Melvin Earl Duncan is the founding Executive Director of Nonviolent Peaceforce

Nonviolent Peaceforce

Nonviolent Peaceforce is a nonpartisan unarmed peacekeeping organisation that works to protect civilians and reduce violence in areas affected by armed conflict...

 (NP), a civilian

Civilian

A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...

 peacekeeping

Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace. It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....

 organization based in Brussels. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Macalester College

Macalester College

Macalester College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 as a Presbyterian-affiliated but nonsectarian college. Its first class entered September 15, 1885. The college is located on a campus in a historic residential neighborhood...

 in St. Paul, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 and a Master of Arts in Humanities and Leadership from New College of California

New College of California

New College of California was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President, Father John Leary. After 37 years, it ceased operations in early 2008....

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Biography

In 1979, Duncan helped organize Advocating Change Together (ACT), the first self-advocacy

Self-advocacy

Self-advocacy refers to the civil rights movement for people with developmental disabilities, also called cognitive or intellectual disabilities, and other disabilities. It is also an important term in the disability rights movement, referring to people with disabilities taking control of their own...

 group in the U.S. for people with developmental disabilities and subsequently served as Executive Director

Executive director

Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...

 of the Minnesota Jobs with Peace Campaign and the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action. His volunteer activities have included service as a peacekeeper on the border of Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

 during the Contra war

Contras

The contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle's dictatorship...

, delivering medical supplies to Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, and working for the election of US Senator Paul Wellstone

Paul Wellstone

Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...

 in 1990.

Duncan met peace advocate David Hartsough at the Hague Appeal for Peace in May 1999. The two began laying the groundwork for an international non-governmental organization to put nonviolent strategies into practice for the prevention and mitigation of violence in conflict zones. Based on Mohandas Gandhi's concept of a Shanti Sena

Shanti Sena

The Shanti Sena or "Peace army" was made up of Gandhi's followers in India. Its non-violent methods have been adopted by other movements such as the World Peace Brigade, Nonviolent Peaceforce, Swaraj Peeth and the Rainbow Family of Living Light....

 or "peace army," the model involves the use of trained, unarmed civilian peacekeepers working with local groups to create space for nonviolent conflict resolution.

Nonviolent Peaceforce was inaugurated in 2002 with Duncan as Executive Director and has since conducted civilian peacekeeping operations in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

 and Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

. In 2007, NP was granted Special Consultative Status

Consultative Status

Consultative Status is a phrase whose use can be traced to the founding of the United Nations and is used within the UN community to refer to "Non-governmental organizations in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council." Also some international organizations could...

 to the Economic and Social Council

United Nations Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations constitutes one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and it is responsible for the coordination of the economic, social and related work of 14 UN specialized agencies, its functional commissions and five regional commissions...

 of the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

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Awards

Duncan's awards and honors include the 2006 Distinguished Citizen Award from Macalester College and the 2007 Pfeffer International Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation

Fellowship of Reconciliation

The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...

. In 2008 he was named one of "50 Visionaries who are Changing Your World" by Utne Reader

Utne Reader

Utne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs...

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