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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Laura Ingalls (laura.ingalls@worldlearning.org) in Washington, 1.202.464.6973
CONTACT Faculty George Lakey Recipient of 2008 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize
BRATTLEBORO, VT (January 14, 2009) -- CONTACT Faculty and lifelong nonviolent activist and educator George Lakey is the recipient of the 2008 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). For 50 years, Lakey has led social change campaigns on local, national, and international levels and over 1500 workshops on five continents.
"Though I never met him personally, Dr. King was a mentor to me in a sense," says Lakey, "I hung on his every word."
Lakey received the award when he delivered the keynote address at FOR's 50 annual conference on July 4, 2008, and he was honored at a second ceremony at FOR's headquarters in September 2008.
At the SIT Graduate Institute, George Lakey teaches in the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures's Summer Peacebuilding Program. He taught Training for Change for the past several years.
Here is what one of his students' shares about his experience in George Lakey's Training for Change:
"As a practitioner with several years of learning and training experience in the Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation fields within Africa, Europe, Asia, United States, ...the CONTACT experience is still is a positive shock to me. In his class on Training for Change, George continuously kept attempting to take us 'out of our comfort zones as a way of expanding our learning zones. What? Yes!!! I hold strongly to this concept of George and believe very much that in our efforts to bring about change, to build greater peace, to transform today's realities into tomorrow's hopes; we must attempt new ways and open new realms even if it is uncomfortable to do so. Thank you George for such enlightenment!!" -- William Saa
Unfortunately, George will not be teaching in the 2009 Summer Peacebuilding program as he will be in Norway research a book.
Lakey is the author of seven books and his work has been translated into at least six languages. His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in in Chester and he co-authored A Manual for Direct Action, which was widely used in the South in the 1960s. Other titles include Powerful Peacemaking: A Strategy for a Living Revolution and Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times. He previously received the Paul Robeson Award for Social Justice from the Bread and Roses Community Fund and the national Giraffe Award for "sticking his neck out for the public good."
World Learning works globally to enhance the capacity and commitment of individuals, institutions, and communities to create a more peaceful and just world through education, training and exchange programs.
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