We're delighted to see the folks at the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts celebrating the contribution Restorative Circles can make to safer, and more intelligently funded, community services.

The Radical Efficiency report, published this week by NESTA, the UK's leading social innovation think tank, features social technologies that, in their words, deliver "much better public outcomes for much lower cost".

Restorative Circles are one of 10 such innovations studied in the report, of over 100 surveyed. These 10 were chosen because they are "demonstrably different, better and lower cost than traditional approaches". NESTA found us because of the results RCs produce.

They write, "(these) examples of radical efficiency... harness the potential of new technologies and the power of community participation and creation. These different, better and lower cost public services – whether they enable restorative justice in Brazil or facilitate Mental Health First Aid in Australia – all work with the grain of these new sources of value, not against them. These innovators recognise that the challenge lies in how we shape this new world, not whether or not it will emerge. It is already happening."

Check out their report, published this week at www.nesta.org.uk

Or read / download it here.

NESTA_Radical_Efficiency_report.pdf Download this file

For quick access to some of the key points, read pages 1 - 4, 8, 19 and 41 - 43.

If you'd like to see all the RC references, just search for 'restorative' within the document.

And to read about the report being presented to the UK government, visit: http://bit.ly/aHOKrl 

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Swadeshi Now   M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence    "Swadeshi is that spirit which requires us to serve our immediate neighbors before others, and to use things produced in our neighborhood in preference to those more remote. So doing, we serve humanity to the best of our capacity. We cannot serve humanity by neglecting our neighbors."  Gandhi  In this Issue Dominic Barter Interview Peace through the Arts Upcoming Events:   Art of Our Faiths: "Where the Beauty of Religion and Art Come Together" (some of our Gandhi pictures are featured!) The First Congregational Church at its historic, nearly 200 year-old church at 58 North Main Street, Canandaigua. The show opens daily to the public until Sunday, June 13, 2010.   June 22, Tuesday 5:30-8:30, Being the Change WorkshopCome for pizza after work and learn more about Gandhi and small steps to a more Gandhian life. Free, open to all. Interfaith Chapel, Commons Room. UR River Campus.   Cecilia St. King Concert moved to August - Watch here for exciting news!        Nonviolent communications: www.cnvc.org   www.baynvc.org   www.Restorativecircles.org   www.Rochesterroots.org    www.transitionus.org/ www.Americorps.gov          Volume 1, Issue 5                                            June 2010                                                                                                                                     Dear friends,   We know how cycles of violence affects the lives of individuals, how abuse is passed from one person to another unless something is done to interrupt that cycle.  There seem to be two doors we can walk through after the trauma of violence.  The door that's common is the one where we internalize the violence and then hand it to others.  We may pass it on in the form of verbal or physical harm.  We may take it on through depression, poor physical health, isolation--the list goes on.  Think of the people in this moment walking through that door-in your own neighborhood, town or city.    This cycle of violence happens to societies and groups as well, resulting in catastrophic violence and enormous resources devoted to destruction and war.   The second door is a door of transformation, where our experience allows us to see ourselves in others, to use our pain and suffering as something akin to a personal powerplant to alleviate suffering for others.  Gandhi had that kind of experience in South Africa as a young man, when he was wrongfully removed from his seat on a train and left overnight in a cold station.  He described it as a turning point in his life.   One of the most powerful forms of transforming pain that I know about are restorative justice practices.  Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims and offenders, instead of the need to satisfy the abstract principles of law or the need to exact punishment.  I am delighted that the University of Rochester, where our Institute is housed, uses these practices for student-related issues.   The MK Gandhi Institute is partnering with other Rochester-area groups and individuals on an important project called Restorative Rochester, focused on making Rochester the most restorative city in the US.  This means that restorative practices would be available in courts, schools, and throughout our community.For more information click: http://gandhiinstitute.org/restorative.html  The week of 9/11 this September will be devoted to educating our community about restorative justice.  We will host an international leader in this field, Dominic Barter from Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, for five days of learning and new possibilities.  Dominic is interviewed below.  Keep reading to learn more, and please, if you feel inspired, help us spread the word!   this comes with love,     Kit Miller Director MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence   Restorative Event Rochester  This issue is dedicated to all of the life lost in the Gulf of Mexico.  Interview with Dominic Barter   Why is Restorative Justice more effective than Retributive Justice?  