{"id":278,"date":"2009-02-25T14:02:40","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T18:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/blog\/peacebuilder\/?p=278"},"modified":"2012-02-06T09:47:39","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T13:47:39","slug":"joe-campbell-shifts-to-nepals-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2009\/02\/joe-campbell-shifts-to-nepals-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Campbell Shifts To Nepal\u2019s Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Joe Campbell, MA '02<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A year ago, the BBC documentary series \u201cDistant Horizons\u201d explored why Joe Campbell left Northern Ireland in 2006 for an extended period instead of enjoying the relative calm and prosperity of his native country, conditions for which he had labored for many decades. \u201cJoe Campbell could have put his feet up when he turned 60 and settled into a comfortable retirement in Northern Ireland,\u201d said an article on the BBC News website. \u201cInstead he and his wife Janet opted to take their work skills abroad for a four-year stint as volunteers in Nepal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Campbells are offering the kind of quiet support to Nepalese peacebuilders that Mennonites offered to them and their colleagues in Northern Ireland during \u201cThe Troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think about John Paul (Lederach), Ron (Kraybill) and the others, they are models for how to be outsiders in a conflict. As they demonstrated, I listen, I ask questions, and perhaps I tell a story from the Irish context,\u201d says
\nCampbell. \u201cI try to bring the Nepalese a sense of hope when at times they can feel hopeless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe and Janet work with the United Mission to Nepal, an umbrella organization of 30 international mission agencies. Joe has the title of \u201cconflict transformation advisor.\u201d Janet, a nurse, is in charge of pastoral care for the international staff. She also does trauma work with the dozen Nepalese staff.<\/p>\n

Starting with the staff at United Mission, Campbell hopes to inspire more Nepalese to \u201cenvision a career in peacebuilding for their country and to prepare for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell notes that the war in Nepal was shorter than in Northern Ireland \u2013 10 years instead of 30 \u2013 but it was bloodier: \u201cover 14,000 killed; even today there\u2019s over 1,000 people missing \u2013 killed, buried, burned, or who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nepal entered a fragile ceasefire period in 2005, with elections for a Constituent Assembly held in the spring of 2008. But the brutality of the previous decade has left wounds and scars that remain extremely painful, with renewed violence hovering as a possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe garnered a lot of experience in Ireland that we would like to share,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cWe would like to prevent or shorten what we went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Northern Ireland, Nepal has no outright victor and no loser at this point. Campbell hopes \u201cthe hurts of war are not still too raw to prevent the Nepalese from working together in a coalition government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concerning the long term, Campbell is optimistic. \u201cThey can work together to make this work. Conflicts are started by people and they will be ended by people.\u201c<\/p>\n

While Campbell is a four-year visitor to Nepal, seven graduates of EMU\u2019s MA in conflict transformation program work in Nepal on a permanent basis: Ameet Dhakal, Anjana Shakya, Debendra Manandhar, Hemlata Rai, Yasodha Shrestha, Kumar Anuraj Jha, and Monica Rijal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago, the BBC documentary series \u201cDistant Horizons\u201d explored why Joe Campbell left Northern Ireland in 2006 for an extended period instead of enjoying… Read more about Joe Campbell Shifts To Nepal\u2019s Conflict<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[345,480,491],"issues":[788],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources","tag-joe-campbell","tag-nepal","tag-northern-ireland","issues-spring-summer-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4717,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/4717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}