FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JAYNE SEMINARE DOCHERTY, PHD
DEAR CJP COMMUNITY: As we gathered online in June to celebrate the delayed 25th Anniversary of CJP, my heart was filled with gratitude and grief. Gratitude for the many different ways our students, faculty, staff, and supporters helped CJP thrive in spite of huge challenges. Grief for those lost to Covid-19 and to violence in its many forms. Covid taught me a new word. When an infectious disease overlaps with underlying noncommunicable diseases in the context of social and economic disparity, the result is a syndemic. In a syndemic, the interaction of factors amplifies and complicates the negative impacts of each problem. Even in Harrisonburg, we could see that lower-income communities paid a far heavier price from the pandemic than middle-class communities where ill family members could isolate inside spacious homes and necessities were delivered every day. Insofar as class overlaps with race, the inequities created by decades of racial injustices were also staring us in the face. Then we all witnessed the impunity of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. Something broke open and thousands of people, including many of us, took to the streets saying, “Enough! This has to change.” Our program started 26 years ago against the backdrop of the hot conflicts popping up around the world at the end of the Cold War. We adapted
2 | CJP IMPACT REPORT | 2021
our work through the global war on terror. Now we are asking, “What is required of us as we do justice and peacebuilding education in the context of a syndemic that includes a mutating communicable disease, sustained racism and oppression, poverty and inequality in every country and between countries, the impacts of global climate change, a frightening rise in authoritarian movements, and deep political polarization?” What must change in the way we do our work? What is still valid and needs to be sustained even if in modified forms? Peace cannot be built on a foundation of injustice and unaddressed pain. There can be no peacebuilding without addressing the trauma of long-standing systems of racism and oppression. To do justice we must also honor and learn from the resilience of communities that have borne the brunt of violent policies. We must center the voices of those who have suffered injustice and still committed themselves to nonviolent change, which is why we invited Sonya Shah, sujatha baliga,