Effectiveness depends on the desired result. Retributive Justice has proved itself to be reasonably effective at maintaining social orders in which a small group make unequal decisions for others on key questions of resources and well being. As a means of social control, imposed from above, the punitive ethos and its legal apparatus - both formally, in state justice systems, and informally, in the way we raise children, live in community, organise our work places - enjoy the symbiotic support of the domination structures that maintain them.   There are huge costs though. Acting in alignment with a prevailing system brings social rewards, so the qualities that serve a retributive system end up being promoted. Suspicion, fear, distrust and an eye to human behaviour which prioritises fault finding and coercive responses are all encouraged. The costs to our personal health, our happiness and our social well being are immense. Bullying, gang violence and the presumption of ill intent are all supported by such thinking and the codes of conduct that arise from it.     Restorative Justice is effective when our intentions are those of social cohesion, community resilience, healing and sustainable changes in behaviour towards underlying values of well being, inclusion, mutual aid, learning and responsibility. The restorative approach looks not at who has done wrong but at what needs are unmet. It seeks not to label and condemn but to alert us to our place in the web of relationships, to our power to act and our power to mend.   Which basis for justice one finds effective depends on the kind of world one wants to live in, and wants one's children to inherit.     Have you ever had an experience when the restorative process backfired? If so, why?  Restorative practices rely on social conventions and emotional literacy. Such conventions are far from new - in fact some believe they are older than our current, punitive view of justice. However they have been marginalised and devalued for centuries. The process of remembering and revaluing them is still gathering ground. The capacity to articulate our feelings and needs without attributing blame is also both ancient and only recently rediscovered in urban cultures. So our ability to make transformative use of restorative practices will continue to be a reflection of our capacity to recover, and to develop processes that promote, these new-ancient conventions and literacy.    What is the one book about RJ that you consider essential?  Personally, I have not found the 'one book' and I think there are at least two exciting reasons why this is the case, one conceptual and one practical. Firstly, Restorative Justice, both as a social movement and a philosophy of justice, is still very much in its early days. While 30 years of active research by 'modern', non-indigenous society may be a long time in areas such as computing, it is a very short one in an area that plays such a fundamental role in the way we live, as justice does. There are many wonderful thinkers out there, and RJ is moving at a very impressive pace. However, I imagine it will be some time yet before the RJ community finds ways to articulate more fully its emerging contribution. The second reason is that the field of restorative practices - which describes the way RJ is done - offers not one, but many potential responses. Each book on these practices is a valuable contribution to how we do what we do.     You have actively promoted restorative practices in Brazil. Does Restorative Justice look different when it is practiced across the world?  The different practices that have emerged reflect the different social conditions and cultural leanings of the societies that produce them. Practices in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, for example, have been influenced by the wisdom of First Nation peoples. The Restorative Circles practice we developed in Brazil reflects the specific experience of Brazil's immense challenges in public security and the search for community engagement. Yet all these many different ways of responding restoratively share common principles.    Do you see a connection between Gandhi''s philosophy of nonviolence and Restorative Justice?  The restorative approach to painful conflict, broken agreements, violence and crime clearly invites us to apply Gandhian principles to the question of justice. As a lawyer, the question of right action, and our response when actions cause harm, was of fundamental concern to Gandhi. And yet, from his personal and professional understanding of the legal procedures of his time, he observed that "justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment". The 'surrender' in this case is, as I believe restorative practices show, that of a willing approximation to a deeper reality - that our acts are powerful, that they impact others and that, therefore, power is also responsibility.    The consequence of this is community. We live together. Our well being is buoyed up by our connectedness. When our actions are experienced by ourselves and / or others as leading to harm, we are called upon to heal. Whether or not laws have been broken, peace and harmony has. It can be restored. I think Gandhi would approve.

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This interview with Dominic Barter was filmed and edited by Martina Cavicchioli during the RC Introduction at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City in 2009. It was made to present the work to German audiences ahead of the first presentations in Bremen and Berlin in August. It gives an overview of the 'why', 'what' and 'how' of Restorative Circles.

We hope it will be useful to those hearing about the work for the first time.

