Why “Walking Distance”
Walking Distance stands for the consistent and steady pace required to develop the capacity within ourselves to build peace.
Our efforts are grounded in realistic optimism. Conflict is an opportunity for growth. Peace is possible. It’s within reach, but it requires effort, persistence, and patience. This comprehensive process ensures we can arrive together, as fellow travelers through life, at a destination of mutual understanding, respect, and peaceful co-existence.
Our Vision is to cultivate peacebuilders while we pursue our Mission to empower communities, organizations, and individuals to transform conflict and become peacebuilders, locally and around the world.
How We Do It
The Three Pillar Walking Distance Approach
01
Heart: Where We Start
Often in conflict situations, we tend to be stuck in stories in our heads. From this place, engaging in productive dialogue that can lead to mutual understanding is difficult, if not impossible. Dropping into our heart-space softens us. It’s the key to opening up space to really listen to others and effectively share our own feelings and interests. Walking Distance uses a range of approaches to help “start with heart,” including poetry, music, art, and other activities.
02
Mindset: How We See Others
The root of almost all conflict is when we start seeing others as objects instead of as people. To address this fundamental challenge, our work focuses on the development of individuals’ perspectives, which influence attitudes and behaviors and allows people to effectively communicate, connect, and empathize with diverse community members.
03
Body: What We Say and Do
Once we are in our hearts, and our mindset is right, we can then focus on the appropriate things to say and do to engage with others with whom we are in conflict. Walking Distance draws from a wide range of well-tested concepts, models, and best-practices that have informed the conflict resolution space over the past few decades, tailoring our approach to create a toolkit that best meets our clients needs.
The Team
Meet Our Founders
Jude Cook
Co-Founder
Jude’s professional expertise is in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and mediation. He loves teaching, training, and collaborating with communities and university students to find ways to transform conflict and build peace.
Arinn Johnson
Co-Founder
Arinn is a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practitioner specializing in formal and informal education environments. She is passionate about developing university and community programs that encourage emotional connection to building equitable communities.
