The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), a volunteer program that runs conflict resolution workshops for prison inmates, will hold a workshop facilitator training August 9-11 at the Quaker Meetinghouse in Scarsdale. Anyone interested in becoming a workshop facilitator at the Westchester County Jail is invited to attend.

AVP began in 1975, with one workshop for inmates at Green Haven Prison in Dutchess County. Now the program is in 30 states and 50 countries around the world, including Iraq, Rwanda, Kenya, Palestine, Sudan and many other conflict zones.

Fred Feucht, coordinator of the AVP program in Westchester, says it hit a milestone the weekend of May 31 to June 2, when nine women who had been accused of infractions ranging from misdemeanors to violent crimes sat together for a workshop in the Westchester County Jail.

“This was the first conflict resolution workshop led by the Alternatives to Violence Project to help them deal with the conflicts in their lives,” Feucht says. “All the women participated fully—speaking about themselves positively, brainstorming violence and nonviolence, sharing a conflict they’d solved nonviolently, using ‘I’ messages and doing role plays. When asked at the end of the three-day workshop what they would take away with them, they responded the importance of listening, assertiveness, actual tools to use when they find themselves in a conflict situation, affirmation and a better understanding of themselves.”

Location: Quaker Meetinghouse, 133 Popham Rd., Scarsdale, NY. For more info, contact Feucht at 203.405.6103 or [email protected], or visit avpny.org.