This worksop is offered as part of the Peace Talks seminar series. It is aimed at parents or caregivers who want to explore ways their vision for their family lives, the needs of their family and how to carry out these visions in a supportive and non-judgmental space. You don’t need prior experience with Nonviolent Communication to attend.

At Peace Talks, most of our services and offerings are offered on a Gift Economy basis (see below)

It is important to us that our offerings are accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial situation. We do not receive any external funding for our courses, but instead choose to offer all of our work to people for the amount they are willing and able to contribute. 

To give an idea of what amount is sustainable for us, our current request is for contributions between $30-$50 for a workshop like this, but you are also welcome to contribute above or below this range. 

Your contribution supports our ongoing capacity to offer seminars and workshops like this in the future.

When deciding how much to give, please reflect on:

• What your budget comfortably allows.
• The time and care that go into organising this workshop: teaching, online platform and resources, handouts, planning, facilitation, and years of training.
• The value of this kind of support for your life.
• Your willingness to contribute to us so others can attend (now or in the future).

Our request is that you will consider what you are able and willing to give. When making the decision of what to contribute, the basic guideline (offered by Mike Kashtan) is this:

At Peace Talks, we want to take concrete steps towards creating a world where we can truly care for each other, operate from deep connection to community and give and receive from a true generosity of heart.

We want to live the change we want to see in the world (or, as Yoram Mozenson puts it, “live the needs we want to see in the world”) by bringing our values into every aspect of our lives and our work, including the question of how our families meet our basic needs. 

As a concrete step towards living the change we want in the world, we have been using a “Gift Economy” approach through our work at Peace Talks. This is a whole new way of operating in the world, is a little uncertain and maybe even uncomfortable at times, and yet, one that we have found to be rewarding, exciting and hopeful.

Simply put, a gift economy approach is an attempt to recreate a world where we care for each other, where we acknowledge that our well-being is inextricably tied up in each others’, and that we have some agency in creating a world that is focused on need not greed.  

The gift economy is an attempt to reimagine how we might be able to bring about the kind of deeply caring world we long for while also acknowledging the current reality of the economic system we are embedded within.

The gift economy harks back to our traditional, ancient roots when we lived in interconnected communities and each of us cared for all of us. (If you are interested in more background in the gift economy approach, see Charles Esientien, Miki Kashtan, Genevieve Vaughan among others).

This is very different from the world and economic system we currently live in (which rely on widespread ideas and beliefs like “deserving”, punishment and reward, power over or the use of violence in order to function). We therefore choose to live our lives to reflect these values as much as we are able to. Our wish in using this approach is to:

• Create systems where resources can flow to needs. We want our offerings to be accessible to a wide range of people, regardless of their ability to pay. In other words, we want the support, care and guidance that we offer to flow in the most direct way to the people who need that support, care and guidance. We want this course and all of our teachings to be accessible no matter their financial circumstances.

• Integrity and alignment with our values. The values of connection, care and compassion that are at the heart of NVC are the guiding principles of our lives, not “add ons”. The gift economy allows us to offer our services in a way that integrates our values and moves us towards a world where resources flow to people's needs.  The Gift Economy approach offers a way for us to explore a radical economic paradigm of integrating and embodying the connection and needs-based lens that we share in our teaching into every aspect of life (including economic decisions). 

• Modelling a new way of being, based on NVC teaching. We want the people we work with to have a powerful experience of what NVC can look like in the “real world”, not just at the level of inner consciousness or in their relationships with loved ones, but at the level of the systems that govern our lives and how we operate with each other in the world. We are passionate about sharing an alternative vision for the world, and therefore choose to offer many of our services using a gift-based economy.  

Offering a gift economy approach is a concrete step we can take towards these goals.

A gift economy approach transforms the moment of economic exchange into a relational moment - your wellbeing and mine are brought together into shared consideration. We are brought into awareness of our inter-dependence, our shared humanity and our mutual longing for trust and cooperation: “I” and “you” become “we”.

It creates a tiny microcosm of possibility; a world where we care for each other, where the implications of our economic choices are a little more visible to us, and where we are able to use our daily financial decisions as a way to meet needs and support each other.