Mediators Foundation Projects

Mediators Foundation has been catalyst for several innovative projects over the past 20 years. Currently MF is actively involved with four key project areas:

The Global Leadership Network

A network of more than 20 diverse global leadership practitioners committed to a peaceful and sustainable world discovering a common voice and shared vision. 

Abraham Path

This project is opening up a route in the Middle East intended to draw travelers from all faith traditions that retraces the footsteps of the prophet Abraham.

Transpartisan Dialogues

Fostering healthier, more creative communications across the political spectrum in America by facilitating a series of transformational dialogues.

Global Arts

Mediators understands the importance of the arts in social change. Currently MF is hosting the Art through the Continents initiative providing engaging experiences using the stories and form of visual arts from around the world to transform the world we live in and the a play written by Mark Gerzon and Peter Goldmark “The Trial of Ossam Bin Laden”.

Women of Vision

Bringing together women of Arab, Jewish, Christian and Earth-based roots, to deepen into their common ground of Ancient Knowing.

Previous Projects

Entertainment Summit
Three "summit" meetings in New York, Los Angeles and Moscow in 1987-1988 brought Soviet and American film makers together to consider the role of global media in influencing world views and cultural awareness. Coming in the final years of the Cold War era, the Summit gave writers, directors and producers from both nations opportunity to explore new paths to more honest portrayals of each other's culture.

Global Partners
An international team of social entrepreneurs who shared a concern for the global community was brought together by Foundation President Mark Gerzon. This group of world citizens from a dozen different countries sowed the seeds of numerous initiatives to recognize and provide for worldwide sustainable development. Some of these seeds took root and grew and flourished as the next three projects listed below.

ArmsWatch
Now known as the Arms Project under the auspices of the Human Rights Watch, this project set out to apply the tools and techniques used in the human rights movement to the issue of the spread of weapons of mass destruction. In its fifth year of operation, it has made important contributions in documenting the link between arms transfers and human rights abuses and continues an active campaign to ban the use of land mines.

South-North Development Initiative
Promoting a new generation of economic vehicles to redirect the resources of traditional capital markets to more development- oriented ventures, SNDI has been instrumental in starting new private-public partnerships in approximately 15 countries of Latin America and Africa since 1991. Through these collaborations venture capital has been directed to small and medium sized native-
owned businesses.

Earth Education Partnership Program
After three full years of funded operations, 2400 students in 48 pilot schools in Costa Rica and New Jersey have gained skills to address real world issues of sustainable development and environmental ethics. A network of schools, each U.S. school partnered with a foreign school, continues to expand into the Netherlands with future ties anticipated in Belize, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, the Philippines and Russia.

The Common Enterprise
Turning its efforts to more local and national issues in 1993, Mediators Foundation began to recognize and bring together groups and individuals who were engaged in social change at the local level. Common Enterprise staff provided support and expertise to assist adversaries in discovering their similar goals and envisioning a common enterprise. Pilot sites located in Chicago, San Antonio, Tucson, Portland OR, and San Diego continue this work on issues of impact such as educational inequities, curriculum issues, social and language barriers and immigration issues.

Bipartisan Congressional Retreat
Mediators' President, Mark Gerzon, was retained by the United States Congress to design and facilitate the Bipartisan Retreat in March, 1997 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The historic session was funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and administered by the Aspen Institute. The success of the retreat is reflected by a number of changes in the way the House of Representatives now operates and an increase in the awareness among our elected representatives of the importance of civility and bipartisanship in conducting the nation's business.

Healthy Campaigns for Healthy Communities
In collaboration with the Coalition for Healthy Communities, the National Civic League, Excellence in Government, the Interfaith Alliance and other organizations, Mediators participated in a national effort to introduce the concepts of leadership for civil society into the most visible civic activity of our democracy: the election of the President of the United States. Seeking to establish a higher level of civic conduct among presidential candidates in the 2000 campaign, the effort focused on reducing "negative campaigning" and encouraged the voting public to require candidates to "clean up" their campaigns.