'Healing From Conflict' Conference

How do individuals and communities truly heal after conflict? This conference invites speakers and participants to explore this vital question together. Over a weekend of learning, reflection, and connection, we will consider how genuine healing can pave the way for communities to flourish in peace, justice, and hope.

The programme will include keynote talks, panel discussions, practical workshops, and creative sessions, alongside dedicated space to meet others who share a passion for peacemaking. Together, we will draw on experience, wisdom, and imagination to explore pathways toward healing and renewed community life.

This ecumenical Christian peace conference is a collaboration between the Fellowship of Reconciliation, CHIPS (Christian International Peace Service), the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, Pax Christi, and Church and Peace (the European Ecumenical Peace Network). Following our successful joint gathering in September 2024, Building Peace in a World at War, we are delighted to partner again on this year’s theme: Healing from Conflict.

Organised by Christian peace organisations, the conference will include prayer and worship, yet we warmly welcome participants and speakers of all faiths and beliefs. Live interpretation will be provided between French, English and German for the main sessions

Join us as we seek together the practices, insights, and hope that can help communities move from conflict toward healing and lasting peace.

If you have queries about this event or about booking please email: events@chipspeace.org. If you have questions about the venue, please see their website for more information: https://www.kentshillpark.com/

Speakers (more to be announced soon!)

Jane Kinninmont - Saturday Morning Keynote Address

Jane Kinninmont, Chief Executive of the United Nations Association - UK, reflects on the future of the United Nations and the vital role civil society will play in shaping it. Drawing on her own experience - including supporting The Elders - she offers insight into how global institutions are evolving, and how faith groups and grassroots movements can influence change. Both accessible and thought-provoking, this talk will challenge and equip listeners to consider their own part in building a more just and peaceful world.

Siniša Klem - Saturday Afternoon Keynote Address - 'I am Abel, but Cain is in me'

Siniša Klem is a peace practitioner with over 20 years’ experience across Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, committed to following Jesus’ way of nonviolence and reconciliation. He holds a Master’s in Christian Ethics and pursued doctoral research on nonviolence and reconciliation under Glen Stassen, whose vision of just peacemaking shapes his work.

His talk interprets the biblical story of Cain and Abel as a lens for understanding human violence, particularly in ethnic conflicts such as those between Croats and Serbs. It argues that people almost always identify themselves as Abel—the innocent victim—while projecting the role of Cain onto others. This self-perception justifies violence as defence or revenge. The author proposes the concept “I am Abel, but Cain lives in me,” suggesting that both victimhood and the potential for violence exist within every person. God’s response in Genesis challenges the logic of vengeance: God warns Cain before the murder, confronts him afterward, and protects him from revenge through the mark of Cain. This divine action criticises the cycle of violence rather than endorsing it. Drawing on René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, the essay explains how rivalry and desire escalate conflict. Ultimately, reconciliation requires recognising one’s own capacity for violence and seeking solutions beyond revenge, reflecting God’s non-violent approach to justice and peace.

Marcellina Priadi - Saturday Morning Workshop (Programme Manager at CHIPS)

Marcellina Priadi is a specialist in civilian protection and now serves as Programme Manager for CHIPS’ Brixton Project. Previously with Nonviolent Peaceforce in Sudan, she brings frontline experience of physically separating armed actors and protecting civilians without the use of force. In this workshop, she reflects on lessons from Darfur, exploring why peacekeeping alone is not enough. Without healing and rebuilt relationships at every level, the risk of renewed violence remains real. Twenty years after the first genocide, in the midst of war again, what would it take for Darfur to find lasting peace?

Lisa Cumming - Saturday Afternoon Workshop (Quakers in Britain)

Lisa Cumming currently works for Quakers in Britain on peacebuilding and nonviolence with Peacebuilding in Britain and Turning the Tide East Africa. This work includes accompanying civil society practitioners, organisations, and networks working on conflict in communities in Britain and remotely in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi. Lisa is currently undertaking a part time thesis listening to the stories and reflections of local peacebuilders. Lisa's workshop will explore one of the dilemmas in peacebuilding and conflict work - how to respond to harmful conflict in communities. This workshop will introduce and explore Barbara Deming’s concept of the two hands of nonviolence as one way to think about this dilemma. A dilemma that feels particularly sharp when thinking about racially targeted violence and hate. The workshop process will include a personal story of how this dilemma felt during the summer of 2024 as a way of reflecting on the two hands of nonviolence and will also offer a few other hopefully helpful ideas to takeaway.

Rev. Nathanael Reuss - Saturday Afternoon Workshop

Rev. Nathanael Reuss is an Associate Minister at St Bartholomew's, Norwood, Australia is a Christian Counsellor (www.nathanaelreusscounselling.com.au), and an Adjunct Lecturer in Counselling Skills at Tabor College. He holds a Master of Counselling Practice (Tabor College, Adelaide) and an MA in Theology of Mission and Ministry (St John's College, Nottingham). Nathanael is a registered member of PACFA and CCAA, with specialist expertise in religious trauma, spiritual abuse, and trauma-informed pastoral care. His research explores the intersection of theology and trauma for Complex Trauma recovery.

In this workshop he will explore how Complex PTSD presents with striking parallels across two distinct survivor populations: those who have endured armed conflict and those who have experienced spiritual abuse. In both contexts, trauma emerges from prolonged exposure to inescapable and threatening environments, producing significant and enduring psychological, emotional, and physiological impacts that persist well beyond the traumatic experiences themselves. This workshop examines these shared trauma presentations and explores the therapeutic and ecclesial responses available to practitioners and church communities. Particular attention will be given to evidence-informed Christian interventions in clinical and congregational settings, and how these can cultivate the conditions of safety necessary for meaningful trauma processing and recovery.

