Domestic Peacebuilding Award to Hands Across the Hills

The Alliance for Peacebuilding will honor Hands Across the Hills and its leader Paula Green with its first domestic peacebuilding award, called the Melanie Greenberg United States Peacebuilder Award, on October 25, 2018 at its annual conference in DC. The Alliance is a Washington DC-based network for over 100 peacemaking efforts worldwide.

Green will be accepting the award on behalf of Hands Across the Hills. The award recognizes her work in creating the weekend residential dialogue and cultural exchange model embodied by Hands Across the Hills. This model, designed to counteract rising polarization and tribalism within the US, includes preparation by each group, public events, participatory art and music, homestays and multiple dialogues.

Paula Green will speak, describing the Leverett MA-eastern Kentucky coal country project Hands Across the Hills, which began with Kentuckians’ visit to Leverett in October 2017, followed by a reciprocal visit to Kentucky in April 2018. She will also announce the launch of a new endeavor under the Hands Across the Hills umbrella: Bridge4Unity, a cross-racial dialogue project partnering the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts with South Carolina’s Beaufort and Gullah areas, and including members of the Kentucky partnership.

Paula Green, founder of Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and Professor Emerita at School for International Training, worked for decades in international peacebuilding in post-conflict areas in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Mideast and Africa.