Our aim is not to change the world but to inspire the world to change itself.
At ProdUse, we have made it our policy to have a social-political element to each piece we produce, either within the nature or the piece, the manner of the production or a deliberate and appropriate engagement with our environment. Each time we are privileged to create a performance, we want to pass this on is some way. Fledgling we may be, but as we soar, we intend to take others to healthy and harmonious heights.
The Centre for Peaceful Solutions uses the Dialogue Road Map to create Social Change. As part of social change we work in schools to give children the skills to navigate conflict which is ever present in life. We also work in prisons with people who have used violence to get their own way. At the heart of what we do is the reduction of unnecessary injury, loss or harm. Our work takes us into communities, organisations and families. Our aim is to pass on skills and transformative processes and not to be the expert.
Dartmoor prison is opening its doors to us to prove a model which will help people make healthier and better choices. The outcome will be crime reduction, healthier families, cohesive communities. We will be working with people who have perpetrated injury, loss and harm to self, other and society and working with victims, families and communities affected by crime.
This is a 2 year undertaking involving many sub-projects which will contribute making Dartmoor a Restorative Prison. A Restorative Prison will give prisoners the opportunity to try living from a place of contribution. In fact we call the work From Conflict to Contribution. We talk about people paying a debt to society, why not go beyond the debt and into making a contribution. Every human being has the potential to make a contribution. Some people need to be shown how, so they can learn how amazing it feels to give.
Voltaire said that if every person’s life is a garden and each person tended their own garden the world would be a beautiful place. Using the Dialogue Road Map we change a person’s inner and outer landscape and motivate them to tend their own garden and see if their neighbours need a hand. Once learned and practised, it’s very difficult to un-know.
To take on a 2 year undertaking we need to raise 2 years funding. It £120,000 a year to run the Centre for Peaceful Solutions so we need to raise £240,000. Out of this project we expect every prisoner to be exposed to the Dialogue Road Map, that’s 650 inmates, plus families, victims and community members. Over the course of the 2 years I would expect there to be around 2000 direct and indirect beneficiaries. That works out at works out at around £100 per person.
We also need a University to evaluate the project to ensure it is validated and currently we are having those discussions with 3 academic institutions.
For more information find us at www.centreforpeacefulsolutions.org