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Information included in this email: Dominic Barter's 2010 Restorative Circle Schedule Local Restorative Circle Practice Groups Restorative Circle Facilitators’ Email List How to Contribute Dominic Barter's 2010 Restorative Circle Schedule SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA Dominic Barter is returning to Seattle, Washington for two Restorative Circle events. This will be his only west coast trip in North America in 2010.  An Introduction to Restorative Systems Sat and Sun, May 22-23, 2010 To register - http://bit.ly/cv0fuh Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice  Mon, Tues & Wed, May 24 – 26, 2010  To register - http://bit.ly/cRf7CT      SWITZERLAND This is the first introduction and FP that Dominic will be sharing with French translation. An Introduction to Restorative Systems Tue and Wed, June 29 - 30, 2010 Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice Thurs – Sun, July 1 – 4, 2010   For more information contact info@cnvsuisse.ch      HAMBURG, GERMANY This event will be translated into German. An Introduction to Restorative Systems Sat and Sun, August 14-15, 2010  For more information contact restoracircles@gmail.com   HILDESHEIM, GERMANY This event will be translated into German. An Overview of Restorative Circles Tuesday, August 17, 2010 For more information contact restoracircles@gmail.com   BERLIN, GERMANY These events will be translated into German. An Overview of Restorative Circles Wednesday, August 18, 2010   Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice Thurs – Sun, August 19-22, 2010   For more information contact restoracircles@gmail.com     ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, USA   An Introduction to Restorative Systems Sat and Sun, September 11 - 12, 2010   Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice Mon, Tues & Wed, September 13-15, 2010   To register, visit: http://conta.cc/RC-Rochester     ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA   An Overview of Restorative Circles Thursday, Oct 28, 2010   Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice Friday – Sunday, Oct 29 – 31, 2010   For more information contact Info@civilservices.us   Local Restorative Circle Practice Groups This list of practice groups is by no means complete. The groups listed here have recently contacted us to let us know they are currently holding practice groups. If you would like your group listed here, please contact us at contact@restorativecircles.org.    CANADA   Toronto Meets once per month, on a weekday evening from 6-9pm, at OISE Contact: Sue McWatt, suemcwatt@yahoo.ca     Missisauga, Ontario The meeting times and dates are decided by the participants at the end of every month, one month at the time. Contact: Cathy Veris; cathyveris@aol.com     Montreal French speaking, starting in late March. Contact: Gina Cenciose; gincen@sympatico.ca     Guelph The 3rd Sunday of every month 1 to 4 pm unless otherwise posted. Co-operative Housing Community room at 240 Westwood in Guelph Contacts: Wendy McDonnell; wendy@compassionatesolutions.ca Kathryn Ssedoga; ssedoga@hotmail.com     Eastern Canada Restorative Families Network Contacts: Gina Cenciose; gincen@sympatico.ca Shulamit; shulamit.berlevtov@gmail.com Valérie Lanctôt-Bédard; vlanctotbedard@spiralis.ca       EUROPE   There are practice groups in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Bremen, Berlin and in other cities. For more information write to contact@restorativecircles.org.     USA   Madison, Wisconsin Meets 2nd and fourth Monday. Intended for people with experience. New cycle starting in May. Contact: Jason Garlynd, Madisoncircles@gmail.com   Oakland, California Meets weekly, Tuesday, 3 – 5pm Contact: Meganwind Eoyang; meganwind@baynvc.org     Oakland, California Starting again in May, meets weekly, Thursday, 7-9pm Contact: Gail Claspell; gailczone-rc@yahoo.com   Rochester, New York Currently meets monthly.  Contact: Jude Lardner; j_lardner@yahoo.com   Sacramento, California Meets weekly, Wednesday, 7-9pm Contact: Kristen Stubblefield; kristu@comcast.net   Vashon Island, Washington Weekly practice group, open to adding new members in mid-April Contact Barbara Larson; barbaralarson@gmail.com   Restorative Circle Facilitators’ Email Lists We want to support the growing community of Restorative Circle learner-practitioners. There are email lists in English and German intended as places to support us communicating with each other. If you are actively involved in a Restorative Circle system and/or semi-simulated Restorative Circle practice group, you may join a list in your language.  These lists are space where Restorative Circle practitioners/learners have been sharing experiences, learning, questions, and mutual support.    English - go to  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rc-facilitation/ - and click on "join this group".   German - go tohttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/RestoraCircles/ - and click on "join this group".   How to Contribute You can support Restorative Circles by making a contribution to the CNVC Restorative Justice project. The team offering this work with Dominic is entirely sustained by such donations. To make a contribution to the CNVC RJ Project, please send a check or money order in US currency payable to “CNVC”. Please include "RJ Project" in the memo (this is important, it lets CNVC know to how to allocate the funds). CNVC 5600 San Francisco Rd. NE Suite A Albuquerque, NM 87109 USA   CNVC is a US nonprofit, i.e., a 501c3. There is also an option to donate via paypal. There is a 2.95% fee deducted by paypal. To donate via paypal go to http://www.cnvc.org/node/6039 and click “Support the Restorative Justice Project” on the bottom right of the page.  Interview with Dominic Barter Keep in Touch www.restorativecircles.org http://twitter.com/RestoraCircles

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It is common for our responses to conflict to be organised around the desire to bring security and healing to those involved, and thus to focus on resolving conflict. This seems obvious only because it is a given for most people that conflict is problematic.

