Of all the phrases that litter my inbox, I really like the term “Next Steps.” It’s the perfect blend of commitment to move ahead, hopefully together, without undue obsession on the end point. Next steps bring us forward.
This week, at long last, we launch a new website for the Outward Bound Center for Peacebuilding. After many months of writing and designing only to re-write and re-design, I share this face of our community and invite you to join me in next steps.
If you know us and our work, you will see much that is familiar. If we are new to you, welcome. I hope you will find information and opportunities of interest. If we don’t answer every question you may have or include every detail of our history or our programs, that is because our next steps will be a collaboration all along the way.
Our mission and our vision remain true – we seek to challenge and inspire leaders (of every stripe and at any level) to work together toward peace. And we firmly believe the best way to advance is by teaching and learning as a community, using our whole being, surmounting challenges, honestly, away from our comfortable distractions and with plenty of time and space to reflect and grow.
More than 10 years of pioneering expeditions and projects, with more than 2,500 participants from 25 countries have shown all of us that Experiential Peacebuilding is a vital idea – it works and it changed all of us. But it doesn’t need to look any one way.
Today and tomorrow our next steps will include all kinds of partner programs – workshops, trainings, expeditions, presentations and more and more of the ongoing conversations about our book.
If you’re committed to peacebuilding but you don’t see the connection to carrying a pack up a mountain, come talk to me.
If you love to help people find the magic in a rock wall ascent or a whitewater descent but you’ve never thought of your work as building peace, come talk to me.
Most of all, if you believe that we need new ways to connect with others – and the other – and we need more ways to remind ourselves that we are and need nature in order to be ourselves, come talk to me.
We are here and we want to share and learn together.
– Flavio Bollag