Zoughbi Zoughbi is the founder and director of the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre in the West Bank.
Known by the name "Wi'am," the Arabic word meaning "cordial relationships," the center offers mediation, training, and counseling to help resolve community disputes. It includes a trauma-coping program for children, leadership training for women, and nonviolence education programs.
"The Israeli occupation has created an alarming deterioration of political, economic, environmental, and social structures," said Zoughbi, who founded the center in 1994. "But even in the midst of this deterioration, I experience great joy in responding to people's needs."
Wi'am was honored with the 2010 Peacebuilding Award in the World Vision International Peace Prize competition for "successfully integrating traditional Palestinian mediation customs with innovative academic models of conflict analysis to address the very difficult circumstances of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank."
Zoughbi, also a city council member in Bethlehem, is involved in the Mennonite Central Committee in Jerusalem, the World Council of Churches, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the Arab Partnership for Conflict Prevention. His work as a nonviolence educator has taken him to Costa Rica, Denmark, Holland, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, and the United States.
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- Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre
- More about Wi'am