Pt’chang was an Australian Nonviolent Community Safety Group which conducted a wide range of dynamic and creative violence-prevention, peace-building and community safety initiatives.
Although no longer active Pt’chang has left a valuable legacy both through people they trained and the materials gathered here. The Pt’chang collection includes comprehensive manuals and excerpts designed to be easily used.
Many conflicts get worse than they actually need to be because the participants lose control of themselves and retreat into self-reinforcing patterns of attack and counterattack. Here are some suggestions, drawn from the literature of conflict resolution and psychotherapy, that can be used to de-escalate conflicts.
‘Feedback’ is a communication to a person or a group which gives that person information about how they affect others. It is important to be able to give feedback in such a way that people can hear it, take it in, evaluate it, and change behaviour which affects their relationship with others.
Active listening is a fundamental skill for peacebuilding and social change. It is more than hearing, it involves processing what has been heard and skilfully selecting a response. Active listening serves to encourage the person to tell more and most importantly, communicates to the person that you are interested and listening.
As a means of radical social change, nonviolence draws on a rich history of people’s struggles from around the world. Grassroots people’s movements have brought down dictators, stopped armies, undermined corporations and halted entire industries with nonviolent resistance.
Learn about the three major approaches to peace identified by Johan Gultung: peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding.