Find out about our work in conflict resolution and reconciliation, and our Facilitator Training Programmes – currently in Rwanda, Ukraine, and the UK. You can also learn about our work over the years in different parts of the world and find links to books, articles, chapters, films and interviews.  

CFOR refers to the ‘force of community’.

What gets us up in the morning is knowing that our personal and community awareness can transform the divisiveness of history and our times.

It’s natural to fall hopeless. It is participants of our community forums who have repeatedly blown our minds, inspired us. Not with ‘pie in the sky’ hope – but hope that comes from witnessing how communities who have been deeply divided by violence, are able to come together and work with their most painful issues that they never thought were even possible to talk about. And by way of facilitated interactions, find healing, a deepening of awareness and relationships, and build pathways forward together.

The normalization of escalating polarisations in our times is acutely dangerous, but stop for a moment and you might see a ‘silver lining’. It is dawning on so many of us collectively, that we can do better than this, as human beings.

That is, to not only ride the pendulum swing, or stay entrenched in divisiveness, but rather find ways to facilitate those polarizations between and within groups.

Like when a polarization is escalating at your kitchen sink, and you say, hey it’s high time to go to a facilitator, to work through our past and find a way forward.

It’s shocking that we take for granted pouring billions into the military, and next to nothing into violence prevention. The role of ‘civil society’ – that’s all of us – is a key component for conflict resolution, transitional justice, and the prevention of future cycles of violence. Yet, peacebuilding tends to be characterized as extraneous, ‘nice’ and ‘fuzzy’ or for the few most brilliant, dedicated social activists and spiritual leaders.

And, as authoritarian tactics, and human rights violations are accelerating in the US and elsewhere, journalists, activists, academics, lawyers, and comedians are stepping out. Silencing thought leaders is nothing new – a terror tactic used across the world and throughout time. And there will be further escalation and crack down. Yet, the more suppression, the more these dynamics are being discussed across our media and dining tables.

Impossible times reach a turning point. And at this turning point, even small trends can lead to massive change. One such trend is to not only fall into the polarisations, but to facilitate awareness of the dynamics that divide us, and what ultimately links and propels us.

At CFOR we used to say, ‘A facilitator at every table, from the kitchen table to the negotiating table’. It may feel a bit too much like a ‘motto’, but to the point.

Find here: Facilitation training in the UK; Facilitation training in Ukraine; Post-genocide community reconciliation and facilitator training in Rwanda; our Far-in Far out memorial projects; previous work in the Balkans, Europe Matters; Books, chapters, articles; Films and interviews.