Research Spotlight: New Perspectives on Healing Collective Trauma

How do we heal history’s deepest wounds? In her new Open Access book, “New Perspectives on Healing Collective Trauma,” Prof. Scherto Gill brings together global voices to explore the intersection of structural justice, intergenerational dialogue, and collective healing. Featuring insights from Professors Myriam Cottias, Ana Lucia Araujo, and Lord Alderdice, Drs Joy DeGruy, Ali Moussa Iye, Esther Armah, Gail Christopher, Thomas Hübl, Indigenous leader, Lewis Cardinal, and more.

📖 Read it for free by clicking on this open access book link: New Perspectives on Healing Collective Trauma: Towards Social Justice and Communal Well-Being

In an era marked by deep global divisions, how do societies move beyond the paralysis of historical wounds? This groundbreaking new volume, “New Perspectives on Healing Collective Trauma,” edited by Prof. Scherto Gill, offers a transformative roadmap. Moving the conversation beyond individual psychology, this book establishes collective healing as a systemic, structural, and intergenerational imperative necessary for achieving genuine social justice.

Why This Research Matters Now

Historical injustices—enslavement, colonialism, and systemic racism—are not just events of the past; they are lived realities that continue to shape economic disparities, political polarization, and cultural fragmentation. This book argues that traditional approaches to peacebuilding often fail because they neglect the deep spiritual and psychosocial wounds that communities carry across generations.

This research highlights that healing is political. It connects the inner work of trauma integration with the outer work of structural change, proposing that we cannot have one without the other.

Key Innovations & Frameworks

The book introduces and expands upon several cutting-edge concepts that redefine the field of trauma studies and peacebuilding:

  • Intergenerational Dialogue and Inquiry (IDI): A flagship methodology featured in the book (and piloted by the UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative), IDI creates safe spaces for youth and elders to break the silence on past atrocities, facilitating a transfer of wisdom and resilience rather than just trauma.
  • The Politics of Dignity: Prof. Gill challenges current governance models, proposing a “politics of dignity” where institutions are intentionally designed to affirm the intrinsic value of every person, actively dismantling the structures of dehumanization.
  • Emotional Justice: Contributor Esther A. Armah introduces a language to navigate the unspoken emotional economies of racism, arguing that policy changes are insufficient without addressing the “emotional currency” of oppression.
  • Healing Architecture: The volume explores how our physical environments and public spaces can be designed to foster relational health and communal repair, rather than enforcing separation.

Global Case Studies

The research is grounded in diverse, real-world applications, offering a truly global perspective:

  • The Americas: Examining the enduring legacies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the demand for reparations (featuring contributions from Joy DeGruy and Ana Lucia Araujo).
  • Canada: Centering Indigenous voices in the processes of Truth and Reconciliation (Lewis Cardinal).
  • Global South & Beyond: Insights from community-led healing circles in Africa and racial healing initiatives in the US (Gail C. Christopher).

Who Should Read This?

This volume is an essential resource for researchers, policymakers, community organizers, and peace practitioners. It bridges the gap between academic theory and grassroots practice, offering tools for those working in:

  • Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding
  • Public Health & Trauma Studies
  • Social Policy & Governance
  • Indigenous Studies & Decolonial Practice

Read the Full Research

As a commitment to global knowledge equity, this title is available as an Open Access publication. Read the book for free here

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Webinar: We Are Transforming Education at 11.00 UTC, 11 Nov 2025

The GHfP Institute is a research partner for The Ethics Education Fellowship programme (EEF). EEF seeks to strengthen the sustainable delivery of ethics education programs for children in formal education settings to advance global citizenship and build more peaceful and inclusive societies.  Teachers who took part in our program report stronger competencies and an improved ability to build inclusive, respectful, and engaging classrooms, leading to better learning outcomes and students’ engagement.

