The Spirit of Humanity Forum is a global network of organizations, communities and individuals committed to help bring about change in governance and decision-making, based on core human values. The Forum creates a safe space for deeper encounter, exploration and dialogue among leaders to discover new ways to move forwards.
The SoH Forum brings together leaders and practitioners who hold the view that the positive energy of love is the deepest, most enduring and most valuable characteristic of human nature. The aim of the Forum is to identify and share ways of improving access to this inner strength of being. It showcases practical examples of how love, compassion and a care for others can transform and truly re-humanise an organization.
website: Spirit of Humanity Forum
International Dialogue Series on Peace and Peacefulness
By way of active preparation for Spirit of Humanity Forum 2017, the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace (GHFP) and the Fetzer Institute took part in a three-part dialogue series in order to explore the nature of peace and how to apply this understanding in the process of creating a global culture of peacefulness.
The first dialogue was hosted by the GHFP in December in East Sussex, England. This dialogue was specifically concerned with building structural peace and took our innate peacefulness as a given. Therefore the focus was on the structures, systems and institutional cultures required to bring about a common political vision of peace as well as on identifying particular practices of peace and peacefulness which could lead to the transformation of individuals and communities internationally and globally.
The second dialogue, which is to be hosted by the Fetzer Institute in June 2016 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, will explore the nature of peacefulness from its spiritual dimension and consider the realities within a given local context, such as communities, that might support the practice of peacefulness. A distinct theme is transformation through a spiritual pathway and how it might inspire us to live our lives from the inside out in more peaceful ways and towards a global transition from separation and fear to interconnection, oneness and love.
The third dialogue took place in October 2016 in Reykjavik as part of the preparation for the Spirit of Humanity Forum 2017 and the celebration of 30th anniversary of Reagan and Gorbachev meeting in Reykjavik. It will seek to investigate into governance features and international policies of a peaceful state. Iceland is an ideal location for this dialogue as it has been consistently rated as one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Important questions, such as ‘Why is there peace?’ and ‘What might we do together to make our society more peaceful?’ will to be posed in this dialogue to understand political processes, including the responsibilities of individuals, institutions and communities, that contribute to the collective intention of peace.
For each dialogue event, we ask contributors to prepare in advance a written outline of their thoughts concerning the posed questions, to be shared with the other participants. The underlying intention is that through articulating one’s ideas and responses to the questions, the dialogue has already started before the face-to-face encounter. During the actual dialogue meetings, there will be a mix of individual presentations with focused conversations, and in-depth group reflection in a contemplative space with encounters through mindful listening. By doing so, we hope that the dialogue will help deepen more holistic understandings of peace and its implications of such understandings for individuals, for societies and for the world.
The findings and contributions of these three dialogues are brought to the Spirit of Humanity Forum in 2017 to share this learning with a larger international audience.
The insights from each dialogue and learning from the Spirit of Humanity Forum 2017 will be disseminated more widely in different forms of report in 2016/7, including volumes of edited books to be published by mainstream publishers.
To learn more about the Fetzer Institute, please visit: http://www.fetzer.org