Nigerian grad has had huge impact on peace in West Africa

Gopar Tapkida (left) is transitioning from his role as Mennonite Central Committee’s regional peace advisor for West and Central Africa to jointly serving with his wife Monica (right), a former teacher, as MCC’s country representatives for Zimbabwe. Tapkida, a former pastor who holds an MA in conflict transformation from EMU, has seen his seeds of peace take root and grow well despite adverse conditions in Nigeria and the surrounding region. (Photos by Bonnie Price Lofton)

After decades spent establishing a network of Muslim and Christian peacebuilders in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, Gopar Tapkida says he is ready to leave his home country for the challenge of doing leadership and peace work in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in Africa.

Tapkida, who earned a master’s in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in 2001, has seen Nigeria move from having virtually no leading citizens committed to peacebuilding to having a network of Muslim and Christian peace practitioners who monitor their neighborhoods and faith communities for signs of budding violence and who intervene to head it off. Continue reading “Nigerian EMU graduate building peace” →

Harrisonburg, VA (EMU) — One of the three women receiving the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, Leymah Gbowee, is closely connected with the “peace-church tradition” of the Mennonites.

Gbowee, who shares the prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and women’s rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, earned a master’s degree in conflict transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She attended CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2004 and completed its Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (known as “STAR”) program in 2005.

EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) was one of the first university graduate programs in conflict and peacebuilding field. CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, the first of its kind, has become a model for other peacebuilding institutions around the world.

Gbowee led a nationwide women’s movement that was instrumental in halting Liberia’s second civil war in 2003.

“Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections,” noted the Norwegian Nobel Committee in making the award. “She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.” Continue reading “Nobel Prize winner connected to peace-church tradition” →