• Learn how to access the wisdom of your heart and connect more deeply with others through the language of empathy and honesty.

• Practice BePeace and the synergistic combination of HeartMath for “feeling peace” and Nonviolent Communication for “speaking peace”.

• The workshop will include a short summary of Costa Rica’s model of peace and its new endeavor to establish a Ministry for Peace that will work with the Academy for Peace.  In addition, Rita Marie will share how BePeace is being applied in the school system and the plans to upscale it to the national level. 

As Rita Marie explains, “In achieving my goal to be a true peacemaker, I was missing a solid how-to in resolving day to day conflicts.  I researched social and emotional learning methods for 10 years, looking for the way to “be peace” in every moment.  Now I can progress each day rather than being stuck for years in the same reactive patterns.”  The workshop will include exercises so that the transformational power of this method can be experienced. 

BePeace can be used each moment of our lives and in counseling, team building, mediation, small group work and creative problem solving.  This practice is being integrated into the school system of Costa Rica supported by the Ministry of Education with the support of AED (similar to the United Way in the USA).The workshop will include a short summary of Costa Rica’s model of peace and its new endeavor to establish a Ministry for Peace that will work with the Academy for Peace.  In addition, Rita Marie will share how BePeace is being applied in the school system and the plans to upscale it to the national level. 

If you are committed to being a true peacemaker and creating new systems based on peace, this is the workshop for you!. 

About Rita Marie Johnson

Rita Marie Johnson is an American who moved to Costa Rica, a country with no army, fifteen years ago to help strengthen its national model of peace.  She is the  founding director of the Rasur Foundation whose main project is the Academy for Peace of Costa Rica (previously known as the Peace Army).  The mission of this academy is to insure that the skills of “feeling peace” and “speaking peace” will be passed from generation to generation.  These skills are transmitted through the school system using the practice of BePeace, an approach based on Johnson’s discovery of the synergy between HeartMath and Nonviolent Communication. 

In 2005, the Academy for Peace received the prestigious Changemakers’ Innovation Award: Building a More Ethical Society. The Academy for Peace supports the goals of the National Plan for Peace Promotion, an initiative of Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace Prize winner and currently Costa Rica’s President.

Rita Marie’s dream is to prove that peace works at the national level in Costa Rica so that other countries will be inspired to do the same. This dream is unfolding as Costa Rica’s model becomes stronger each day and she has been speaking in the US, Japan, Canada and Central America to spread the good news.

On Sunday, June 8, you will have an opportunity to explore with Rita Marie the progress being made at local and national levels as we create a world of peace together!