Mediators without Borders ® (MwB) is pioneering a network of international alternative dispute resolution (ADR) Centers around the world. These Centers foster sustainable peace through a focused intent to transform both the ADR learner and the disputants who use the Centers. Each MwB Center serves as a local ADR portal, helping to identify culturally relevant and local/global solutions to specific conflicts such as, family and community disputes, ethnic disputes, religious disputes, and political disputes. These services contribute to a global body of alternative dispute resolution research accessible to other MwB International Centers around the world. Each MwB Center director enters into an exchange with MwB, whereby the Center supplies MwB with culturally relevant norms and common disputes. In return, the Center director uses the MwB ADR curriculum and the MwB brand, holding access to the MwB virtual social learning network.
MwB’s ADR Center model combines ADR education and social action research projects highlighting:
- A learner and disputant centered model which includes local storytelling and allowing each parties interpretations; exploring relevant historical motivations; understanding cultural norms of the family, community and nation; reframing and framing joint solutions; identifying how a memorandum of agreement between the parties is constructed
- ADR case studies that collapse the learning distinction between the ontology- the nature of the reality of the dispute- and the epistemology- the belief system that guides ones reality of the dispute; identifying the interests underlying the issues and positions of the dispute
- Builds on the belief that learners achieve more and disputants are compelled to transform while working on relevant social conflicts
- MwB Centers share best resolution practices with other Centers around the world in critical areas of environmental, national and regional conflicts
- Economic Sustainability: Early and effective conflict resolution within corporations, governmental institutions, and societal organizations will help provide needed stability for national and regional economies to not only survive but thrive
- MwB Centers around the world are connected virtually utilizing state of the art technology, which includes the E-Beam Whiteboard System, Virtual Linking Software, Web and Video Conferencing, and bi-weekly Virtual Role Playing Scenarios.