The damage - to lives, to relationships, to the well being of the community - that the violent expression of conflict can inflict may support this view of conflict as something dangerous, that must be controlled.

But the violent expression is not the conflict itself. And it is an ineffective means of expression in part exactly because it seeks to control, to impose, to force.

Restorative Circles take therefore a significantly different, though no less dynamic and engaged, approach. In response to a violent or criminal act, a broken agreement or crisis in trust, a moment of significant change, they ask: what can be learnt here, both in terms of understanding what happened and its context, and in terms of new, life-serving behaviour?

Restorative Circles engage non-adversarily with the complex and often intense reactions to what was done. They seek to create the conditions in which the conflict itself - attempting to express itself through painful choices, and often masked by them - reveals its message. They then seed new action.

One consequence of this is to see conflict not as something that needs to be changed or managed, but as the expression of crucial feedback about personal and communal well being.

In this short clip from an introduction to Restorative Systems, some angles of this sometimes surprising distinction are investigated.

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One of the possibilities that Restorative practice opens up is that of responding to some of the complexities accompanying crime and broken agreements which the dominant justice systems are not able to contain.

An aspect of this complexity is the multiplicity of experiences those impacted by painful conflict go through. Many - if not all - of those present in the Circle may experience themselves as victims. Several may consider themselves victims of acts committed by others present.

In the search for more precise descriptions of what distinguishes those gathered in a Circle I coined the terms Author - for those that committed the act in question, Receiver - for those that bore the direct brunt of that act, and Conflict community - for those who deal with the act's indirect impact. 

These terms are not mere synonyms for the more common denominations of 'offender', 'victim' and 'supporter', but recognise the potentially multilayered experience of those gathered together, and the way they experience the distribution of harm and responsibility.

They also support us in looking through the over-simplification of fixed labels, with their tendency to reinforce stigmatization and separate people.

In this video I speak to some of these questions, seeking to clarify the way Restorative Circles offer new possibilities to allow the complexities of conflict their place and voice.

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Hi. It's been a couple of months since I've written, as the end of the year and summer break (here in the southern hemisphere) came around.

Participating in festivals and relaxation time take me back to the informality of shared power and the formality of circles and cycles. I love the chance to be a student again that they provide. I find dynamics shared between all circle processes - from a meal with friends to a wake to a dance - and observing the multiplicity of ways these dynamics manifest strengthens my ability to serve them in any context I'm in.

This week, in Brazil, carnival is offering that once again. Millions of people are in the street, or in parades, jamming on these most ancient principles of collective, meaningful action. Jumping into these circles of celebration invites (or reveals as always present, just below the surface of modern life) community - the experience of mattering to each other, of being held in a web of mutuality.

What is true playfully is none the less so while mourning. This week, with sadness, the murder of a colleague from one of the first favela projects I worked in reminded me how life interrupted serves to unite us around - literally and figuratively - the loved one, and around those things that bond us. We reaffirm what we share, and strengthen the sense of cohesion, of generic humanity - both in mourning what has been lost, celebrating what was given and co-created and unique, and experiencing with heightened awareness what we still have.

In Germany and Poland last week I watched the same thing happening in the informal gatherings and Restorative Circles that unfolded within and around the learning events I participated in. Painful conflict emerged with puffed up chest, or down cast eyes. It seemed to defy the idea that something could be done. It can seem sometimes even to negate the idea of the Circle, because it represents the experience of not mattering. What looks to many of us like a hardening - in resistance, in pain, in fear, in denial, in shock, in anger - is then introduced to a very different experience - a Restorative encounter within a restorative context. And time and again we see - as I did last week - that 'hardness' become a singularly precise cry for understanding, for justice, for connection, for collaboration, for security... It becomes fluid, in the sense that it recognises the others, it wants to adapt to them. It becomes strong (rather than brittle), in the sense that it grounds itself in core values, and won't budge.

In a Semi-simulated Circle I facilitated during the Berlin Facilitator Practice module both the playfulness and the mourning came to the fore. It seems our relationships are too meaningful, our conflicts too serious, to deserve anything less. I often say there are many kinds of silence in the Circle - and imagine that in a future 'restorative culture' each would have their own name. There are also many kinds of laughter, many kinds of tears. The act that has brought us together - the 'crime' that bookmarks the tear in community life - is our call back to a co-existence in which we matter to each other, in which we impact each other, in which our choices are not just about us.

