (since our master's is in Peace and Justice Studies). Here we are posing together with the real Justice League in the background:

We had our own type of graduation ceremony after the long day of presentations. Here we are sharing mushy sentimental things about our classmates:

I won this coloring book for winning the award, "Most likely to be turned into a cartoon character," because apparently I am very expressive and make funny faces.

I will miss my regular interactions with these people immensely. I could not have asked for a better group of people to go through this year with. I look up to each one of them in so many ways and have a deep love and appreciation for every one of them.

I finish this post with a heavy heart.

(Pictures courtesy of Greg.)

The End is Near...

In 17 hours, I will be finished with my master's degree. I just need to hand in two copies of my final paper, give a public presentation on my capstone project, and listen to my fourteen classmates present.

I am feeling:

stressed

overwhelmed

weird

happy

sad

relieved

nostalgic

Tomorrow will be a big day and a milestone in my life.

The Numbers Are In...

...for semester two.

I wrote this post about my first semester of grad school. And I am such a nerd, that I am writing one for my second semester, which officially ended on Monday as I handed in a 22 page paper, a 28 page paper, and gave a group presentation.

The count is in for semester two:
Number of pages I wrote for academic papers: 121
Number of pages I read for classes: 3,176 (There was more than this assigned.)
Number of pages I read to write research papers: Way too many to keep track of
Number of times I had insomnia in the middle of the night: too freakin' many (on average two per week)
Hours spent in the library: 9,345,297

Was it all worth it?
Absolutely. I have yet to process a lot of what this year has meant for me, but one thing that is for sure is that it has been very formative. Also, it reinforced what I have always known: that I am truly and indefinitely a nerd at heart. I actually really enjoyed my days in the library researching and writing academic papers, and am feeling pretty nostalgic that my time as a student is almost done.

Last Class

Yesterday was my last class I will have at the School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego with my fourteen fellow cohortees. The workload is not done- still a presentation and two large papers due next week, but the class time is over. It was bittersweet. Glad to see a relief of stress coming in the near future, but sad that I will no longer get to discuss with, learn from, and be inspired by this amazing group of people that I have seen most days of my life these past ten months. I am sure that the inspiring and learning will not stop between us, but it won't happen with regular interaction anymore. The in-person relationships will naturally become ones through email as people move back home, enter into the workforce (fingers crossed!), and hopefully put into practice some of the things we have been learning. We still have a summer left with five units of coursework to complete, but all of us won't be in a class together again. I will definitely miss these people who have been an integral part of my formation and learning this past year:

Our last class was six hours long, so we had mimosas and red wine and delicious potluck food:
Serena and Cassidy
My Dutch brother Wilco and I (he lived with Matt and I for the first two weeks he was in San Diego):

My Ugandan brother Wadri and I (our birthdays are on the same day, so he only refers to me as twin, which sounds more like "tween" with his accent):
Tears of sadness at leaving our classroom (room 214) for the last time:
Qiuwan from China, Leah from Canada, Wadri from Uganda

The biggest winners and losers of the ecological footprint contest for our environmental justice class with our prizes:Happy times:
Serena, Jill, Sangita from Nepal, and Anu
Marcia, Tanya, and Kristen

2009: A Latin American Summer

Back in January, Matt and I applied for teaching jobs at eleven different schools in Latin America that were hiring for fall positions that we were qualified for. This brought us no success.

We will be in San Diego for at least another year and maybe forever, because we just like it here that much.

We do like to travel though, so we are taking this summer to do so. It will not be a Latin American year, but it will be a Latin American summer.

Here is the plan:

June: Nicaragua for 3 weeks, living with a host family and going to a Spanish language school

June: Yosemite for 1 week (my favorite place in the world) to celebrate the college graduation of my brother (one of my most favorite people in the world)

July: Peru for 4 weeks to conduct field research for my capstone project for my master's degree (The working title of my project is "The Role of Education in Post-conflict Peacebuilding: Case Studies of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Peru.")

August: Costa Rica for 1 week to take my last master's class "Educational Leadership for Peace and Sustainability." This class will be held at Costa Rica's University for Peace and is through the School of Leadership and Education at University of San Diego. (Matt will not be going on this trip with me.)

Matt and I have been extremely lucky in the past 7 or so years to have been able to travel as much as we have. I feel guilty for the opportunities we take to see and experience the world, but I am also so grateful, because the traveling I have been able to do has really molded me into the person I am and has shaped a lot of my values, actions, and philosophies on life. So, here we go again.

P.S. I like parentheses, in case you couldn't tell.

Some thoughts...

I have senioritis and I am not even a senior.

Whoever decided to cram what should be a two year master's program into one year probably never tried it themselves.

These thoughts will soon be passing, however, because in almost two weeks I will be graduating?!?! It seems like I am just getting started and I am already finishing.

This impending graduation is actually a false finish though, because I still have five units to take this summer, two of which include field research and the writing of my final capstone project.

So, in two weeks, I actually have my first graduation:

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Graduate Commencement
University of San Diego
Jenny Craig Pavilion, 1:00 p.m.

Then, on August 24, I present my capstone and have a second (and final) celebration.

But now I must turn to beginning my 20 page paper that is due in a week and a half and revising my 30 page paper, so that all of these things actually happen.

How to Write about Africa

I had to read this article today for class, and I actually laughed out loud while reading it. I know that quite a few readers of this blog are interested in Africa, so I thought I would share it.

It's entitled "How to Write about Africa" by Binyavanga Wainaina, who lives in Kenya:
http://www.granta.com/Magazine/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1

It's only three pages long and a quick read. Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

An Addendum to My Last Post

I am in the library, where I have been all day. It is my home away from home. I feel a bit better now about school. I just finished writing a nine page paper that is due Monday, and I only started it this morning. That is some kind of record for me.

You may now call me Speedy Gonzales if you'd like.

The Line Has Been Crossed

The line that I am referring to is the point in the semester where grad school shifts from being manageable to completely overwhelming. That line was crossed today. During our environmental justice class, as our professor assigned yet another paper in addition to our thirty page paper that is due in a month, I think all fifteen of us in our cohort had similar images of drowning in schoolwork. Our lives are no longer our own for the next two months. The only way I can describe how I felt sitting in class today is a mix between feeling like I was going to hyperventilate and like someone was slowly placing bricks on my entire body. And at 9:30 pm I just arrived home from being at school all day. Ah, the joys of being a student!

Inspired by Art

I am in the middle of reading Foreign Policy online, conducting research for school. There was a picture in the article I was reading that I felt intrigued by, so I decided to do a search on the artist. Edel Rodriguez was born in Havana, Cuba. I am feeling deeply inspired by his work, so I thought I'd spread the inspiration.

Back to Life, Back to Reality…

Today marks day one of second semester and I am excited. I have spent the last 3 weeks in a Geographic Information Systems intersession class and am definitely glad that is over. I am now almost officially half way through grad school with 16 units completed and 17 more to go.

My classes for this semester:
PJS 570: Environmental Justice in a More-Than-Human-World
PJS 594: Ethnicity and Culture in Conflict Resolution
PJS 594: Intervention Methodology
PJS 566: International Negotiations
____________________________________________

Upcoming events at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (for those interested in attending):

Religion, Migration and National Identity
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 7 p.m., Peace & Justice Theatre
Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, J.C.D., will address the efforts of different faith communities to grapple with the challenges of contemporary immigration and assimilation. As the secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants, Marchetto will offer a unique perspective on this timely issue. No RSVP needed.

Firsthand Perspectives on Gaza
Tuesday, Feb. 3, 7 p.m., Peace & Justice Theatre
Following an unsuccessful six-week attempt to deliver medical supplies for a humanitarian project late last year, Nader Elbanna and Miko Peled have unique perspectives on the current situation in Gaza. Being denied entrance into Gaza along with doctors, reporters and many others, the Palestinian and Israeli subsequently interviewed people from Israel and Jordan to gain a sense of their positions. The founders of the Elbanna-Peled Foundation will share their perspectives and present on their recent experience in the Middle East through dialogue, photographs and a Q&A session. RSVP necessary.

