Jamaica is a beautiful Caribbean country that is plagued by the second highest murder rate in the hemisphere (after Colombia). The violence is often centered in the cities and a political culture of electoral violence. In 2007 conducted conflict transformation trainings in many churches, particularly in Kingston. I also conducted training in nonviolent conflict resolution with school teachers and staff in urban and rural school districts (the lines of gangs run from the cities back to the rural communities where their families come from, impacting those rural communities and schools with gang violence as well). The Jamaican Baptist churches are very theologically and socially astute, some of the best participants I’ve ever had in my trainings.
In 2009 I returned with some International Ministries colleagues for further relationship building and training. I returned to the Denham Town neighborhood of Kingston to share more with the Denham Town Baptist Church which has played a major transformative role in their neighborhood amid “the war” between rival gangs.
Jamaican Baptist Union:
http://www.jbu.org.jm/
For BBC’s country background information:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1190968.stm
About Me
- Daniel Buttry
- I am the Global Consultant for Peace and Justice with International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches. That means that I work around the world, usually on short term peace projects. My area of specialty is conflict transformation. Simply put, conflict transformation means turning conflict from negative, destructive experiences into positive, constructive experiences… in which problems are solved, unjust relationships are structured in more just ways, violence is replaced by nonviolent means of dealing with disagreements, torn relationships are reconciled, decisions become more participatory and traumatized people are supported for healing. About 70% of my work involves training people in nonviolent conflict transformation. I occasionally am involved in mediation. I write a lot and have published a number of books on various peacemaking topics.