LaDotta has one mission:
to help YOU become learned and a visionary of peace, who are able to confront narratives of violence and present alternatives!
This website is under construction — follow the process or return in a couple of weeks for the final result!
LaDotta offers courses designed for you who are new to the idea of thinking about peace as a political choice. We also offer more advanced courses to students, journalists, analysts, diplomats and seasoned researchers who have realised that their knowledge about peace as a political idea has been seriously circumscribed by war theories and who seek more depth, and alternatives to peace as hopelessly idealistic, or yet another tool of unidirectionality.
Masterclasses a LaDotta cover knowledge blind-spots, as well as Masterclasses on-demand.
For those who find themselves in a challenging situation and need just a few sessions to solve a problem, need advise or a brain storm, LaDotta Coaching might be an alternative, while for more long-term situations LaDotta Mentorship might be a better choice.
LaDotta Community lets you access all of the above and more !
LaDotta Peace Academy
LaDotta offers education to help you understand war & peace, and to challenge the narratives fuelling constant conflict. It offers coaching to you, who like so many others feel a pressing need to offload and talk to disentangle the knots, or who need to discuss or develop ideas. It also offers a community of others who share your worries and hopes, a space to meet, share and develop
I am convinced that war is un-necessary, and that cooperation trumps war. 30 years of research and teaching peace, development and international relations have confirmed that war is a choice not a given. LaDotta’s goal is to inspire and empower so that those who want to change the situation, and who decide to educate themselves to be able to engage for such change, can reach that goal.
MY APPROACH
I want to help you become the change for peace you want to happen
LaDotta is founded on the conviction that knowing things of importance should not only be for those especially educated. When you and I become people of knowledge, or even learned, on issues of fundamental importance to our survival, such as peace, we also develop our abilities to be change agents even if only in our local communities — we become the change we want to happen.
La Dotta means 'the learned' and is an invitation!
Peace studies are difficult to come by — it is taught in very few places. I was a university professor for three decades, specialising in peace and development studies, teaching generations of people, young and old, who for different reasons wanted to change the world, in big ways and in small.
With time, the urgency of change — or a transformation even — of how we relate to each other has increased. The crises and challenges we are faced with are too big to leave exclusively to those who want, and can, choose a university education. Every one of us who have the time and the wish to educate for the sake of becoming learned for change should have access to the fundamentals and even finer details of what a university education in peace studies offers.
The possibilities we have for contributing positively to the major changes that are not only under way, but already manifest are huge, but also quite dependent on us understanding the processes and being able to see where we are needed; in civil society, among the political elite, as journalists, analysts, reporters and writers, as diplomats or just plainly as ourselves, you and me in our local communities helping others understand and see the opportunities for making our world a better place for all. Change through knowledge and engagement, one person at the time.
How LaDotta can help you
Courses & Masterclasses
Basic and advanced courses in peace studies, including peace journalism, peace theory, theories of violence and International Relations and more.
Coaching & Mentorship
For you who need just one or a few session to get set up to face new challenges as a peace maker in any sense of the word, or a longterm commitment for change.
Community
A community of peace builders, from YOU in your private capacity with a dream of no more war, to you who are a professional with an interest in peace in a wider sense. A community offering networking, resources and knowledge.
Courses & masterclasses
Frustrated by the lack of attention to peaceful solutions to conflicts?
Feel you don't have the knowledge to counter arguments for continued war and aggression?
Angry at being pushed aside as a 'romantic' or 'idealist'?
Supervisors or bosses tell you to 'get real'?
So many are distressed and frustrated about the forever wars we are constantly embroiled in. The feeling of overwhelm, and inability to challenge war narratives and politics of violence threatens to pacify citizenries where such practices are common.
ONE way of getting out of this negative loop is to start with ourselves, and the decision to become the change we want to be manifest. LaDotta offers some of the tools necessary to start doing just that — through self-development.
The courses and masterclasses are tailored to be accessible to anyone. While some are more general, others are specifically adapted to journalists, independent analysts or activists but still interesting to a general public.
LaDotta offers courses and masterclasses to anyone who wants to become knowers or change agents in their own right and at their own pace. You do not need to be a member of LaDotta community to take the courses or the masterclasses, but as a member, you have free access to them.
Coaching & Mentorship
Peace is not just theoretical or a matter of high politics — it can also be a life choice. Whether you are looking for just a little push or a transformation of perspective, coaching or mentorship might be your best place to start.
If you need advise or a shoulder to lean on in your professional life as a peace agent, or for small or more profound changes towards a life more in line with your ideal a few coaching sessions of a mentorship programme might be exactly what you need.
LaDotta offers coaching sessions for professionals, students, activists or others who are involved with processes of change from violence to peace, and who need a little help in solving a problem, who seek confirmation in action, or need a push to start a process of rethinking, challenging their own convictions or those of others.
LaDotta Mentorship programme is a more longterm solution for you, who wish to have someone to lean on to discuss life or career choices, not in a general sense but in relation to trying to make a shift away from life and career choices involving violence, to a becoming more aligned with grounded and well-founded, peace oriented choices.
You do not need to be a member of LaDotta Community to book a coaching session, or start a mentorship programme, but with a membership you get access to many more resources.
LaDotta Community
Access our peace library, masterclasses, live sessions, courses and much more through LaDotta Community membership.
LaDotta Community offers a range of resources, including a text and video link library for immediate access to knowledge; short-term coaching; weekly live discussions of current events; long term mentorship programmes; participation in interviews and Q&A when new courses and masterclasses are recorded; gifting knowledge; and printable guides, posters and more.
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Thomas Hobbes
FREE DOWNLOAD
Basic Peace Theory from Kant to the Unipolar Moment and beyond
Sign up for the basic course in peace theory! The course will answer questions about the differences between liberal and new peace theory, give you tools to rethink peace as a political idea — and courage to challenge the violence and war narratives we are fed every day.
FREE DOWNLOAD
Headline that hooks people in, gets them excited and makes them want to sign up.
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