On Tuesday, 11 November 2025, policymakers, teacher educators, and partners will come together in an international webinar: We Are Transforming Education: National Examples to Promote and Integrate Ethics Education – Successes, Challenges and Opportunities.

📅 Tuesday, 11 November 2025
🕚 11:00 – 13:00 UTC
📍 Via Zoom
👉 Register here: https://lnkd.in/ePGAHykb

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New Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Article: Simone Weil on love, justice and collective healing

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20440243.2025.2554849

This paper examines the spiritual dimension of dehumanisation and argues that confronting this neglected aspect is essential to healing historical and structural harms. Drawing on the philosophical and theological writings of Simone Weil, it offers a relational interpretation of her insights into the sacred roots of human dignity, the soul-wounding effects of dehumanisation, and love as an antidote to brutality. Through Weil’s concepts of affliction, social degradation and structural injustice, the paper demonstrates that dehumanisation operates not only through material and psychological violence but also through spiritual violation that severs persons and communities from the good.

Building on Weil’s ethical vision, the paper advances a four-fold intergenerational approach to addressing spiritual harm: (1) acknowledging dehumanisation and the reality of affliction; (2) reclaiming human dignity rooted in the sacred; (3) strengthening spiritual belonging through community and intergenerational continuity; and (4) imagining a culture of love oriented to justice and co-flourishing.

Illustrated through contemporary examples, including UNESCO’s Collective Healing Initiative, the paper argues that Weil’s wisdom contributes both philosophically and practically to collective healing, social justice and the regeneration of communities impacted by slavery, colonialism and other enduring forms of inhumanity.

Read the full paper here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20440243.2025.2554849

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 IDG Summit, Track 6 – Healing the Roots of What Drives Us

On October 16th, at the IDG Summit, Track 6 – Healing the Roots of What Drives Us Apart, will explore how trauma-informed leadership can open pathways for systemic healing, peacebuilding, and societal defragmentation. This digital track is an immersive journey into the root causes of polarisation and healing collective trauma, blending trauma science, conflict transformation, and embodied leadership.

Through live group process, reflective practice, artistic embodiment, and narrative tracking, participants will witness how inner development practices can transform fragmentation into collective insight and how to embed this wisdom in leadership, organisations, and society.

Prof Scherto Gill will reflect on the question “What does it take to heal the deep divisions of our world today?” By tracing the development and processes of the UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative, Scherto’s presentation will bring forward communities across four continents experiences engaging in an intergenerational approach to shifting from trauma towards flourishing. This involves facing the wounds of injustice with courage, rediscovering ancestral wisdom with curiosity, nurturing new ways of belonging with compassion, and envisioning well-being futures with care.

This makes the case for why the intergenerational processes of collective healing are not abstract, but involve essential inner capacities of transforming leadership as healer-ship.

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Prof Scherto Gill presenting Collective Healing Initiative at 2025 Inner Development Goals Summit

In this video, Prof Scherto Gill offers an outline of her presentation at 2025 Inner Development Goals Summit, focusing on exploring the four processes of the UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative, including an intergenerational approach to leadership as healership.

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STAND UP FOR CHILDREN IN WAR!

On International Day of Peace, we call all partners to join this global mobilization for individual and collective consciousness to ignite hope, raise awareness, and inspire action to protect children from war.

In 2024, over 473 million children lived in conflict zones.

The world is witnessing an alarming rise in armed conflicts, violence, and displacement, and it is children who suffer the most. Children in conflict zones are facing severe and ongoing violations of their rights, including their rights to life, physical integrity, family life and education, resulting in lasting physical and psychological consequences.

This must stop!

A Global Mobilization Is Underway

Faith leaders, UN representatives, civil society, children, and youth are standing up to raise global consciousness about the devastating impact of war and violence on children. They are speaking up and calling on their governments to ensure the protection and well-being of children and to find a peaceful resolution to conflicts.

