Students initiate peace and justice through Global Peacebuilding Project

The goal of this interpersonal communication project is to show how to have an open discussion in an uplifting environment. “We will not be able to bring peace to today’s issues if we are always working against each other,” the students wrote in their grant proposal.

This idea stemmed from one student’s own personal conflicts, in which she said she didn’t feel heard by family members.

“I then noticed this problem on a larger scale, from watching the news to talking with friends. People don’t know how to talk anymore,” said sophomore MaKenna Pearn, of Davidson. “If we can’t talk to each other, we can’t solve anything.”

She and Jackson Bartholomew-Schoch, sophomore chemistry major from Cornelius, and junior Hayley Canal, a sustainable development major from Longwood, Florida, have been bringing people together to discuss a topic, videotaping each side independently and then having each side watch the other’s recording. This process is designed to encourage participants on each side to listen fully.

The students plan to hold mediated discussions and guide participants in how to have a constructive discussion over a disagreement. They will also interview them about how well the open discussion worked.

From these interviews, they plan to create a short film and a presentation on communication models.

With the GPP funding, this initiative — originally developed in 2015 by Wilson Scholars Sarah Aldridge ’18 and Juliet Irving — brought low-income, inner-city middle schoolers from Charlotte to the mountains for a no-cost weekend in September 2108 that included outdoor education, college access programming, leadership development and mentoring.

“Experiencing the outdoors can be truly and deeply challenging, which offers a metaphor for overcoming other obstacles,” said senior Gracie Bowling of Boone, who led the project with fellow Wilson Scholars Jama Brookes of Connelly Springs and Jabari Moore of Mint Hill.

Through the weekend’s activities, “we want to help participants understand they can go to college; there are resources available once they apply and that college can open doors,” Brookes said.

According to Aldridge, “Peace building in local communities requires a focus on equity of opportunity and poverty reduction.” Cycles of poverty and inequality can perpetuate discrimination and conflict, while equitable access to high-quality education and social support can level the playing field and create greater opportunities for socioeconomic mobility, she said.

The idea for The City to Mountains Student Exchange grew from Aldridge’s summer work in a Charlotte literacy program for low-income students. She and Irving launched the project during their sophomore year, with two middle schoolers participating. They held the event again in 2017 with eight participants.

In 2018, the students worked to include more youth in the weekend’s activities, strengthen the mentoring and conduct follow-up research on the program’s impact.

In this storytelling endeavor, juniors Kylie Holloway and Devyn Barron are addressing homophobia and transphobia by gathering interviews from college-age members of the LGBTQ+ community so they can be better understood by others.

The pair have been posting the stories to Instagram and plan to create a website.

“To have a peaceful society, you have to have space where people are understood,” said Holloway, a sustainable development major from Winston-Salem. “A project like this could open people’s eyes about what LGBTQ+ people go through but also see they are normal people and not separate from others.”

She and Barron compare their idea to the Humans of New York photography and interview project that gained a worldwide audience in web and book format for its glimpses into the lives of strangers on the streets of New York City.

“Storytelling allows for so many different perspectives, I think it will be super powerful,” said Barron, a sustainable development major from Raleigh.

They plan for the project to culminate in an on-campus event and possibly a published book.

Each said they have observed or personally experienced discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community — in conversations, through social media and in public.

“We want to create a community (and a world) that is truly accepting of ALL people, regardless of their sexual or gender identity, and eliminate hatred and discrimination,” the students wrote in their project proposal.