Our History & Vision
The Center aims to create space for wellbeing, empathy, dialogue and positive peacebuilding while working at the intersection of psychology, MHPSS, socio-emotional wellbeing, (peace)education, art & innovation, culture, community, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. The Center actively aims to take peace-psychology from theory into practice, while counteracting the enforced ‘normal’, exploring decolonized approaches of wellbeing and advocating for peace & justice.
The impetus for the International Center for Peace Psychology (under the aegis of Paigaam: A Message for Peace trust http://www.paigaampeace.org/ ) comes from the evolving vision, process and outcome of Ufra Mir's decade-long pioneering peace-psychology practice on the ground in Kashmir, other parts of South-Asia and the world.
Ufra has been advocating for contextualized decolonized MHPSS, YPS-WPS and wellbeing-oriented approaches towards peacebuilding for the past decade, and the Center's work and vision is an ongoing step in that direction. The Center aims to take these important learnings and challenges from the ground, and share them with the rest of the world to create a wider impact, advocacy, policy and awareness.
Our Practice & Mission
Taking the decade long on-ground pioneering peace-psychology practices from Kashmir and South-Asia to the rest of the world through trainings, education, research, advocacy, mentorship, policymaking, community work,
and local and global collaborations.
The Center will keep working through experiential-workshops, designing interventions, facilitating dialogues, creating community safe-spaces, exploring decolonized approaches of wellbeing, implementing strategies, mentorship and awareness programs, and advocacy - more so, in the context of bridging the gap between grassroots practices and policymaking. This will include some focus on the YPS-WPS sectors as well.
Our Team
We believe in holistic approach to life, issues and policies. Hence, we have peace-psychologists, peace practitioners, mental health professionals, social workers, psychologists from different branches, researchers and advisors from all around the world with us; some of whom have been guiding this work in the past decade.