THE WORLD HOUSE FORUM

A GLOBAL FORUM

The World House Forum is TWHPInc's flagship program. As a bottom-up, cross-sectoral initiative, it convenes a biannual meeting to deliberate, decide, and act upon global challenges and opportunities for peace and justice. There are other global fora driven by top-down government and market agendas or civic efforts focusing on serving the world's politically and economically marginalized people rather than systemic issues that make their marginalization possible. TWHF provides the global infrastructure and platform for catalyzing civic engagement, global consciousness, and strategic mechanisms that affect positive social change throughout the World House edifice.

PROGRAM LOGIC

The logic framework of The World House Forum is the convergence of the three forms of nonviolence into a “metalogic,” subsuming its direct, cultural, and structural forms as a spectrum of peaceable power that counterposes Johan Galtung’s seminal conflict and violence triangles. That counter-position creates the alternative choices we must make in a conflict – a violent or nonviolent path – responding to Martin Luther King, Jr’s question, “Where do we go from here?

Conference papers may address this spectrum in whole or its parts. Plenary, panel, and roundtable sessions will reflect that framework under the following titles

·      Direct Action – Tactics that mobilize people, challenge injustice, and build pressure through peaceful means.

·      Cultural Transformation – Shifting thought and hearts, narratives and norms using art, storytelling, education, and spiritual leadership

·      Structural Change – Strategies for reforming policies, systems, and institutions to foster equity, justice, and peace at their core

To complement The World House Forum's biannual meeting, TWHPInc’s members and partners organize gatherings, including conferences, to address pressing regional and global challenges and opportunities. Their work informs and instructs the bi-annual forum’s work, which culminates in an action agenda for the global network. Its program logic of direct action, cultural transformation, and structural change fosters the peace and justice of King’s World House vision.

REGIONAL CONFERENCES

Regional conference events convene a network of individuals, groups, and organizations that promote nonviolence, peace, and justice as the foundation for social action and order in the global community. They identify regional issues of peace and conflict that have a worldwide impact, engaging students, scholars, academics, activists, and leaders in civic, business, and government sectors to deliberate, decide, and act on strategies that contribute to the global dialogue and efforts to eliminate cupidity, bigotry, and violent rivalry while advancing social, cultural, and economic development.

FORUM GOALS

The World House Forum goals are to

·       Establish a global network of civic consciousness and the social infrastructure to foster peace and justice

·       Discuss significant challenges and opportunities for world peace

·       Identify regional and global issues to target for deliberation, decision, and social action

·       Educate and train participants on nonviolence, peace, and conflict theory and praxis

·       Establish a social action agenda for implementation throughout the global network

The regional conferences articulate and work on these goals by identifying the current and balancing anticipated challenges and opportunities for world peace as they emerge during the interim period between fora. That is, regional conferences are held in strategically significant vis a vis violent conflict communities around the globe. Network groups submit proposals on their strategic initiatives to inculcate TWHF’s program logic. The World House Institutes then support selected proposals as they organize their conferences and the implementation of their projects.

OUTCOMES

The World House Project envisions a global framework where civic institutions are as powerful and organized as government and market sectors. Thus, its World House Forum seeks to establish a civic-led social change and development framework with sufficient power to hold accountable the state-centric and corporate-driven power structures. Outcomes of Forum meetings include a peace and justice

·       Social Action Agenda and Call to Action Declaration for inter-forum implementation

·       Global network of “globalzens” working to carry out the Forum’s agenda through working groups as “civic labs,” where network participants employ innovative social action strategies and methodologies for positive, nonviolent systemic social change

·       Collective consciousness and civic culture around the agenda

·       Global civic infrastructure and ecosystem of interconnected, borderless, and values-driven institutions, organizations, and processes commensurate with its government and market sector frameworks

The World House Forum Conferences