About Ron Kraybill
Ron Kraybill has worked full-time as a mediator, group facilitator, and trainer in peacebuilding since 1979. He was founding director of the Mennonite Conciliation Service from 1979 to 1988, director of training at the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town 1989-1995, and cofounder and professor in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, 1996-2006. Currently he runs Riverhouse ePress and does training and consultancies in peacebuilding around the world in particular in theMiddle East. He is based for the past two years in the Jerusalem area.
Kraybill holds a Masters from Harvard University and a PhdD in Religious Studies from the University of Cape Town. He wrote his PhD thesis on the role of religiously-based peacebuilding initiatives (by the Quakers, the Catholic Church, and Moral ReArmament) in the Rhodesian Civil War in the early 1970s. His involvements abroad in the last twenty years have included appointment as “master trainer” for a pilot project of the UNDP providing training in several African countries, 10 months of on-site leadership setting up a program in peacebuilding in Hyderabad, India; three two-week trips to Burma to assist a nascent peacebuilding effort there, consultation and training for peacebuilders involved in the Naga conflict in Northeast India; training political and civil society actors in the Sri Lankan conflict, and advising and training a group convened by the UNDP to assist peaceful elections in Guyana.
As a professor in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, he taught courses in group facilitation and process design, religion and conflict, and the personal emotional and spiritual journey of peaceworkers. He directed the world-renowned Summer Peacebuilding Program at EMU in its early years.
In 1992 Kraybill was appointed as a training advisor to the National Peace Accord by the major South African political parties and served in this capacity until the dissolution of the Peace Accord when the new government came in in 1995.As founding director of the Mennonite Conciliation Service, he spent 9 years from 1979-1988 working in a variety of community and religious conflicts throughout the US and Canada, and served on the board of the first several gatherings of the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. Publications Kraybill’s most recent writings include Cool Tools for Hot Topics (Good Books, in press), a collection of tools and techniques for facilitating dialogue in settings of high tension. He is nearly finished with another book entitled “Renewing the Healer”, that addresses the challenges of self-care and personal transformation of people involved in healing the wounds of our world. Previous books include:
Kraybill holds a Masters from Harvard University and a PhdD in Religious Studies from the University of Cape Town. He wrote his PhD thesis on the role of religiously-based peacebuilding initiatives (by the Quakers, the Catholic Church, and Moral ReArmament) in the Rhodesian Civil War in the early 1970s. His involvements abroad in the last twenty years have included appointment as “master trainer” for a pilot project of the UNDP providing training in several African countries, 10 months of on-site leadership setting up a program in peacebuilding in Hyderabad, India; three two-week trips to Burma to assist a nascent peacebuilding effort there, consultation and training for peacebuilders involved in the Naga conflict in Northeast India; training political and civil society actors in the Sri Lankan conflict, and advising and training a group convened by the UNDP to assist peaceful elections in Guyana.
As a professor in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, he taught courses in group facilitation and process design, religion and conflict, and the personal emotional and spiritual journey of peaceworkers. He directed the world-renowned Summer Peacebuilding Program at EMU in its early years.
In 1992 Kraybill was appointed as a training advisor to the National Peace Accord by the major South African political parties and served in this capacity until the dissolution of the Peace Accord when the new government came in in 1995.As founding director of the Mennonite Conciliation Service, he spent 9 years from 1979-1988 working in a variety of community and religious conflicts throughout the US and Canada, and served on the board of the first several gatherings of the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. Publications Kraybill’s most recent writings include Cool Tools for Hot Topics (Good Books, in press), a collection of tools and techniques for facilitating dialogue in settings of high tension. He is nearly finished with another book entitled “Renewing the Healer”, that addresses the challenges of self-care and personal transformation of people involved in healing the wounds of our world. Previous books include:
- Peace Skills: A Manual for Community Mediators (Jossey-Bass, 2001)
- Co-author with Bob and Alice Evans. Building Peace Skills: A Leader’s Guide (Jossey-Bass, 2001)
- Editor, Training Manual for Conflict Transformation Skills (Akron, PA: Mennonite Conciliation Service, 1988), a 247 page training manual for training mediators for community, religious, and institutional conflict intervention.
- Repairing the Breach: Ministering in Community Conflict (Herald Press, 3rd Edition, 1982)
- Mediation: A Reader (Christian Legal Society, 1979), co-edited with Lynn Buzzard
- The booklets in the Riverhouse ePress series on conflict resolution and group facilitation.
