Good morning all! My plan was to go take a some photos around campus this morning as it is really quite impressive. It is a huge campus and there are free pink buses running to get around (yes pink buses) the school colour is pink as pink is the royal colour and the university was formed by one of the past kings. You find a lot of pink throughout the city too with the majority of taxis I have seen being hot pink! Anyway, my morning campus tour has to be delayed as I thought I better catch up on the blog and yesterday at the end of class we were given a huge stack of readings to have completed for Monday...so campus pics will come at a later date. I am planning on attending a university soccer game this afternoon at the national stadium. It's a huge event Chula vs Thammasat, it's rival university! Then tomorrow our class has a city toured booked. So I better get some homework done now!

This week in class was a huge learning curve and so much information to absorb but I am loving every minute of it. An interesting topic was the Global Peace Index, there is a website...www.visionof humanity.org for those interested; it maps out how each country ranks on the peace scale and happily Canada ranks in the top 10 but obviously other countries don't fair so well. We also looked at the peace process and gender issues in the peace process. Unfortunately many peace agreements around the world fail and among many reasons why they fails is a common one of not dealing with gender issues within the peace agreements. I found this interesting as I guess I have never really thought about it until now, but in order to resolve conflict those involved in the conflict need to be a part of the process and typically females have not been included despite representing half the population.

We also study the works of Elise Boulding who's major ideas are: peace as a daily process, 'peaceableness' ( a learned skill), personal & interpersonal promotion of peace, peace culture welcomes differences- recognizing them as a potential source of conflict, but also a starting point for progress.

I have also had the opportunity to discuss domestic violence issues with some of my classmates from India and Kenya, and how different or similar we are with dealing with these issues. As police we really need to be aware of how we handle DV coming from other cultures while still following our Canadian Protocols and legislation.

I wanted to share this link as well

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US&reload=3&rdm=4ppwh3jy9#/watch?v=17S084bCzPY

If it doesn't work go to YouTube and search England U20 Soccer team in Colombia

It really is a small world...I was seeking with my Professor from England about the use of sport in conflict resolution...we got talking about Colombia and he told me about the warm welcome the England soccer team received from the Colombian Police when they arrived in Colombia and told me to YouTube it...it is a great video to watch as the Colombian Police welcome the team with dance and music. He had told me that the team was a little nervous traveling to Colombia but after this welcome it set the tone and they had a great time. Now my distance connection to this story is my friend Diego, a police officer in Colombia was assigned to the England team for their duration of their time in Colombia and Diego had filled me in on working with the team and he had a great time. Anyway, watch the video if you can...this is the Colombia I have been lucky to know.