Successful Peacebuilders' Summit takes place in Belfast!

*05/06/08 Please note: we can no longer process any further requests for bursaries to attend the conference. The bursary fund is now closed*

What an amazing week! On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the re-establishment of Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive and legislative assembly, peacebuilders from across the world came to Belfast to share their perspectives, practice and experience of the challenges of peacebuilding.

Over the course of two (uncommonly!-) warm and sunny days in Belfast, delegates at the Peacebuilders' Summit 6-7 May 2008 had the opportunity to tour the city's Falls and Shankill roads, hear presentations given by groups from two sites of peacebuilding, and take part in the full day's programme at the Europa Hotel Belfast.

First impressions and a big thank you!

The turnout at the summit was unprecedented, with delegates making the journey from across Belfast and the island as a whole, the UK, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Pacific, and North America to attend and establish new partnerships for their peacebuilding work.

The entire team at Springboard and the Global Peacebuilders project would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made the journey to attend, and to all those who made speeches, took part on the Question Time panel and led workshops. The summit was a great success, and it has been a pleasure to welcome you all to Belfast!

First impressions of feedback on the summit has been very positive and hugely constructive for the future, and there are already a large number of excellent opportunities to develop and build on the comments given by delegates for any future peacebuilder gatherings. Just a few of the comments given to Global Peacebuilders in the form of the delegate evaluation forms can be seen below.

Please check out the documents below, and keep an eye out for future updates - a huge amount of valuable materials, perspectives and resources on peacebuilding was shared over the course of the summit, and we will do our best to make these materials available to you for download as soon as possible. So please come back regularly!

Resources and outcome documents

To view the full programme of activities that took place between 6-7 May 2008 as part of the conference, as well as read about the various speakers, workshop facilitators and other contributors that took part, click here.

• Download Conference Report by clicking here

• Download official Peacebuilders Summit 6-7 May 2008 full-colour brochure by clicking here

• Download videos of the Global Peacebuilders Summit 6-7 May 2008 by clicking the links below. Check back regularly to download new videos! You may need to download the Divx Player to play back these videos. To download the Player free, visit http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/player/

• Opening remarks and keynote speeches
• Question Time panel and closing Interative Music Experience

• Download official opening and welcoming address by Angila Chada, Executive Director of Springboard by clicking here

• Download keynote address by Billy Hutchinson and Sean Murray by clicking here

• Download Peacebuilding Training Approach workshop Technology for Peace: Ideas from the Trenches by Sanjana Hattotuwa by clicking here

• Download notes on the Peacebuilding Training Approach workshop Principles and Practice of the Peace Guerrilla by Ben Hoffman by clicking here

• Download Global Perspective on Peacebuilding workshop War Child Holland in Sierra Leone: Working Towards Peaceful Communities by Wout Visser by clicking here

• Pictures used in this workshop presentation were taken by Carolien Sikkenk.To download the companion document to the War Child Holland workshop ‘Let pikin bisniss be all men bisniss': The psychosocial recovery of communities in post-war Sierra Leone - Survey of War Child’s programme in Sierra Leone click here

• Download Global Perspective on Peacebuilding workshop Sites of Conscience: Using Places of the Past to Address Today's Conflicts by Liz Sevcenko by clicking here

• To view the entire Peacebuilders' Summit photo collection now, view the slide show online by clicking here

Selected Photo downloads - Click on the image to enlarge and download

“It was an excellent day, and really well organised”

“Great selection of speakers and topics, and with no cost it was very accessible.  Great!”

“I feel proud to be attending this event – quite a feat bringing so many together from so many walks of life”

“It felt great to link up with international peacebuilders and it was much better than my expectations!  I made great connections and really opened my mind to new ideas and peacebuilding approaches”

“A rewarding experience, particularly in terms of networking opportunities, though it was unfortunately shorter than I wished”

“Exceeded my expectations…. a place that sparked ideas”

“Went beyond my expectations… a great opportunity to experience a range of different approaches and to gain perspectives of other situations and conflict zones.  It was too short!”

Friends of Global Peacebuilders

There are a number of organisations and people without whom the summit would not have been possible, and we want to thank everyone who supported Global Peacebuilders over the course of the summit planning. We particularly want to give a big thank you to our summit sponsors, who kindly 'sponsored-a-seat' at the summit venue. Their generous sponsorship enabled us to ensure that we delivered an informative, vibrant and worthwhile summit for all. We also want to thank the Global Peacebuilders interns Julie Harvey, Jessica Johnston and Lesley Prendergast, who gave up so much of their free time to work tirelessly in a voluntary capacity to make the summit a reality.