Article December 17, 2001 Issue

A pacifist's building block of peace

with contributions from Paula Green

"We're not born evil. We're not born violent. We're not born destructive. We become destructive through the circumstances of our lives," says Paula Green, founder and director of the Karuna Center for Peace-building in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Changing those circumstances has become her life's work. Through the Karuna Center, she has conducted educational and training programs aimed at transforming conflict through dialogue and reconciliation in some of the most bitterly divided corners of the world, such as Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Israel.

She left a career as a psychotherapist to found the Karuna Center when she felt a spiritual calling—a sense that her healing work could be more broadly applied in a global context. She is also a professor of conflict transformation at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, where she directs an annual peacebuilding institute for people interested in developing peacebuilding skills.

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