Introductions

Anna!  I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, went to Seton Hall for undergraduate and UMDNJ in Newark for graduate school, lived in West Orange for eight years, and my grandparents lived in Irvington when I was growing up.  I’ve taken the PATH from Harrison more times than I can count.  Now I’m about forty-five minutes from there.  We are practically neighbors!!!

Hello everyone!

I know most of you have started this course a long time ago and I won’t be able to catch up, since I only started in the beginning of september. Nevertheless I would like to introduce myself, since I believe that sharing and communicating is an essential aspect of nonviolence and particularly of this course. I am really happy to be able to go on this journey and I hope that I will be able to exchange some of my ideas with you all and to somehow get to know you better (it was wonderful to read through the different posts – the diversity of people becomes really obvious).

So, my name is Julie Jankovic. I am 31 years old (I guess that age plays a role in nonviolence in that a lot seems to be about life and experience), I am half French, half German and currently live and work in Gisenyi / Rwanda, which is a small town on the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo and on the shores of Lake Kivu. I am working as a peacebuilding consultant for a local youth organization. Our mission is to promote nonviolent conflict transformation and reconciliation in the region (we have a lot of cross-border activities with other organizations in Goma / DRC). The wars that have been (and continue) savaging this beautiful region have literally caused the death of several million of people and another several million have been displaced from their homes within the last decades.
Living and working in such a violent context makes me deeply wonder about the meanings of life, humans, nature, violence, values, education, power and spirituality – just to name a few. And since it is my job to contribute to promoting peace, I constantly wonder how!

I am a trained peace and conflict consultant and am specialized in peace education. The more I gain experience in and identify with the realm of peacebuilding, the more I feel that there is a lot of spirituality to it. But since I grew up in a very secular environment, I find it a bit difficult to find my way and comfort zone with it.
Nonviolence is a term that is frequently used but I never had the opportunity to look deeper into the matter. However, it seems to me that it combines different scientific disciplines and spirituality in a way that I could feel perfectly comfortable with. I hope this course will help me learn more about myself and thus inspire me for my work so that I can pass some of it on!

Thank you!

Welcome Julie! Your work and experience sounds amazing. I am currently working in Central Uganda with a girls empowerment, community justice and development NGO. Would love to connect and hear more about your work! – Marissa