Relaunch of the Melton Share Series

The Melton Foundation just relaunched a series called Melton Shares, now with a stronger focus on the personal stories of experience. A forum for Melton Fellows and friends of the Melton Foundation, Melton Shares describes the experiences and stories of those who promote global citizenship through their actions. Participation in Melton Shares is open to the public.

To kick off the new series, Melton Fellow May Garces spoke about her experience as an intern at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. May describes how faculty and students at Arava work from the premise that nature knows no boundaries. However, this doesn’t mean that peace-building is easy simply because people are working on mutual problems – quite the contrary. Their Peace-Building & Environmental Leadership Seminars (PELS) are intensive, demanding, and often painful exercises in hearing the perspectives from the “other”, and hopefully understanding them.

Now back in Chile, May has started to make connections between the researchers and technicians she met in Israel and local communities close to her home, who are facing a similar double challenge of building a sustainable and resilient development in a conflicted region. Reflecting on concepts related to peace throughout May's talk, at the core is the assertation: “Peace begins in yourself.” If you missed the talk and the spirited discussion that followed it, watch and listen below.

Plus, join the next Melton Share scheduled to be held between November 20th and 23rd. Mexican activist Ricardo E. Velázquez will show how to start a peaceful revolution using the example of Mexico, its current situation and his personal story. Sign up here.