Brief history of the European Network for Nonviolence and Dialogue

Historic experience shows that the onset of authoritarian regimes has often begun with attacks against vulnerable minorities, which are marked as cause of social and economic problems. We strongly believe in conflict intervention approaches that are based on the values of non-violence, dialogue, appreciation of diversity, participation and the importance of protecting and promoting the rights of minorities and weaker segments of society.

The PDCS team came up with the idea for this network in early 2016 when trying to figure out how to react on the current social changes in Europe. The main question PDCS was looking for to answer was how can we as a civil society contribute to de-polarisation of the society. What do we do wrong and what do we do right? How can we bring people together? How can we enable social dialogue? How can we ensure peaceful transition of social value-based conflicts in our societies?