Dessa Bergen-Cico, an associate professor of public health in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, has been named a Rotary Peace Fellow.

Through the fellowship Bergen-Cico will be spending three months at the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Each three-month session provides a professional development and certificate program to individuals working in fields related to peace and conflict resolution, according to the center’s website.

Bergen-Cico applied to the competitive program with a proposal that detailed her qualifications, what she said she hopes to gain from the experience and her future goals, she said.

“My intention for the program is to continue doing work locally with people who have been affected by community violence, learn new skills and strategies and apply them to my current work,” Bergen-Cico said. “I was hoping I could learn some skills and information from this program that would enable us to make more progress in the community here.”

During her time in Thailand, Bergen-Cico will work Monday through Friday and undergo extensive training to learn about peace negotiation and conflict resolution.

Some of the other Rotary Peace Fellows are from areas that have experienced violence, Bergen-Cico said. The fellowship is designed to give the fellows skills and strategies they can then apply to solving conflict in their home countries, she said.

Bergen-Cico said on the surface, conflicts may seem different from each other, but at the end of the day share many similarities.

“The same issues that play out at the micro-level are just magnified and more complex on a political stage,” Bergen-Cico said. “It comes down to the same behaviors and strategies that can resolve conflict in ways other than violence.”

Published on November 30, 2016 at 11:44 pm

Contact Saniya: ssmore@syr.edu