Meeting each other in this way means never being the same again. It means being changed. Just as the act in question changed us, so meeting in the Circle - if we do chose to meet, not simply to sit in the round - creates something new, something unique, that reformulates its own, ancient dynamics. The same ones that seem to bring people together in the widest array of situations, whenever something important to community life is at hand.

Restorative Circles also add a further strangeness - the powerful support and, at times, inconvenient artifice of a new ritual. That is, of a form that we both seek and are not accustomed to. The Author in the Berlin Circle resented and cheered the same facilitator questions within 2 minutes, laughing at, then with, the logic that informed them. Rather like me this weekend, one minute the gringo - disconnected and uncomfortable with the wild folly in the street, the next the carioca - 18 years since I arrived here, happily, intently co-responsible for the flow of carnival misrule.

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During our time in the Bay Area two days were devoted to introducing Restorative Circles. This was done within the context of conscious choices our communities can make in response to crime, broken agreements and painful conflict. This clip from that conversation focuses on some of the questions and dynamics that we've found it valuable to be aware of.

Please share your thoughts and join the conversation. 

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San Francisco Bay Area

The first presentations of this work in the US (in June 07), initiated at the invitation of Ike Lasater, were sponsored by ADRNC and by BayNVC, the largest and most active local Nonviolent Communication community that I'm aware of in the country. The partnership with BayNVC - our hosts once again this year - is, directly and indirectly, the source of most of the development of Restorative Circles in the US to date, and one I hold very dear.

Over the Hallowe'en / All Saint's Day period we were back in Oakland, offering an Intro and Facilitator Practice (FP) module to the burgeoning local RC community. Five days of exploration brought folks from as far away as Australia, where word on the work is beginning to spread, and a visit from Annett and Sabine, who made possible the talks and Intro in Berlin in August and are organising the February 2010 Facilitator Practice module there.

I was also able to visit a local school interested in setting up a Restorative System for students and staff, talk with Christine King - who has been actively bringing restorative practices to schools in Santa Cruz, as well as meet with the BayNVC Safer Communities team, who are offering RC practice groups locally and connecting with the wider RJ community in Oakland.

I was delighted to meet up again with Marissa Wertheimer, accompanied by several colleagues from Marin Mediation. For several years Marissa has been bringing her learning of RC to their Restorative Justice programme, and integrating elements of the process into the services they offer. My admiration for their work and dedication only grew during the time we learnt together.

We were also warmly welcomed by a piece in the San Francisco Examiner, in which Teresa Rose concluded: "Even more than avoidance of punishment, the restorative paradigm is now proven as a consistent basis for strengthening the ability of people to live together and deal with conflict in peace."

There were many other precious moments for me. I loved watching an 11 year old participant choose to stay for both the Intro and the FP and facilitate with gusto in the exercises; I loved experiencing an almost wordless Pre-Circle while 50 people looked on; I loved having Pat Seibert - long time supporter and colleague in this work - help me illustrate a point by facilitating as I role played; I loved hearing RCs described as 'relational magic' by those to whom the word magic has very ancient and very modern meaning. I loved what I'll call the 'hungry curiosity' in the eyes of so many who spent those days with us.

I loved the moments of getting quite lost inside and having a room full of support available....

Folks learning with us spoke of their desire to bring this to neighbourhood groups, to climate action work, to universities, to policing, to their families, to their classrooms, to the violence of racial discrimination, to spiritual communities, to prisons and those coming back out of them, to those practicing new forms of intimate relationship....

I was very moved to hear those who spoke to me tell how our choice to give the work away had been a key consideration in them coming, and inspired the spirit in which they were present. This is a key choice for me. It relates to the ancient and ownerless roots of the work we are sharing, to the way native communities preserved - without hiding, without compromising - such roots for so long, to the unrushed urgency of providing practical tools for peace to all, to the coming together of all those in a community to decide the future of that community.

A particular joy for me was being a guest of the Creature House, a collective living and loving home which I experienced as an extension of those elements I most treasure in Circles - open expression, co-creation of meaning, deep connection to our commonality, improvisation and creation, mutual gifting. Their welcome, warmth, food, song, hugs and loving company provided a seamless accompaniment and balance to the learning days.

Of the many other significant aspects of this trip, one more stands out: on the fifth day I left for Peru, and the Facilitator Practice module was lead by Gail Claspell, Becky Sutton, Duke Duchscherer and Martina Cavicchioli. Though this year has seen several folks in North America begin to share RC with others, this is the first time that I experienced a handover during a training, and was able to participate in planning a learning day I wouldn't be at. Very cool.