Migration, Religion, and National Identity
International Conference
April 15 - 16, 2009
Joan B. Kroc Theatre, University of San Diego

An Old Post that Never Made the Blog (but has a lot of good information to offer on human rights)

On September 24, the former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Louise Arbour, came to the Institute for Peace and Justice. She gave a lecture in the evening, and during the day the School of Peace Studies students got a chance to meet with her. The following are some highlights of things she said.

Spoken from the mouth of one who knows a lot about these things:
• Human rights protection is “best achieved closest to home.”
• In December, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be 60 years old.
It is broken into two covenants:
1) The Covenant for Political and Civil Rights
2) The Covenant for Economic, Cultural, and Social Rights
(The United States has signed the first one but not the second.)
• The problem is that Western democracies favor political rights but not economic rights. This serves as a “pretext for developing countries to denounce human rights as a Western idea.”
• For example, when she traveled to Sri Lanka, she saw a sign that said, “Arbour, keep your neo-colonial hands off Sri Lanka.”
• The most significant deficiency in the area of human rights has been the United States violation of them in its actions like with the use of torture.
• Guantanamo Bay is an example of the U.S. creating double standards in the area of human rights, which other countries view as a lack of moral standards in the U.S.
• The current economic crisis in the United States may change America’s hostility toward recognizing economic rights as human rights. This would be good because this hostility is costly politically.
• The United States has a bad record when it comes to signing human rights treaties. For example, they have not signed the Convention on the Rights of a Child.
• No Western countries have signed the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers, which other countries view as a lack of emphasis on economic rights.
• How can the U.S. expect developing countries to sign and obey human rights treaties if they are unwilling to do so themselves?
• The United States needs to rejoin the international community.
• If one of the United States’ goals is security, they need to embrace rights as a way to achieve and maintain this security. This is the way to a more secure world, because without doing this, other countries develop negative views of the United States, and that leads to insecurity.

This lecture was a part of the Women PeaceMakers Conference, which was one of my favorite events I got to be a part of this semester. Here is a picture of me with women from all over the world working for peace (I am second from the right in a white shirt).

My Brain is Mush…

Which is okay, because I just finished my first semester of grad school!

I just emailed my last paper to my professor, and to be honest, I have mixed emotions about being finished with semester one. I have really enjoyed my professors and my classes, and am a little sad they are done. And I will miss my classmates for the next three weeks. I am just the type of person who loves school and gets a little nostalgic about it.

But, I also have a deep sense of accomplishment with the completion of the semester that is very fulfilling, and you will soon see why:

The count is in for semester one:
The number of pages I wrote: 129
The number of pages I read for classes: 2,443 (There was more than this assigned.)
The number of pages I read to write research papers: Way too many to keep track of
The number of times I was sick: 2
The number of emotional breakdowns I had: 1 (I don’t think I had any emotions left by the end of the semester; hence, the small number here.)

Casa del Migrante Field Trip

Our cohort at University of San Diego

Earlier in the semester, our cohort went on a field trip with our religions professor to Tijuana, Mexico to visit Casa del Migrante. It is a home, founded by the Catholic Church, where migrant men can stay after being deported from the United States. They are allowed to stay at the house for a maximum of twelve days where they are provided with shelter, meals, and temporary work opportunities. We were able to eat dinner with the approximately 180 men staying there and hear some of their stories.

Casa del Migrante

I ate dinner across from two men named Fernando and Jorge. Fernando had been living in the United States for twenty-eight years working as an auto mechanic. He lived with his wife and two children, both of whom are in high school, in the Los Angeles area. Both of his children were born in the United States, and are therefore, U.S. citizens. Fernando was drinking alcohol in public, got caught by the police, and was then deported. He had never done anything wrong before that. Earlier in the decade, he was in the process of filing paperwork to become a legal resident, but then 9/11 happened, and the process was halted. Fernando missed his wife and children very much, and with no family in Mexico, he knew that his only option was to cross the border to get back to his family. He wasn’t sure how he would cross, because he didn’t have the money to pay a coyote, but he knew in his heart that somehow he had to get back to his family, even though he was very scared about the journey back to them.

