The Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island congratulates Margaret (Meg) Frost for winning the Nonviolence Trainer’s Award for July 2022. Meg is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science Department at Vanderbilt University. Previously, she served as an intern at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva and a human rights colloquium program in Madrid.
Born and raised in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, USA, Meg became deeply interested in the study of nonviolence during her MA program at the University of Rhode Island (URI). Her studies on organized crime and civil wars sparked her interest in the antidote to violence, nonviolence. This idea became experiential learning and application when she lived in Antioquia, a robust and beautiful region in Colombia that has dealt with several kinds of violence, including civil war, organized crime, and ordinary crime rather relentlessly for three-quarters of a century.
She approached studying violence mainly from a psychological angle, wondering how some humans could mistreat each other in such horrifying ways and still be human. Above all, she wanted to examine how citizens can be resilient and resistant in the face of violence. So, that brought her to the academic study of nonviolent social movements and civil resistance, which she has witnessed in Mexico and Colombia. She firmly believes that by studying violence and nonviolence, people can build creative, collective, long-lasting nonviolent solutions to human-security issues. People can start employing nonviolent solutions at policy and grassroots levels in contexts affected by violence.
Meg is a certified Kingian Nonviolence and Conflict Reconciliation Trainer from the URI Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. In 2012, she completed her Level 2 Advanced Leadership Training in Kingian Nonviolence and Level 1 Training of Trainers in Kingian Nonviolence and Conflict Reconciliation in 2011. Recently, she was honored with the Level 3 Kingian Nonviolence Trainer’s certification for institutionalizing and internationalizing nonviolence.
After her Level 2 Nonviolence Training, Meg lived in Colombia on a Fulbright English Teaching Fellowship. She traveled to several Colombian cities, co-facilitating Kingian Nonviolence workshops with Ruth Henry, another certified Level 3 Nonviolence Trainer from this Center. They held trainings in hip-hop communities in Medellín, Cartagena, Barranquilla, and Bogotá. As part of the training in Colombia, participants created artistic representations of the Principles and Steps of Kingian Nonviolence, including raps, graffiti, breakdance, and poetry. As a co-trainer, she also helped the International Nonviolence Summer Institute in 2015, 2016, and 2022. Meg hopes to return soon to Colombia to facilitate additional training and broaden the scope and geographic reach of institutionalized nonviolence across the Americas.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence must immediately become a subject for study and serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, including relations between nations.” Meg remains committed to scholarly research and teaching nonviolence. She plans to conduct more research in Mexico, and continue working with a civil-society organization, México Unido Contra la Delincuencia (Mexico United Against Crime), and colleagues from the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), a university in Mexico. Since militarized interventions against organized crime are commonplace, local violence and human rights abuses in Mexico have significantly increased. Meg and her team will be exploring ways to reduce public support for militarization and increase support for rehabilitation and post-conflict justice, particularly for families who have lost loved ones in forced disappearances, massacres, or gang violence. She also hopes to conduct nonviolence training in Mexico in the near future.
In the long term, Meg would like to broaden the reach of institutionalized nonviolence training work in the Americas, specifically in Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. She aims to aid governments and civil society organizations in integrating Kingian Nonviolence Principles and Steps to policymaking and execution and nonviolent civil resistance movements. Again, we sincerely congratulate Meg Frost for winning this Nonviolence Trainer’s Award.