Facilitated by the DC Peace Team

Saturday, Sep 25th, 2021: 10:00am - 1:00 pm EDT
Location: ONLINE (Zoom link provided about 24 hrs. before the session)
Contact: Jeri Fields, jerifields2001@gmail.com

Restorative Justice, or "RJ," is a philosophy and set of practices that engage the community in building relationships and repairing harm through inclusive dialogue, deep understanding, and shared power. This is an activity based workshop aiming to provide participants a chance to engage restorative practices through the lens of relationship building, restoration, and maintenance.

Restorative justice draws from many roots. At its best, it is birthed from and manifests the Bantu word ubuntu (a person is a person through other people), Buddhist notions of interdependence, and/or, as Howard Zehr describes in Changing Lenses, a Biblical justice that is “an act of love that seeks to make things right.” Thus, many of us come to restorative justice through faith communities or through indigenous worldviews.
This 3-hour session will explore restorative justice, its spiritual dimensions, and the potential contributions of its approach to promote resiliency from trauma, reduce harm, and advance sustainable peace in communities and the world. As we emphasize restorative justice principles and spirituality in ways to repair harm, we will invite dialogue during circles to identify ways to do so for persons harmed and those who have harmed them.

Objectives:

1) Develop an understanding of the connection between spirituality & Restorative Justice
2) Examine different spiritual (religious) applications within Restorative Practices
3) Explore the impact of spirituality and Restorative Justice on those harmed and those who have harmed others

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Contribution:
Payment is requested on a sliding scale. Please consider $50-$100 to support our work and help us better serve the community. No one will be turned away for reduced or lack of payment and we welcome you either way.

After completing the registration below, please submit payment today-- https://dcpeaceteam.com/donate/; or checks can be written out to DC Peace Team and mailed to Eli McCarthy, 7305 Baylor Ave. College Park, MD 20740.

Other strategies for contributing to the sustainability of these offerings include:

* liking our Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/DcPeaceTeam/),
* following us on Twitter (@DCPeaceTeam),
* and sharing this registration form with your networks via other channels such as email.

If you identify and feel called to act in some additional creative ways to contribute towards our sustainability, please let us know!

This training is provided by the DC Peace Team, which empowers ordinary civilians to increasingly serve their communities particularly as nonviolent peacekeepers, and by extension as peacemakers and peacebuilders. The DC Peace Team lives this mission by: deploying unarmed civilian protection and accompaniment units, providing training in various nonviolent skills, and facilitating dialogues and restorative justice approaches.
For more information about the DC Peace Team, please visit our website at www.dcpeaceteam.com

Facilitator(s):

Karen Bortvedt Estrada (she/her) works full time as Relationship Manager for an international development organization and also leads workshops on depolarization. Through both her personal and professional experiences, she has seen the power of authenticity, vulnerability, and self-healing to transform family and community systems locally and overseas. Karen is passionate about holding space to humanize, hear, and heal.

Jeri Fields (she/her) is a former educator who serves in her community as a first responder chaplain with a longstanding commitment to the spiritual well-being of all of God’s people. She recently earned a Professional Certificate in Restorative Justice from Vermont Law School. Jeri is inspired by the transforming and healing powers that occur within restorative practices that offer spaces to be brave and vulnerable as personal stories are shared openly with authenticity, deep listening, and respect for others. In her professional and personal life, Jeri is passionate about restorative justice and is a recent and enthusiastic member of the Restorative Justice family of the DC Peace Team.

Maite Rubio (she/her) serves as a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Program Analyst in the Office of Response & Recovery. She is a second-year Masters of Public Administration candidate, with a concentration in Social Policy. She graduated from George Mason University, B.A in Global Affairs with a concentration in International Development. Maite is an advocate for social justice and healing.

Heather Thompson (she/her) has worked in the criminal justice field for over a decade and is a passionate advocate for criminal and social justice reform. She has participated in victim-offender dialogues in the past and has shared her experience with various audiences. She is a recent graduate of Montgomery College, earning associate degrees in Criminal Justice and General Studies with a Social Science Concentration.