Dr. Bill Jacobsen, adjunct professor of international peace and conflict resolution, and IPCR graduate student Hannah Simon-Girard ’14M were part of a team of Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC) trainers from around the country that facilitated sessions of a two-day seminar hosted by the Bhutanese Community of New Hampshire (BCNH).

BCNH was founded in 2009 by ethnic Nepalese expelled from the Kingdom of Bhutan in the 1990s who began resettling New Hampshire in 2006. The organization, which aims to provide refugees with resources, information, and services while also preserving and promoting Bhutanese heritage, opened the event to anyone interested in helping to strengthen its community.

HROC originally developed in 2003 as a three-day workshop designed to address the after effects of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. Trainings usually bring together people from opposing sides of a past conflict, equipping them to help themselves and others the through process of grief and healing.

Jacobsen and Simon-Girard were both trained in the HROC model in Africa, in Burundi and Rwanda, respectively, and both have facilitated HROC workshops on the Arcadia campus. Jacobsen has been involved with a number of other HROC trainings stateside and abroad.