Rev. Dr. Girma Bishaw - Saturday Afternoon Workshop (Gratitude Initiative UK)

Rev Dr Girma Bishaw is Founder and Director of Gratitude Initiative UK, promoting gratitude as a transformative practice for addressing personal and societal challenges and fostering reconciliation. A former pastor with the Ethiopian Christian Fellowship Church, he played a key role in planting diaspora churches across the UK. Girma is an author and regular speaker at events including the Keswick Convention and Spring Harvest.

In this workshop, Girma explores how conflict leaves lasting emotional and relational wounds, shaping how people see themselves and others. He introduces the concept of “free psychological space”—an environment where individuals feel safe to reflect, listen, and engage openly. Drawing on the practices of gratitude and lament, participants will consider how to reduce defensiveness, acknowledge pain honestly, and create the conditions for empathy, dialogue, and meaningful relational healing.

Ana & Otto Raffai - Saturday Morning Workshop 

Ana Marija and Otto Raffai are Catholic theologians and peace workers from Croatia. After training as Shalom deacons in 1995, they became involved in peace work in the South-East Europe/Western Balkans region. Through the RAND association, they offer training courses on non-violent action. With the Faithful for Peace initiative, they organise conferences entitled ‘By building peace, we praise God’ and are involved in the Institute for Non-Violence Policies. Their main concern is to promote non-violence as an attitude and way of acting and, specifically, to awaken the responsibility of believers for peace. They have received several awards for their commitment to peace. They live in Sesvete, Croatia.

'Courage for peace in warlike times' workshop description: We often find ourselves in situations where we want to peacefully oppose the will to war/the opinions that armed defence is necessary and that providing weapons is almost a moral duty. When we dispute the necessity of violence as a means of defence, we are considered naive or even irresponsible. In this workshop, we will address the following questions: How do I experience the atmosphere in society that is marked by ‘war readiness’? What does it mean to show non-violent courage for peace in this atmosphere, to be exposed to opinions that condone violence? What gives me/us strength for non-violent resistance, where can I find support? We will exchange ideas through an exercise and in small groups.

John Cooper - Saturday Morning Workshop (FoR)

With a BA in Politics, International Relations, Third World and Development Studies, John has worked on questions of peace and justice with Christian Aid, the Joint Public Issues Team and All We Can. He is a lifelong Methodist with a strong commitment to ecumenism and a vibrant global church. He'll be running a workshop looking at how we respond to the militarisation of faith and society.

Revd Canon Kate Massey - Saturday Morning Workshop (Coventry Cathedral)

Kate Massey is Canon for Arts and Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. In this workshop, we will explore the role of art in reconciliation. We will touch on a theology of creativity and the power of art to connect and communicate, before looking at some ways in which art (in its broadest sense) has been used to promote the Community of the Cross of Nails priorities: healing the wounds of history, living well with difference and celebrating diversity and building a culture of justice and peace.

Martin Tiller - Saturday Morning Workshop (Christian CND)

This interactive workshop will use role play to help explore the arguments which people, including some Christians, make for and against the possession of nuclear weapons. Participants will have a chance to role play either side of the debate and seek common ground. The purpose is to help us all make the case for a world free of nuclear weapons, in a way which will be persuasive and effective.

Martin took early retirement from the rail industry in 2024, partly so that he could devote more time to his voluntary work in the Christian peace movement. He has been on Christian CND Exec since 2015, and currently also serves as the UK Board Member of Church and Peace. He is studying part time for an MA at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, and is a member of Rugby Baptist Church. He enjoys working with lots of amazing people in all of these organisations. His greatest frustration is when nuclear disarmament is seen as a controversial or ‘niche’ issue, especially among Christians – it should be really obvious that we all need to work together for God’s peace on earth!

Rike Flämig - Saturday Afternoon Workshop 

Rike Flämig is a dance artist and theologian based in Berlin. She is part of Refo Moabit, a unique self organized convent and community that works at the intersection of art, spirituality & justice. In her professional work as choreographer and performer she researches on the role of the body as a resistant sign and a site of healing and of processing individual and collective trauma. She creates site specific works on memory culture and historic injustices exploring art as a tool for reconciliation.

Catriona Robertson - Saturday Morning Workshop (Iona Community)

Catriona Robertson, peace activist, former Warden of Iona Abbey, and former director of the Christian Muslim Forum, presents an artistic response from the Iona Community to Amnesty International’s 2024 report on restrictions to protest. This travelling fingerprint Labyrinth - featuring poetry, music, and visual art - invites participants into a reflective journey of mindfulness, solidarity, and healing. Shaped by stories of climate activists and questions of justice, the experience offers space to engage emotionally and spiritually with themes of protest, identity, and nonviolent resistance.

Revd Clive Fowle - Saturday Afternoon Workshop

Rev Clive Fowle is a conflict resolution practitioner, trainer, and retired Methodist minister with over 40 years’ experience in pastoral care and healing. Since 1996, he has worked across Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina through the Bench We Share and Touch of Hope programmes, supporting communities affected by war.

In this workshop, Clive explores how we can engage compassionately with conflict in creative and constructive ways. Drawing on decades of experience, he offers practical insights and approaches to help participants respond to tension, build understanding, and foster healing in their own contexts.

Erin Blyth - Saturday Afternoon Workshop

Last autumn Erin visited Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Peace Presence in Colombia. Join here to find out more about the place where human rights and environmental protection meet and what she took away from her time in community.