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Peru

Three weeks after I was in Maranhão the same international network for the well-being of children and youth hosted the First World Congress on Restorative Juvenile Justice in Lima, Peru. I was invited to present at the event, which featured over 1000 participants from 62 countries. Together with several colleagues from Brazil - including Judges Egberto Penido and Eduardo Melo, and Monica Mumme, who made keynote adresses - our projects were highlighted as examples of the vigorous spread of the restorative ethos.

It was nourishing and enlightening to meet up with folks such as Ted Wachtel, from the IIRP, and Lode Walgrave and Ivo Aertsen, from Leuven University. Their support, company and experience is increasingly valuable to me. 

It was also the first time in over 2 years that a large number of the fast growing Brazilian RJ community were together in one place - and despite the international nature of the event, I spoke more Portuguese than Spanish or English while there. (Though this maybe in part because I don't speak Spanish). 

The wealth of development in RJ during this decade is one of the most hopeful signs of a sea change in human society that I'm aware of. Projects of every size and from a vast array of cultural perspectives are in expansion, and creating concrete examples of an ancient / new view of conflict, crime and healing.

At the same time the presiding tendency within most in this movement is to seek to preserve many of the aspects of less restorative approaches, which can promote a view of those involved in conflict as fixed in static roles with predefined experiences and wants.

I find sharing the possibilities that Restorative Circles opens up in such a context both challenging and very meaningful. I'm aware of how little I know, and how few opportunities I've had to connect with those working in other countries. At the same time I am so excited by the innovations RC can offer in the field of restorative practices and to the development of needs-based (rather than label- or role-based) systemic change. 

I felt very satisfied at being a small voice for such an approach at such a large event. The feedback the organisers received was enough to initiate dialogue on how to bring RCs to Peru in the near future.

An interview I did for the University that hosted us is available, in Spanish, online. In the future I will think twice before doing whatever a photographer asks.

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Rio

Bangu

Over the course of a few days back home, 3 meetings occured which have stayed with me.

Firstly, straight off the plane from the North, I presented RC to a group of about 60 inmates at the Bangu prison complex. This is an adult prison, and home to many of the drug gang leaders whose actions have so influenced the city in the last few decades. (For an excellent overview of this situation in English, click here)

The meeting was fast paced and serious. What was this idea? How could I imagine this would ever work? How can you suggest correctional officers and judges suffer in the current system? If I'm a drug dealer, who have I harmed?

The inmates had only a brief respite from life in a rat-infested cell with 55 others. Many chose to step outside and wait in the yard. As I spoke the group that stayed moved closer, and before we left there was consensus: we want this here.

I hope to begin Facilitator Practice modules for inmates, and offering support as they set up their system for internal prison conflicts, in the New Year.

OAB

Two days later, at the other extreme of the social divide, I presented the work to an audience of lawyers and others at the Lawyer's Association. The reception was intense and positive, in part as we all pondered the immense changes Rio will be going through with the Olympics coming in 7 years.

Presenting at the Lawyer's Association, one of the most powerful professional bodies in the country, has a particular resonance for me, as their interest in the RJ projects has frequently been marked by challenges to our practice. The institutionalization of restorative practices heralds big changes for them. Those who invited me already sense the profound change in values and a renewal of the basic tenets of advocacy that this work can support.

I was surprised and encouraged by the response. This week the group that invited me was re-elected for another two year term of office at the head of the organisation in Rio (as were those who initiated this relationship, in Rio Grande do Sul), and plans are already being made for ongoing partnership into 2010.

Schools

Following the conference I wrote about last month, a meeting was held at the Central Court building, with teachers and school administrators from Rio and surrounding municipalities, to explore the possibilities of developing RC projects in schools.

Educational change consultant Monica Mumme, who has partnered with us in many of the São Paulo state projects, was the host and much was said about the challenges teachers face from colleagues, parents and students.

Flavia Fassi had done much of the ground work to get me into Bangu, and it was she that came downstairs and empathically walked me off to buy a pair of trousers when I was declined admittance to the court building due to my shorts. More importantly, she gave me time and support to remember that I want to practice what I preach, before I entered the meeting and opened my mouth.

I'm hopeful that things will keep moving forward. A formal project in Rio would give me the chance to actually live in the same city as an RC project, something I haven't experienced for over 5 years now. I'll keep you all posted.

