Metta Center for Nonviolence

CURRENT PROJECTS, SPRING 2010

1. Consultation. We accept requests and proactively offer consulting to individuals or movements around the world who are seeking to redress grievances by nonviolence. We offer more personal consulting through the “Ask Metta” service on our website, and work closely with several nonviolence-building efforts, such as the National Peace Academy campaign. Status: Ongoing.

2. Nonviolence Resource Center. We are establishing ourselves more firmly as a solid resource center for nonviolence, both locally (we are equipping our new offices as a physical resource center and meeting place) and globally (we are upgrading and repackaging our online resources to be even more accessible and useful for people around the world). Status: Launching!

3. Metta Mentors. This project brings a group of U.S. and international youth (18-35) to Berkeley for ten weeks each summer and places them with a local non-profit (or, as we prefer to say, social profit!). The mentees work four days a week with their respective organizations and return to Metta on Fridays for instruction and discussion around themes of nonviolence. Status: Funding being sought for the fourth consecutive summer, 2010.

4. Educators for Nonviolence. Originally established as a joint project between Metta and the Dalai Lama Foundation, EFNV seeks to help educators create a nonviolent learning environment in their schools and classrooms, and introduce nonviolence as an inspiring subject at respective grade levels. See www.efnv.org. Status: A revitalization of this program is in the early planning stages.

5. Website and Portal. www.mettacenter.org, already a popular website, is being reorganized to provide more information and greater usability. In addition, the website will feed into a potential nonviolence portal, which Metta is a partner in planning. Status: New site launched in January, 2010, and is in the beta phase; NV portal is in early stages of design and collection of material.

6. Nonviolence Courses. The final year of Michael Nagler’s nonviolence course at Berkeley, “Theory and Practice of Nonviolence” and “Nonviolence Today,” is offered via webcast on the Metta site. These 58 lectures, a classic overview of nonviolence, have been visited by nearly 100,000 people and comments have come in from around the world. Status: We are currently condensing and cataloging the lectures into a more accessible size, and adding explanatory material, so that others may learn from them more effectively.

7. Hope Tank. More of a social core, perhaps, than a project, we meet each Friday for meditation, breakfast, and an always lively discussion of nonviolence and its role in the world right now. These talks have been recorded for over a year and are posted on our website. Status: Ongoing

8. Experiments in Nonviolence. At Metta, we are dedicated to living the nonviolence that we promote in our daily lives, from the smallest details to the greatest of undertakings. We are living nonviolence, as Gandhi did, as “experiments with Truth”, and plan to share this through projects of story-sharing, community building, and local action. Status: watch for this…it’s coming soon!