In Geneva, a high-level event “Stand Up for Children in War” took place on 22nd September at the UNHCR. It was part of the campaign co-signed by 150 partner organisations, including the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Photo: Ivars Kupcis/WCC

How You Can Stand Up for Children in War

Whether you are a member of a religious community, an educator, a parent, or simply a person of goodwill, you can stand up for children affected by war, amplify their voices, advocate for their protection, and promote solidarity and compassion.

To help you get started, here is a list of suggestions on what you can do to join this campaign:

Your organization can also Stand Up for Children in War

Sign Our Joint Statement Now!

As a Religious Leader

  1. Reach out to decision-makers, national authorities, the mass media, or other religious leaders and ask them to join you in advocating to protect children from war.
  2. Dedicate sermons to raise awareness about the devastating impact of war on children.
  3. Organize a prayer, meditation, or ceremony with your community to inspire spiritual solidarity, ethical commitment, and compassion. This can be a powerful collective call to action to protect children.
  4. Facilitate a physical space in your place of worship where community members can leave flowers, light candles, or place art to show their solidarity with children affected by war.
  5. Organize interfaith gatherings bringing together religious leaders of various faith traditions to speak up jointly on the impact of war on children and call on your governments to ensure their protection and well-being, and find a peaceful resolution to conflicts.
  6. Share a video with us that conveys your message and includes a call to action, inspiring hope, compassion, and ethical responses.
  7. Together with other religious leaders, reach out to the UNICEF office and UN Resident Coordinator to engage in dialogue with governments to call for the protection of children. You can find contact information of UNICEF and UN Representatives in several countries in the Resource Kit.

As a Member of a Religious or Spiritual Community​

  1. Suggest to your religious leaders that they hold a special prayer or ceremony for children in war or an interfaith gathering or prayer. The Resource Kit offers suggested formats.
  2. Invite your religious leader to join the campaign. Share the information above on ways your religious leader can get involved.
  3. Use your social media platforms to speak up about the urgent need to protect children from war. Share and repost content from our campaign or other credible sources using the hashtag #standup4children. Find a list of sources in the Resource Kit.
  4. Organize a symbolic act with your communities, such as lighting candles or holding signs with messages of solidarity. Capture this moment with photos or videos and share it widely on social media using the hashtag #standup4children.

As a Parent or Caregiver

  1. Talk to children. Use age-appropriate language to discuss what children in war zones experience, what causes wars, and the importance of learning to solve conflicts in peaceful ways. Explain why it is crucial for people of all generations to unite in solidarity for peace. The Resource Kit offers materials that can help you talk with children about the impact of war.
  2. Engage children in an activity. Review the Resource Kit to find activities that nurture empathy and compassion in children. Encourage children to create a message, painting, or other art form to express their feelings.

As a Teacher or Educator in Informal Settings

  1. Talk to learners you engage with. Use age-appropriate language to discuss the experience of children in war zones, the root causes of wars, and the importance of solving conflicts peacefully. Review the Resource Kit to find materials that can help you talk with children about the impact of war.
  2. Engage learners in an activity that nurtures empathy, solidarity, and compassion, and encourage them to create a video, a message, or a piece of art to express their feelings and thoughts. Get inspired by activities in the Resource Kit.
  3. Create a designated space in your classroom or a common school area where learners can leave messages, create drawings, or place other symbolic items to show their solidarity with children affected by war.
  4. Create a “Letters of Hope” campaign where learners write encouraging messages to children affected by war. Send the letters to refugee camps or refugee support centers, embassies, and local media. Take photos of the letters and share them on social media by using the hashtag #standup4children.

