Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI)
Deepen your practice. Expand your community. Build peace together.
May 24 - June 18, 2027 I Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA
Join a global community of people working toward a more just and peaceful world. At Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI), you’ll build practical skills, explore new approaches, and learn alongside people bringing diverse experiences of conflict, resilience, and social change.
Come with the questions shaping your work. Leave with fresh perspectives, meaningful relationships, and tools to put into practice.
Explore 2027 Courses or Apply Now
Bring your experience. Learn from others.
Peacebuilding is complex work. SPI offers space to step back, reflect, and strengthen your capacity to respond.
Through participatory courses, experienced instructors connect ideas with practice and invite participants to learn from one another. Together, you’ll examine challenges, share strategies, and consider how your learning applies in your own context.
Whether you work in a community organization, school, faith community, nonprofit, public institution, or another setting, SPI welcomes you into a community of learning and practice.
Shape a learning experience that fits your goals
Choose one course or combine courses across sessions. Explore conflict analysis, restorative justice, trauma awareness and resilience, facilitation, reconciliation, and other approaches to peacebuilding.
Participate for professional development or take courses for graduate academic credit.
Some of SPI’s most meaningful connections begin over a meal, during a conversation between sessions, or through a shared question.
Gather in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with people whose experiences may differ from your own—and whose commitments may resonate deeply. Build relationships that can sustain your work long after your time at SPI.
Explore our course offerings
Find the information you need to make SPI part of your year.
Courses & Workshops
Instructors
Participant Information & FAQ
Costs
Scholarships
Join us at SPI 2027
Your experience belongs in the conversation. Bring your questions, share what you’ve learned, and take your next steps alongside a global peacebuilding community.
Apply to SPI
Contact the SPI Team by emailing spi@emu.edu
The Summer Peacebuilding Institute is a program of Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. CJP cultivates communities of learning and practice for a more just and peaceful world.
