Introduction to Unarmed Civilian Protection

Location: ONLINE; Zoom link provided in the confirmation window that will pop up after you complete registration. It will also be sent via email about 24 hrs. before the session. After that time, contact eleni.christidis@gmail.com if you don't get it. Unarmed Civilian Protection and Accompaniment is a methodology for teams that offer direct protection of civilians and others, reduction of hostility, re-humanization of parties, as well as increasing local peace infrastructures. This workshop will be largely experiential and learning-by-doing. The skills learned can be modified and applied in many facets of life, including political demonstrations, local events, accompaniment of those in danger, neighborhood conflicts, and international conflicts. Objectives: 1) Sharing experiences of unarmed protection and accompaniment 2) An increased awareness of the orientation, strategies and tactics, and event strategy. 3) Acquiring skills by role-playing how UCP units use these strategies and tactics

Payment is on a sliding scale. We ask for $45-$100 to support our work and help us better serve the community. No one will be turned away for lack of payment and we welcome you either way. After completing registration below, please submit payment today at-- https://www.dcpeaceteam.org/donate; or checks can be written out to DC Peace Team and mailed to Eli McCarthy, 7305 Baylor Ave. College Park, MD 20740. Facilitators:

Heather Payne is passionate about unarmed civilian protection efforts around the world. She is a former Program Manager at Nonviolent Peaceforce while working in South Sudan. Before South Sudan, Heather worked in Lebanon with local civil society NGOs on educational and vocational projects for children and women. She has facilitated numerous trainings in different contexts on civilian protection such as community protection, gender based violence prevention, child protection and EWER. In the United States she supported a congressional candidate with UCP doing protective presence, protective accompaniment and facilitating UCP trainings. Currently, Heather is a Training Manager for a 988 and Colorado Crisis Services center. She manages the training infrastructure for supporting local Coloradans in crisis utilizing harm reduction and least restrictive methods.

Eleni Christidis (she/her pronouns) is a DC resident with a background in political science and law. She joined the Unarmed Civilian Protection Committee of the DC Peace Team in 2021 and has done weekly deployments to the Columbia Heights Civic Plaza as part of an unarmed Community Safety Unit. She's enjoyed drawing on her Spanish language skills, as well as her long-standing interest in mediation and conflict resolution, to build relationships with and broker understanding among community members during her deployments.