As a Young Person

  1. Spark a dialogue with those around you, reflecting on the impact of wars on millions of children who are being robbed of their childhoods, their safety, and their future.
  2. Use your social media to speak up about the urgent need to protect children from war. Share and repost content from this campaign. Use the hashtag #standup4children.
  3. Engage with other young people around you. Get together with your friends and do a symbolic act of solidarity, creating a mural, or holding signs with messages of hope and peace, such as lighting candles. You can capture this moment with photos or videos and share it widely on social media using the hashtag #standup4children.
  4. Write a letter to your government officials or a UN representative in your country asking them to take action to protect children in war. Find a template in our Resource Kit.
  5. Join movements of young people around you, either in person or virtually, that are actively engaging for peace.

As a Person of Goodwill

  1. Use your social media platforms to speak up and mobilize others. Share and repost content from the campaign and other reliable sources to keep the conversation active about the impact of war on children, the urgent need for peace, and positive actions that can ignite hope. Use the hashtag #standup4children.
  2. Write a letter to your government officials or a UN representative in your country asking them to take action to protect children in war. Find a template in our Resource Kit.

As an Institutional Partner

  1. Engage national offices and networks, share facts and key messages about the impact of war on children. Find more information in the Resource Kit.
  2. Ask people in your networks to engage through social media to speak up about the urgent need to protect children from war. Invite them to react and repost from this campaign. Invite them to use the hashtag #standup4children. Find more information in the Resource Kit.
  3. Organize an event on or around September 21st to Stand Up for Children in War and the protection of Children’s Rights.
  4. Raise your voice. Share with us a short video message or short article speaking about the impact of war on children and your call to action. Your messages will be shared on a website dedicated to the campaign.
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Intergenerational Dialogue for Well-Being Futures: Reflections from Workshop

On 19th September, scholars, researchers and practitioners gathered in Mansfield College, Oxford, for a workshop on Intergenerational Dialogue for Well-Being Futures. This event was co-convened in partnership with the Journal of Dialogue Studies, which will publish a special issue (Vol. 14, 2025) on the same theme.

My motivation for guest-editing this issue arises from five years of work with the UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative. At the heart of Initiative are the Collective Healing Circles (CHCs), intergenerational spaces created in communities across Africa, the Americas, and Europe. In these circles, people of all ages come together to acknowledge historical mass atrocities, recognise continued wounds, reclaim ancestral wisdom and human dignity, transcend divisions, and co-imagine shared flourishing. They have shown me both the transformative potential and the challenges of intergenerational dialogue and inspired me to bring these questions into wider academic and policy exploration.

A workshop structured as a journey

Prof Youssef Mahmoud offering words of wisdom in his keynote speech

Following an inspiring keynote from Youssef Mahmoud, former UN Under-Secretary-General, the academic workshop’s programme followed a deliberate arc:

  • Contexts – situating dialogue in linguistic, historical, ethical, grassroots, digital, and spiritual arenas.
  • Conceptualisations – examining how intergenerational dialogue is conceived epistemologically, ethically, and culturally, and how it can serve healing, and transformation.
  • Practices – exploring how dialogue is enacted and transmitted through arts, memory, and creative media.
  • Futures – considering how intergenerational dialogue might serve as a foundation for justice, solidarity, and flourishing societies.

This progression created space not only for rich scholarly exchange, but also for deep reflection on the ethical, methodological, and political dimensions of dialogue across generations.

Insights across the sessions

Several themes resonated across the day:

  • Transmission and transformation: Dialogue mediates the tension between preserving ancestral wisdom and inherited knowledge and transforming it for the future.
  • Agency and co-authorship: Who has the authority to decide what is remembered, transmitted, or reinterpreted? Intergenerational dialogue demands genuine co-authorship.
  • Dialogue as ethical practice: Listening, translation, ritual, and creativity are not just methods, but ethical commitments.
  • Challenges of reconciliation: Dialogues are often uncomfortable — grappling with guilt, silence, or denial — yet necessary for relational repair.
  • Futures through justice: Dialogue is not only about the past; it is a path to recognition, resilience, and flourishing futures.

One aspect that remains insufficiently addressed is the overwhelming domination of structural injustice, which continues to define the lived experience of the global majority. While academic research offers decolonial critique and systemic analysis, the challenge ahead lies in reimagining global governance that can respond to these realities.

