During our recent Christian Peacebuilding Network monthly meeting, “Christian Involvement in Peacebuilding: Challenges & Opportunities,” my friend Philip who is a Ugandan conflict transformation trainer shared that the Christianity brought to Africa was over-intellectualized both in its goals and its teaching methods. African Christians were taught, like many of us, that right beliefs are the top priority, and religious leaders are those who dispense to listeners what one must believe. This hierarchical way of teaching and learning where the leader knows everything and the learners are empty vessels to receive from the leader creates and reinforces a colonial mindset, because it marginalizes the wisdom and experience of everyday people, stifles diverse ways of learning, and perpetuates power imbalances.
Philip shared about how much work we have to do to “decolonize” our mentalities, or to upend these power imbalances, in both how we form Christians and how we train for peacebuilding. And, we can do this through interactive, experiential learning. He and many others already are.
Over the last number of years, I’ve found that the best peacebuilding and conflict transformation trainers never just speak to a crowd. They play games, create interactive experiences, help participants reflect together in circles, and all-in-all set up learning experiences in which participants engage with and learn from one another and the shared wisdom in the room. By engaging with different learning styles and the diverse experiences in the room, this type of learning is “sticky,” memorable and applicable for participants even when they may not remember specific informational bullet points.
David Kolb’s Learning Cycle: A Foundation for Experiential Learning
David Kolb, an educational theorist, introduced his experiential learning theory in the 1970s, and his modern theory connects deeply with many traditional, indigenous ways of sharing stories, wisdom, and experience. At its core, this way of learning emphasizes the importance of experience and interaction as part of the learning process. Kolb’s learning cycle consists of four stages: Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, and Active Experimentation.
- Concrete Experience: This stage involves firsthand experiences, allowing learners to actively engage with the subject matter.
- Reflective Observation: Following the experience, learners reflect on what occurred, gaining insights and identifying patterns.
- Abstract Conceptualization: Learners develop concepts or theories based on their reflections, extracting generalized principles from their experiences.
- Active Experimentation: Applying these concepts in real-world situations completes the cycle, reinforcing the learning process.
Experiential Learning Workshops for Peacebuilding Formation
By applying interactive learning methodologies to specific peacebuilding themes, and especially linking them with an authoritative story or example (e.g. from the Bible for Christians, from the Quran for Muslims, from a compelling historical example for nonreligious people, etc.), these experiential learning workshops are particularly transformative to democratize peacebuilding insights and skills for more everyday people. Rather than the trainer needing to prepare ideal comments for the particular personalities or for all the diverse contexts and situations participants come from, these workshops generate powerful reflections bubbling up from the participants’ own social contexts and life experiences. As a result, experiential learning workshops have a flexibility about them so they can be applied in very diverse environments or with mixed groups of participants who bring different questions and challenges.
Open Source Sharing to Democratize Peacebuilding Learning
Living in Bosnia and Herzegovina and supporting the work of local peacebuilders as well as networking with peacebuilders around the world, I have the incredible privilege to learn from practitioners and trainers with decades of experience in some of the most complicated contexts of conflict and polarization around the world. Building on the wisdom and experience of these peacebuilders and conflict transformation trainers, I am excited to work with Peace Catalyst colleagues and our wider network of partners to contribute to a growing open-source database of experiential learning workshops both for PCI staff and to share openly with our partners so that we can more effectively equip Christians and all our friends and neighbors for everyday peacebuilding work.
Here are a few incredible organizations from which I have learned a great deal, so I would like to highlight them for you:
- Bosnian Organizations
- Center for Peacebuilding – In addition to many other experiential workshops, Vahidin Omanović and Mevludin Rahmanović use circle processes that were traditionally used in many indigenous environments.
- Center for Nonviolent Action (CNA) – CNA staff have led the way in the Balkans for peacebuilding and conflict transformation training, publishing training manuals in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and English (“Nonviolence! Peacebuilding Training Handbook,” and “Reconciliation?! Training handbook for Dealing with the Past”).
- Conflict transformation training focused on Christian audiences
- Global Peace Warriors – Dan and Sharon Buttry connected the experiential learning cycle to both conflict transformation skills and biblical examples to create their “Bible Study Manual on Conflict Transformation,” leading workshops and training conflict transformation trainers across the world.
- Tearfund – Building on the foundation of Dan and Sharon’s work, Tearfund published their “Community Conflict Transformation Dialogues,” which provide additional resources and structure for conflict transformation trainers.
After dabbling with various experiential learning workshops over the last six years, local colleagues and I have hosted about two dozen workshops in the last two months. We are very excited to systematize some of our template presentations and facilitator guides both for PCI staff and our wider networks. Reach out if you are interested in learning more and stay tuned for future announcements!
The Careys 
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