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I am back home after several intense weeks on the road. Here are a series of brief updates on what's been happening over the last 5 weeks. The brevity of what's below, and the things left out for now, is not an indication of how significant this time has been. If anything, it shows how full life has been for Martina, Becky, Gail and I...    I feel such gratitude for all that's occurred.

Maranhão

In October the first Facilitator Practice modules took place in Maranhão, in the North of Brazil. One of the financially poorest states in the country Maranhão has a rich local culture and local and international groups are taking significant steps to create social networks of support where violence and vengeance have become the norm. Terre des Hommes are sponsoring the first RC projects, bringing together the criminal and youth justice systems, local community leaders and schools to create new possibilities for conscious peace making.

This was also the first RC Facilitator Practice in Portuguese to be professionally filmed, allowing us to start work on producing training materials that will later be accessible online or on video. The willingness of all those who partner with us by donating financially made this filming possible. Please email us at contact@restorativecircles.org if you'd like to co-create the conditions for editing and distributing this vital material.

My memories of Maranhão - together with the taste of Bacuri and Jussara, the bright blue church, huge tides and chameleons - are summed up by the persistent humanness of those community members and police with whom I connected, at ever deeper levels of shared values, as each day passed...

...by hearing how the relatives of victims wait outside the state's only youth prison, so they can exact revenge when teenage inmates are released...

...and by the words Cleide shared: "Where I live, the police and the priests don't come. When there's conflict, what can we do? This work will be really useful".

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Dominic Barter is traveling to North America this fall to share Restorative Circles. The Restorative Circle process offers communities a way to compassionately handle conflicts, heal from these conflicts, and learn what conflicts have to teach us. Dominic’s work has been informed by his experience in the Restorative Justice movement and his exploration of Nonviolent Communication.

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Yesterday I sat in a small house, within virgin Atlantic coastal forest - the last 100,000 hectares left on the Pernambuco coast - discussing the implementation of a Restorative system within the Federal Pernambuco University, considered by many one of the country's best places of advanced learning. Surrounded by cacau, dendê palms, boggy ponds punctured by prehistoric water trees, and the extraordinary chaotic order of sounds - frogs, birds, monkeys...., and endlessly shifting smells of sweet, bitter, pungent..... - the proximity of wild nature changed the conversation.

By osmosis I experienced my thinking changing and the conceptual framework necessary to sustain the logic of exclusion and imposed pain become increasingly fragile. From permaculture we (re)learn that nature wastes not. The uniqueness of each sound, each leaf, each life form does not presume disconnection from the whole. Rather separateness is unknown and everything co-exists. Responsibility - the ability to respond and the action of doing so - is a given, and is the manifestation of that interconnectedness. Nature is in a constant process of decay-growth, of falling-restoring. On the macro level we call this evolution. On the micro level we call this learning.

This afternoon I sat in a large prison on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Around 40 of the 1000 or so inmates - convicted of armed robbery, murder, drug smuggling or selling, non payment of alimony - sat with me in the prison church to discuss establishing a Restorative system within the prison. Most came from the communities in which police killed 22 39 (updated) more people this weekend, and drug-gang gunfire downed a police helicopter. They sleep in cells in groups of 75 or more. "I opened my eyes last night and watched the rats crawling over those asleep on the floor", I was told.

Each inmate is held not simply within the walls, gates, bars and locks of the physical compound but within a web of permissions. For every action they desire, the willingness of a guard is necessary. To go to the toilet, to wash their hands, to read. "They are trying to break our spirit. You have to be very strong. Our bodies break, but our values keep us going". Fights break out. "We have our own justice - between us", I heard, to smiles and nods, "but today I saw that it is the same as the one they use against us".

There is a labyrinthine process of permissions ahead. But come the New Year I intend to offer Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice modules to those inmates who wish.

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Dominic Barter is traveling to North America to share Restorative Circles. The Restorative Circles process offers communities a way to compassionately handle conflicts, heal from these conflicts, and learn what conflicts have to teach us.  Dominic’s work has been informed by his experience in the Restorative Justice movement and his exploration of NVC.

You can learn more about Restorative Circles at the following events:

Oakland

Oct 30: Miki Kashtan and Dominic Barter in Conversation

Oct 31 – Nov 1: Building a Compassionate Justice System: An Introduction to Restorative Circles

Nov 2 – Nov 4: Restorative Circle Facilitator Practice

Albuquerque

Nov 9: An Overview of Restorative Circles: an effective, compassionate tool for community well-being. Email jivashanti@gmail.com for more info

Seattle

Nov 13: An Evening with Dominic Barter

Nov 14-15: Building a Compassionate Justice System: An Introduction to Restorative Circles

Read online about this work:

·         Experiences with the Brazilian RJ Pilot Projects (pdf)

·         Toward Peace and Justice in Brazil: Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles

·         Restorative circles open dialogue and healing between Brazilian institutions and gangs

www.restorativecircles.org

http://twitter.com/RestoraCircles

Please pass this information on to others that you think may be interested.