Looking ahead

For me, one of the most moving aspects of the workshop was how much it echoed the spirit of the UNESCO Collective Healing Circles. We saw how dialogue is never neutral: it carries risks of stereotyping or tokenising, but also profound possibilities for recognition, resilience, and transformation. We saw how young people are not simply listeners or translators, but co-creators of meaning and futures. And we saw how elders are not only custodians of memory, but partners in reshaping change.

As we move forward, the next step is to revise and deepen the papers in light of the workshop conversations. Guided by the Journal of Dialogue Studies framework, the special issue will ensure that contributions are theoretically rich, methodologically and ethically strong, and — most importantly — relevant to the question at the heart of our gathering: how intergenerational dialogue can nurture well-being futures in contexts marked by structural injustice.

I am grateful to all who joined us in Oxford, for your generosity, insights, and presence. This is not the end, but part of a continuing journey to explore and enact intergenerational dialogue as a vital resource for our shared futures.

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Collective Healing Initiative’s Facilitators Learning Circle Sept. 2025

By Scherto R. Gill, Director, Global Humanity for Peace Institute

Every other month, on the second Tuesday, a constellation of facilitators gathers online — a learning circle stretching across 16 countries, 4 continents, and 4 languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. With the gentle help of AI translation, each voice is received in our own tongue, weaving a luminous tapestry of shared understanding.

On 16th September, 25 facilitators formed our circle. We came together to explore how the Collective Healing Circle (CHC) programme can be tailored to the diverse lived realities of our communities.

The gathering opened with drums from Richmond, Virginia, followed by a short poem carrying the breath from the Amazon — grounding us in rhythm, verses and spirit.

I offered the three inquiries that guide tailoring — investigative, appreciative, and evaluative. These aren’t academic theories. They’re invitations to listen into context before inviting people into the circle — to understand the particular music of each community before attempting to add harmony. Collective Healing practices can’t be copy-and-pasted. They must grow from the soil where they’re planted, shaped by the stories and metaphors already living in that place, responsive to the specific ways that community holds both pain and possibility.

To illustrate how these inquiries unfold in practice, our colleagues from Mexico shared how they wove Indigenous prophecies and ancestral wisdom into the CHC framework. Their presentation was colourful and inviting — words dancing with images, feelings moving through liminal spaces. Not as decoration, but as foundation. Not as addition, but as recognition of what was already there, waiting to be honored. Their approach was as much art as methodology: honouring both the common CHC framework and the particular practice of their land, letting each inform the other until something new is born and emerged.

From there, we dissolved into six small breakout rooms — in four different languages — where 2-4 facilitators gathered in intimate dialogue. These conversations deepened our reflections: What resonated? What requires more care? How might we all be co-creators of the circle? For thirty minutes, these questions evoked and breathed in eight different conversations. Connections spark across impossible distances. Challenges find company. Dormant ideas are awaken through the alchemy of shared reflection.

When the learning circle reforms, something has shifted. Insights pour back into the shared space—through voices and images, stories and the vibrant river of the chat feed. Each offering another thread in the tapestry they’re weaving together.

We closed with an ancestral African chant, together across the screen, a reminder of the deep wisdom carried through song that requires no translation. Listen here.

The circle completes itself not by ending, but by beginning again. Each facilitator carries seeds of inspiration back to their local communities, back to the particular soil where the healing work takes root.

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Academic Workshop: Intergenerational Dialogue for Well-Being Futures: Theories, Practices and Policy Pathways

Photo credit: Wikipedia

19th September 2025, Mansfield College, Oxford

The Journal of Dialogue Studies, in partnership with the GHfP Institute, the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace and UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative, invites contributions for a special issue exploring the role of intergenerational dialogue in shaping collective well-being futures.