Jorge had been living in the United States for sixteen years and worked in construction. One day, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) came to his work place, gathered up anyone who was undocumented, and deported them. He had no family in Mexico or the United States, but had some friends in the U.S. He said there was nothing for him in Mexico and he was planning on crossing the border the night after we ate with him. He didn’t have any money to pay a coyote to help him cross, but he said he had nothing to fear but God.

I don’t know the fate of these two men, because I was only able to have a momentary encounter with them. Almost all of the people my classmates and I spoke with that night were planning on crossing the border again, either because they had family on the other side or knew there were jobs to be filled. Because of this, they were willing to risk their lives to get back.

Sunset in Tijuana

Africa, Part Four: Become a Peace Advocate from Your Living Room

We each play a role in the conflict in Africa because our demand for electronic resources is what fuels it and guns from our country perpetuate it. Therefore, we should each play a role in peace.

John Prendergast discussed the need for a mass movement of people in the United States who want to stop genocide. It is up to us to put political pressure on Congress and the president to act. We must use our political voice. When we raise our voices in unison, it makes a difference.

Prendergast outlined several things each American can do to bring peace to the region, which could save millions of lives, and it would only take about fifteen minutes. Start by just trying one of the following:
1) Join the anti-genocide movement. Sign up for an organization like Save Darfur, STAND, or Enough. These organizations lobby members of Congress, and have power simply because they have a large number of people behind them. It is free and easy, and even if you don't read the emails they send you, you are helping just by being on the list.
2) Call Congress and/or the White House directly. They tally up the number of calls they receive. There is even a special phone number for this issue: 1-800-GENOCIDE. You can call as many times as you want.
3) Tell Obama your opinion. He has set up a special website to hear people’s concerns before he even enters office: http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision
4) Get in touch with members of Congress. For California Senators: Click here to email Barbara Boxer. Click here to email Dianne Feinstein. Click here to get information on how you can write to your representative in the House. According to John, if you don’t vote or write to the people you vote for, you don’t really exist in the system. We elect them and are their bosses, so they listen to us.
5) Write to your local media or call them. Tell them that you want to see more news about what is going on in war-torn places like Africa. We are their bosses also, because we buy their newspaper.

The biggest changes have come about because of large-scale people’s movements. Think about the abolitionists, the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement, and others. Now is time for an anti-genocide movement. This may be the most compelling moral issue of our time, according to John. We must raise our voices to stop the first genocide of the 21st century. This is our chance to prevent the deaths of millions of people.

Africa, Part Three: Peace is Possible

There is great hope for peace in Africa, because it has been accomplished many times in the past. Over the previous twenty-five years, more conflicts have been resolved on the continent than not. Peace agreements have been signed in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Burundi, Mozambique, South Africa, Southern Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and others.

The problem is that the current approach is not working. The symptoms of conflicts are being addressed as billions of dollars are being spent on humanitarian concerns, but the root of the problem is not being focused on. The goal should be peace.

According to John Prendergast what is needed is a Peace Surge in Africa, using the soft power of U.S. diplomacy to create international coalitions to end these wars. Since Obama has voiced interest in using dialogue and diplomacy instead of only the U.S. military, there is a lot of hope that this could happen soon. The U.S. does have the largest military in the world, but it also has the largest diplomatic core. This would not cost the U.S. extra money; it would just have to use the resources it already has. Ultimately in the long run, it would save the United States money, and there would be positive byproducts for the country, like a better relationship with China. China has a rooted interest in the region, because they have already invested billions of dollars there that they would not benefit from if war continues and spreads. For example, China has invested 8.5 billion dollars in Southern Sudan in oil, which if war were to spread to this region, China would not be able to have access to this investment.

John Prendergast suggests that Obama send high power officials to China, and then launch the Peace Surge. This would include a multilateral approach to peace where experienced negotiating teams are sent to the region, backed up by Obama, so they have credibility there. The time is quickly approaching for this Peace Surge to begin, because these leaders in Africa are waiting to see what will happen with this new president. John received several phone calls from Africa when Obama was elected, because people are excited for what this means for the continent. Many in Africa have trust in and respect for Obama, so this presents an incredible opportunity for peace there.

