Why am I here? How did I get here?

My first formal acquaintance with the field of peacebuilding was that of chance. While pursuing my Master’s degree in International Policy and Development, I happened to take a class on Intro to Conflict Resolution and now, 2 years down the line, I find myself finishing up on my conflict resolution certification. As you can tell, yes, the field almost instantly captured me. Through the education I continued to pursue in the field, I came across various concepts, theories and ideas that got me thinking about conflicts from various perspectives. Conflict is bad, was my understanding. It causes loss and sorrow and heartbreak and trauma. But then, without conflict, what will spark about change and challenge the current? It therefore is an opportunity for change. So then, is conflict good?

This intellectual fascination caught my curiosity and ever since I have been diving further into the field to find the answers I am looking for. Along this journey it suddenly dawned upon me, conflict is not a single separate isolated entity that is looked into by a selected specialized few. It is interwoven into our everyday life, it is inescapable and hence, we deal with it on a regular basis.

It is then I realized, peacebuilding, conflict resolution, any other name you can concoct to convey the same idea is not a concept in isolation, but, in fact, an idea practiced and held sacred in various corners of the world. It is an absolute joy and pleasure to be a part of unveiling these practices, studying the theories behind these practices and building on them to see a better future. Through peacebuilding, we are better equipped to acknowledge our external environments and internal processes which makes us more capable and ready to address these conflict situations.

This field, in my opinion is the most interdisciplinary field that is still young and enthusiastic to grow. In that spirit of inter-disciplinary is where I see myself in the summer peacebuilding program, exploring ways to combine my knowledge from various other pools of thought and skills (specifically the monitoring and evaluation field, the field of economics) with the peacebuilding field. I am excited to explore peacebuilding in depth through the SPP and how peacebuilding processes can be better evaluated using quantitative and qualitative techniques hand in hand.