This workshop, designed by Dr. Yasemin Acar (University of St Andrews), Dr. Yasin Duman (KU Leuven), and Dr. Thia Sagherian-Dickey (University of Dundee), aims to work collaboratively with participants to further develop and refine a practical approach to grassroots peace dialogue that can be used by local communities in different contexts. Building on our initial pilot work with the Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality’s "Amed Peace Gatherings", the session will use structured participatory exercises to test and improve a draft dialogue format while centring participants’ own understandings of what peace means in their communities.The workshop is designed to be mutually beneficial. Participants will contribute directly to the ongoing co-production of a transferable peace dialogue toolkit, while also gaining a clearer sense of how such tools are developed, tested, and adapted in practice. Our aim is that participants leave not only having shaped the process, but also with concrete ideas they could draw on in their own community or organisational work. More broadly, the workshop aligns with the Forum’s emphasis on inclusive, community-led peacebuilding by translating research into practices grounded in lived experience and collective reflection.
The immediate outcome of this workshop is a more robust-field-tested foundation for the development of a finished toolkit. Through structured co-production and piloting, the session will generate refined dialogue prompts, facilitation insights, and user-led feedback on what makes grassroots peace conversations workable in practice. These materials will inform the next phase of toolkit development and ensure that the final resource is grounded in community experience rather than researcher assumptions.
Language: Kurdish, Turkish, and English
Participation: Open to psychologists, social workers, sociologists, researchers, and academics in these fields.
Capacity: 10 people
Dr. Yasemin Acar - https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/psychology-neuroscience/people/yga1/
Dr. Yasin Duman - https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/00158694
Dr. Thia Sagherian-Dickey - https://www.dundee.ac.uk/people/thia-sagherian-dickey