We recognise that despite global commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress remains impeded by persistent barriers, including transgenerational trauma, structural injustice, gender inequality, limited youth engagement, and fragmented political responses. In the face of these obstacles, intergenerational dialogue is increasingly important as it creates facilitated spaces for younger and older people to encounter and learn from each other. Such dialogue allows the community to draw insights from multiple generations, diverse cultural traditions, and rich cosmological worldviews towards building better futures. 

This special issue is inspired by the power and potential of intergenerational dialogue. It is a response to the call of the United Nations Pact for the Future, which underscores the necessity of equitable intergenerational processes and collaborative approaches to multilateral governance to ensure sustainable peace, structural justice, and inclusive well-being. 

International Academic Workshop Programme – Intergenerational Dialogue for Well-Being Futures Theories, Practices, and Policy Pathways – University of Oxford – 19 September 2025 (2)Download
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A Global Study on Futures-Forming Leadership

This year, the GHfP Institute has engaged in a global study, commissioned by UNESCO, to explore youth’s needs for leadership development. What marks this research unique is that it has involved youth co-researchers throughout, from identifying research questions, to designing the research questionnaire, from hosting focus-groups, to analysing the data and identifying themes and proposing recommendations. Furthermore, this global study intentionally focuses on the voices of youth from marginalised communities.

Over 1,500 young people across every world region contributed to this research through a desk review, survey questionnaire, focus groups, and in-depth interviews. Their message is clear: leadership must be reimagined. No longer hierarchical, elitist, or tokenistic, youth envision leadership as relational, dialogical, and futures-forming — a practice that is grounded in care for people and the planet. In fact, this study reveals that young people are already leading change today, often under extraordinary constraints, and more importantly, they are leading with visions of justice, dignity, and well-being that the world urgently needs to hear.

What Youth Told Us

  • Their concerns are urgent and overlapping. From climate change and unemployment to gender-based violence, mental health, and political exclusion, young people confront intersecting crises every day.
  • They are already leading. In their communities, youth are mobilising for climate justice, creating safe spaces, preserving culture, and challenging systemic injustice.
  • Barriers are structural, not personal. Youth are not held back by a lack of talent or ambition, but by ageism, tokenism, underfunding, weak civic spaces, and exclusionary education systems.
  • They know what enables leadership. Trust, mentorship, intergenerational solidarity, sustained resources, and spaces of safety and belonging emerged as essential conditions for flourishing.
  • They are re-framing leadership itself. Leadership, they argue, is not about power over others, but about dialogue, shared responsibility, and accountability to future generations.

A Blueprint for Futures-Forming Leadership

From these insights, the study distilled:

  • Three imperatives: address systemic injustice, strengthen intergenerational solidarity, and reimagine governance for the common good.
  • Five values: collective well-being, dialogue, relationality, justice, and responsibility to future generations.
  • Seven proposals: practical recommendations from youth, ranging from experiential learning and mentoring to sustainable funding and co-governance structures.

Together, these constitute a youth-authored blueprint for leadership that is capable of meeting the challenges of our time.

A Call to Action

Young people are not asking for charity. They are calling for recognition, resources, and authentic partnership. They ask institutions to:

  • Institutionalise youth co-governance.
  • Secure long-term funding and seed grants.
  • Embed youth leadership into UNESCO and partners’ core systems.
  • Build decentralised hubs for exchange and solidarity.
  • Leverage partnerships across sectors to scale impact.

Why This Matters

Leadership for the future cannot be postponed. The crises we face are urgent, and the creativity and courage of youth are already shaping the path forward. What is needed now is not another round of rhetoric, but a living covenant between generations — a commitment to co-create futures where dignity, justice, and flourishing are shared by all.

UNESCO’s Futures-Forming Leadership Report amplifies the voices of young people. The responsibility lies with us — institutions, funders, educators, policymakers — to act on what they have said.

Because youth are not the leaders of tomorrow. They are the leaders of today.

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