Friends House Moscow

Anton Konovalov is an expert in conflict resolution. He is an educational psychologist, and member of the Association of Curators of Mediation Services and Mediators, based in Moscow.

Anton came to us with a proposal to set up a nation-wide training programme for mediators. He planned to create instructional sessions for at least 200 educational specialists (psychologists, teachers, administrators), in which they would be trained as mediators and as initiators of reconciliation services. The work would take place in seven different regions of Russia.

Thus the project called, in Russian, “Peace to your Home” was born.

In fact even more than seven cities were involved (see map). And the influence did not stop
there. Much of the material has been videoed and placed online, including a webinar by a specialist from Ukraine who spoke about this kind of work in his country, and video lectures by Lyudmila Karnozova, an expert on restorative justice.

On his website, Anton has also added a collection of educational programs and manuals for
young mediators in schools. These materials have been contributed by mediators from several different regions of Russia.

The first reconciliation services in Russia were created in 2001-2. They run more than 3,000 programmes annually involving 12,000 people.