Successful Peacebuilders' Summit takes place in Belfast!

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.

Downloads

• Download official Peacebuilders Summit 6-7 May 2008 full-colour brochure by clicking here
• Download official opening and welcoming address by Angila Chada, Executive Director of Springboard by clicking here
• To view the entire Peacebuilders' Summit photo collection now, view the slideshow online by clicking here

Selected Photo downloads - Wednesday 7 May 2007 - Peacebuilders' Summit, Europa Hotel Belfast. 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.