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Struggling for Peace by Seeking Justice and Offering Love
Noah Salameh al-Khmoor, experienced in the culture and implications of imprisonment and pacifism, is director of the Center for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Hebron University in Palestine. He is a Steering Committee Member for the distinguished International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) headquartered in the Netherlands. This spiritually based movement, composed of prominent figures who have committed themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of personal, economic and political transformation, works to build a new culture of nonviolence for humankind in the hopes of fostering deep and lasting peace. Salameh is specifically responsible for IFOR’s Nonviolence Education and Training Program.
In December 2004, he received the Dante Aleghieri Peace and Human Rights
Award from the District of Comune di Castelnuovo
Magra in Italy for his continuous struggle for a just and
lasting peace.
In his youth, Salameh spent fifteen years as a Palestinian political prisoner in Israel, would soon make a remarkable conversion to pacifism and later pursue his education in the area even further. Beginning in the UNRWA Dheisha Refugee Camp’s Preparatory School, he went on to Bethlehem University and in 1994 received his MA in International Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. At Notre Dame he studied such subjects as democracy, human rights, nonviolence, communications skills and conflict resolution.
His work experience includes:
-Holding meetings on conflict resolution for social workers in Bethlehem
-Public Relations Director for the Palestinian Labor Ministry
-Executor of a 56-hour training program for Palestinian teachers in response to the post-intifada situation
-Participant and facilitator in the Peace Educational Program between Israeli and Palestinian teachers and students in the Middle East for 3 years
-Judge in the selection process for the Pfeffer Peace Prize from the American Fellowship of Reconciliation
-Coordinator of the Conflict Resolution Program in the Nonviolence Center in Jerusalem, where he held Conflict Resolution Training Workshops for Palestinian students, activists, teachers, labor leaders, security men, and social workers
-Founder of Dheisha Health Center in the Dheisha Refugee Camp
-Founder of the Palestinian Children’s Library in Bethlehem’s Dheisha Camp
-Participation in many conferences concerning conflict resolution and reconciliation such as those in Spain and Northern Ireland in 1997
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