Each American has a key role to play in achieving peace in Africa. This will be addressed in the next and last post on this topic.

Africa, Part Two: Sudan and Uganda

In the DRC, an inhumane war is taking place where widespread rape is used as a tool to advance political agendas, and genocide is being committed in Darfur, Sudan. John Prendergast calls this area the 21st century version of the Holocaust. In Sudan and the DRC, 7.5 million people have died. In Northern Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army has kidnapped thousands of children to use as soldiers in their military (the United Nations estimates that there are about 250,000 child soldiers worldwide). They often make these children kill people in their family or their community so they are too scared to go home. Uganda currently has the highest child abduction rate in the world, and this abduction is spreading into Eastern Congo and Southern Sudan. Another grave aspect of these conflicts is the displacement of people, which results in a large part of the population living in refugee camps. In Northern Uganda, 1.5 million people have been displaced. In Darfur, 2.5 million have been displaced, and in the DRC over 1 million people have been displaced, with 250,000 of those occurring in September and October 2008 (according to the UN).

On average, the countries in Africa are only fifty years into their independence. When our country was at this stage of its formation, we were experiencing economic explosion on the backs of African slaves, who were completely dehumanized and killed in the process. We were still in the process of displacing Native Americans from their land, a development that resulted in the destruction of almost an entire people and their culture. And we hadn’t even fought our civil war yet, which ended up being one of the most deadly wars in history. We are not too different than Africa then, except for that they are trying to build their country in the midst of a military-industrial complex, where they have easy access to affordable weapons. The United States and Russia are the leading arms dealers in the region. Once again, we are already playing a role in this area.

However, there is hope for Africa, and we have a role to play in bringing peace to the region. More to come on this in the next few posts.

Africa, Part One: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

For the past two weeks, we have been incredibly fortunate to have John Prendergast at the School of Peace Studies as a guest scholar. John has worked in Africa for years, including under the Clinton administration, where he played a key role in establishing a peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. He led many events, lectures, and discussions while he was here, so I will do a series of posts on Africa as a result based on what John spoke about.

The war going on in the DRC is the world’s deadliest war since WWII. 5.2 million people have died in the past decade. One of the especially devastating aspects of this current conflict is how rape is being used as a tool of war. Mass rapes are taking place throughout the DRC right now, and have been incredibly effective in removing people from their land and humiliating the population affected. The DRC is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. Rape is being used as a “weapon of mass destruction.” If we allow this to continue, historians will look back and say it was a turning point where rape was proved to be so effective as a war tactic that others began using it.

Every American has a role in this conflict, because this is a conflict over resources that we all use. We are all personally benefiting from the War in Congo because the minerals extracted from the country are used to produce our electronic devices such as computers, i-pods, and cell phones. The atrocities taking place are fueled by our insatiable demand for resources.

This is not a hopeless situation though. Peace has been achieved in various parts of Africa, it can be attained here, and we can all be a part of the achievement of peace in this region. More to come on these topics in the next few posts.

Interfaith Dialogue

This past Wednesday, the three very inspirational authors of The Faith Club came to speak at school. The Muslim, Christian, and Jew wrote the book to tell the story of how interfaith dialogue transformed their lives and strengthened their faiths. I have not read the book, but hope to in the future. The following is what they spoke about.

Their story began in New York after 9/11, when the Muslim woman wanted to write a children’s book about the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and was looking for a Christian and a Jew to coauthor it with her. The Muslim woman felt like there were increasingly prominent stereotypes of her faith throughout America after 9/11, and she wanted her children to realize that Islam had strong roots in Judaism and Christianity. After all, she said, Muslims believe in the prophet Moses, the virgin birth of Jesus, and the sacred text of the Torah and the Gospels.

The Christian woman entered into this conversation feeling like her faith was the best of the three, and came to realize that she had been stereotyping people of other religions. Through the relationship with her newfound Muslim friend, she discovered that the stereotypes of Muslims she had believed were not true. The Qur'an does not reward people for killing, and a true form of Islam is not oppressive to women. The Jewish woman began by quoting a priest, who told her, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty.” Throughout this interfaith dialogue, she had a lot of doubts, but was strengthened by the common foundation these religions have of loving God and loving others.

