Why Dialogue

Network for Peace through Dialogue is a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting grassroots communities, both local and global in order to identify and research common issues and solutions in the areas of making peace and promoting just action. Our objective is to provide a platform so that communities and societies can expand understanding and discuss their differences within a dynamic environment to help resolve conflicts and cooperate more fully. In all our programs we do so by analyzing, facilitating, and fostering dialogue, identifying solutions and sharing information. The Network for Peace through Dialogue creates opportunities for individuals and groups to engage in constructive conversations in an atmosphere of openness and mutual respect.

Who Dialogues?

Kathleen Kanet

President

We here at Network for Peace through Dialogue see dialogue as a first and primary step in the peace making process and if we miss that step, we cannot then achieve a lasting peace. Dialogue means listening to the other.

Virginia Dorgan

Executive Director

Through dialogue you can chink away at walls. . ..Consider the neighbor to whom you don't talk; consider the nations with which we are in conflict. dialogue are necessary to achieve greater unity and more peace.

Peggy Ray

Network Board Member

It's easy to distinguish between debate and dialogue. Debate is argumentative, while dialogue involves listening well and trying to understand another's point of view. There are no winners and losers in dialogue.

Lawrence Berg

Network Board Member

What's dialogue got to do with peace? Peace, itself, is not the last step in a long process that, once we reach it, we can just sit back and enjoy. It is a continuing, changing state that needs constant attention and effort.

Dympna Haber, RSHM

Friend

In dialogue the art of listening becomes a movement of being with the other person or group not clinging to any given opinion at the time of listening.

Karen Ross

Former Staff

I don't think dialogue is about finding a "right" solution or even a solution at all. Rather, it's a way for each one of us to better understand one another and our belief systems , and hopefully grow more self-aware.

Pamela Zivari

Former Staff

If I were a computer, I would run a dialogue program as my communication software package. It is easy to install because humans are already formatted to talk meaningfully with each other.

Courtney Smith

Network Board Member

"The only true voyage of discovery, the only really rejuvenating experience, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the universes that each of them sees, that each of them is." | Marcel Proust

Kristen Zurek

Former Staff

Thousands of years ago, Socrates spoke about dialogue as the one true form of conversation and thought of it as an art. Despite the passing of time, human nature hasn't changed, and dialogue remains the only way that people can begin to understand one another and form meaningful bonds.

Dialogue Practices Used by Network for Peace

• Listen for Understanding - Listen with equal respect for each person.
• Speak from your heart, as well as from your mind - speak when you are moved to make a contribution from your own experience
• Suspend Judgment - let go of any need to be right or have a right answer; try to suspend certainty.
• Hold space for Differences - embrace all points of view; change the "buts" to "and"; remain open to all outcomes.
• Slow Down - let there be spaces, silence is the dialogue.

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