Macferran, Kathleen: - Kathleen holds a vision for a peaceful, just and sustainable world. She is committed to spending the rest of her days building a world where peace replaces violence, love replaces hate, equity replaces inequity, and all people live meaningful lives. Kathleen has worked as a Certified Trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) since 2003, and as a CNVC Assessor between 2010-2024 where she co-created a community-based path to certification. Community building and conflict transformation are passions of hers.Kathleen has worked internationally with individuals, community groups, businesses, schools, colleges, faith-based communities, hospitals, families, prison inmates, and correctional and law enforcement employees. She served as a trainer for the Freedom Project of Seattle, WA, an organization that supports communities both inside and outsideprison through Nonviolent Communication, mindfulness, racial equity and anti-oppression work. Kathleen offers trainings in Nonviolent Communication, facilitation, system building, mediation and intimate relationships using practical skills that lead to reconciliation with ourselves, our loved ones and our communities. For over 40 years Kathleen has explored ways to restore harmony to communities, including two decades as a musicconductor and leader of a nonprofit organization, and seven years as a public-school teacher.Kathleen is the author of Calling In the Dawn: Shaping Our Future through Authentic Dialogue, two children's books How Giraffes Found Their Hearts and How Giraffes Got Their Ears, and conductor for Giraffe Tales (a children's CD setting those stories to music). She is the conductor on multiple Rainier Chamber Winds classical music recordings.Visit her website (www.strengthofconnection.com) to find her books, music, and to hear Kathleen's three TEDx talks.Finkelstein, Jared: - Jared believed that in a connected world what's essential is the quality of our connection. As a consultant and trainer, he specialized in supporting people and communities to make choices that transform separation and misunderstanding into connection and collaboration.Jared was devoted to the idea of intergenerational interdependence. He worked with organizations, schools, homes, faithbased communities, and camps. Jared supported people of all ages with the discipline of Nonviolent Communication which he used to illuminate and fine tune the qualities of connection in all our relationships, and for everyone's benefit.A graduate of Poughkeepsie Day School and Earlham College, Jared was a filmmaker and media educator in the Hudson Valley before dedicating his time to disseminating skills and practices for conflict resolution and peace. He taught media literacy to youth through the Children's Media Project, the Summer Institute for the Gifted, The Randolph School and the Poughkeepsie Day School. Later, he resided in Berkeley, California where he plannedand led workshops, practice groups, residential and camp retreats, and consultations with individualsand organizations. When he was not busy with all this, he daydreamed of popularizing complex ideasinto simple packages for general consumption, and played intense D&D marathons with his lifelongfriends.Jared will be remembered for his kindnesses, unique intellect, startling wit, playfulness, and longing to bring solace to aching hearts.