These women had difficult discussions throughout their journey together, but came to agree that each religion has been used to promote both good and evil in the world. The Muslim woman, who was also Palestinian, began having challenging conversations with the Jewish woman about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Jewish woman had never met a Palestinian before, but her Rabbi had verbally shown support for the Israelis in the conflict. She gained a new understanding through this conversation and began to give a voice to Palestinians when discussing the conflict with her Jewish friends, because she said, it doesn’t serve anyone to compare suffering. The Christian woman began to reflect on how the Bible had been used both to justify slavery, and as a foundation for the abolitionists who fought against it. She said that today it is being used in America both to empower the marginalized, and to justify the unjust treatment of women and homosexuals. In this discussion, all three women agreed that it is extremely important to read the Bible contextually and historically.

Each woman became stronger in her faith through this dialogue. The Christian woman has been criticized for not being an exclusivist (one who believes that no other faiths lead to eternal life), and she said that she’s okay with that, because she is not an exclusivist. She thinks that Christians say that they respect people of other faiths or walks of life, but fail to have relationships with them and learn from them, and therefore, easily condemn them. The Jewish woman said that nobody has a monopoly on the truth, and that no religion is perfect, because it is man’s attempt to understand God.

These women say they are trying to create a passionate middle for each faith, realizing that there are extremists in every religion. They believe that religion is a part of what divides people and causes conflict, but they think that religion can be a part of the solution. In their opinion, part of this solution needs to include interfaith dialogue, where people come to the conversation not from a place of righteousness, but with a heart for learning and growing. The Jewish woman concluded with this statement: “I am so grateful that I can find God in so many different places as a result of this experience.”

Narayanbhai Mahadevbhai Desai: Worker, Student, and Friend of Gandhi

Last Monday, October 13, we had the privilege of hearing a guest speaker by the name of Narayanbhai Mahadevbhai Desai. He was born in 1924 in Gandhi’s Ashram and grew up with Gandhi as a teacher and friend. His father worked as Gandhi’s secretary for twenty-five years and then he worked in the same position for ten years. Here are some interesting things he had to say about Gandhi:
(Note: If you want to skim, the parts in bold are the ones I liked the best.)

Gandhi as a person:
• His father said working for Gandhi was like “living on the face of a volcano,” because there were two sides to Gandhi. One was that of a friend and one was like a volcano that would erupt if provoked, because he was so passionate and strong in his viewpoints.
• He was also like this to his wife.

Gandhi’s education system:
• Mediums of teaching: teach through craft/ creativity, teach through community action, teach through nature
• Education through experience: love, freedom, self-expression
• He was a “silent teacher.”

Gandhi as a leader:
• He based his leadership on specific strategies.
• He was a part of three big national movements, but the way he got people involved was through satyagrahas.
-These were smaller movements in between the larger movements that had achievable goals.
-This kept people involved because they felt like they were seeing change happen.

Gandhi as a lonely walker:
• In February 1947, Indian independence was announced by Britain, and the Indian National Congress never called upon Gandhi again.
• On January 30, 1948, he was assassinated.
• In a letter late in his life he wrote: “I feel there is fire all around me, above me and below me, but inside I only feel calm,” because he felt like God was taking care of him.
• In his autobiography he wrote, “I don’t remember a single time my prayers weren’t answered by God.”

Question and Answer Time:
Q: What do you think is the most important thing about Gandhi?
A: Gandhi always said, “My life is my message.” And he followed this.

Q: How can people today still hold onto the belief of non-violence, when it doesn’t seem to be working in areas like Tibet for example? A: What is happening in Tibet is important for the whole world because a whole culture is trying to be erased. However, violence is still not the answer, because it will not create a good future. You really have to think about what type of future you want to create. Martin Luther King, Jr. said we only have one alternative to non-violence: non-existence.

Q: How did Gandhi transform the lives of people?
A: He poured himself into the life of the other person.