Adira Zwelling
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Adira was an Intern at Future Worlds Center from September 2010 to May 2011 as an exchange student from the Portland State University in the context of the FWC - PSU Exchange Program. While at Future Worlds Center, Adira worked on several EU funded projects such as JUMPSTART the Peace, Civil Society Acts Beyond Borders, TeachMDGs, and Cyberethics: Cyprus Safer Internet Center.
Bio
Adira has been active in peacebuilding for several years. She is passionate about bringing communities experiencing conflict into dialogue to foster an understanding of the others' point of view and develop compassion. She has worked in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Portland, Oregon. In December 2011, Adira completed her Master's in International Conflict Resolution. As part of her thesis work she partnered with The Cyprus Oral History and Living Memory Project[1] and wrote an essay demonstrating the value of oral history as a way to promote healing between and within communities in conflict. Adira is also a certified mediator.
Contributions
As part of JUMPSTART the Peace, Adira co-coordinated and implemented several workshops across the island for Turkish and Greek Cypriot youth. In this capacity, she (1) planned travel and lodging details, (2) recruited participants by writing press releases and speaking at a local school, (3) facilitated a panel discussion on youth community activism, (4) met regularly with the implementing partner NGO to plan project activities, and (5) developed training materials on environmentalism and intercultural learning.
For Civil Society Acts Beyond Borders project team, Adira traveled to Israel/Palestine to implement capacity building workshops to support the development of joint community action projects among Israelis and Palestinians. While in the region Adira met with different civil society organizations to recruit future participants. Other duties included: (1) writing narrative reports, (2) researching funding opportunities, (3) writing content for the project newsletter, and (4) creating digital-media[2] to be used for promotional materials.
Adira wrote textbook content for TeachMDGs to educate youth on Millennium Development Goals advocacy campaigns in sub-Saharan Africa. She also assisted in the planning and facilitation of Structured Democratic Dialogues for the project CARDIAC [3], and created accompanying digital media [4]. In addition, Adira created digital media for the project Cyberethics: Cyprus Safer Internet Center.
Adira contributed to several other administrative assignments for Future Worlds Center including compiling the organization's annual reports for 2009 and 2010, and writing two project proposals to the European Refugee Fund and the European Centre for Modern Language.