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Yesterday was the first formal presentation of the São Paulo RJ project, 'Justiça e educação', to the justice and education communities in Rio de Janeiro. Most of those who have made these projects possible - in São Caetano do Sul, in Guarulhos, in Heliopolis, in Campinas and elsewhere - spoke, and even though the city was under the second day of torrential rain and it was the friday before a holiday weekend, there wasn't a free seat and many stood until the end.

Rio's new education secretary was present and after sharing that she'd never heard of RJ and hearing the descriptions of what we have done in SP said simply, "Where have you guys been all my life?!" The head of the Red Cross in Rio also spoke, sharing the sobering fact that the Red Cross works in areas of armed warfare and humanitarian disaster - neither of which Rio has, and yet here they are, a reflection of how integrated into daily life dynamics otherwise associated with war and disaster have become in the city.

However, what struck me most were the talks of two school teachers. The newspaper this morning reminds us that more than half of Brazilian families live on less than US$5 a day. Many have far less. The schools these two teachers work in serve such communities - one in São Paulo city's largest favela, one on the semi-rural outskirts of Guarulhos, the second largest city in SP state. As Edivaldo, the first to speak, said quite simply: "Restorative Circles have changed my school. We might think of giving up other projects we have, but never this one. We do a lot of Circles, and from this you might think 'Oh, they have a lot of fights at the school', but no - we do a lot of Circles because the school has learnt that this is the way to have conflicts. So we stop violence. We bring it the Circle and then it's done."

Angela, who spoke next, told her story with RC. 19 years a sports teacher, she described the amazement of her colleagues when she said she wanted to train as a facilitator. They thought of her as a 'take no prisoners' teacher and she agreed. What changed her round, she said, was a semi-simulated Circle she participated in, during an initial presentation at her school. She played the mother of a student, bullied by colleagues, and was relishing the verbal combat the real life scenario gave her. After listening to those who'd taunted 'her' child she was ready to charge in, when the facilitator asked her to reflect back the essence of what she'd heard them say. The experience, she said, stopped her completely in her tracks. "I was ready to let them have it, but when I heard those words a space opened up, and into it I could see a whole other way of us being together in that situation. It changed me. It changed me as a person - I was different at home, I was different at school. I applied to go back to university, to study Restorative Justice. And I began to facilitate Circles."

Angela's tears, as she shared the story of a Circle she had facilitated in her school, and sung the song composed by a participant as part of the Agreed Action Plan, invited all of us present to drop below the roles we play, the institutions we belong to, the beliefs we hold (and hold against others). The day had been challenging for me on several fronts. It was the first such event in 5 years at which I had not been invited to speak - and there were unspoken pains, for reasons I was not fully aware of, coming from others present. Each speaker referred to me and my contribution, and I was by turns gratified and pained by the ambiguity of my position. At that moment however, there was nothing but warmth, depth and connection in my heart. I looked round the room and there was the quality of meaningful silence I have seen in so many Circles.

The education secretary set up a meeting for next week. The chief judge asked me to call her. The information shared that day was key to such a desire to collaborate and learn. And I think whatever happens from now on, it's quality will be marked by Angela's living, breathing example of the doors RJ opens in us, and between us.

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Here is a video I found moving and revealing, featuring two people whose lives were radically changed by participation in a Restorative practice.

It was produced by a local RJ community group in England.

I'm struck as I watch it by the intensity that the simple composition of a circle can generate. It is as if that formation is the key to an outpouring - and a corresponding 'inpouring' - of meaning, reflection and truth. Something that can provide an initial impulse to change the course of people's lives.

I also notice the class diferences - with all the multilayered complexity that this represents in the UK, stretching back hundreds of years - between the two men. I long for that aspect of their conflict to be a key part of the process the restorative meeting supports to change - and celebrate how specific the Action Agreement stage is in the Circles I teach, participate in and facilitate. I celebrate how that brings the structural conflict and imbalance of power that pre-dates violence and crime to the fore, supporting the possibility of changes to the relationships within which the harm manifested.

I hope the video is valuable for you.

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 Or simply follow us @RestoraCircles on Twitter.

 We also post a link there every time this site is updated.

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