Building better local communities could help build peace in the Middle East. So says Jim Torczyner (pronounced tor-CHEE-nur), the founder of the Middle East Program at McGill University in Montreal. Torczyner speaks about the project Thursday, January 26th, at Western Michigan University.

For nearly two decades the MMEP has worked on ways to improve civil society and better the lives of the disadvantaged in Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Torczyner says helping people improve their lives makes peace more likely, something he says also involves building relationships within the three countries and across borders.

Torczyner says one program fostered by MMEP allowed Palestinian and Jordanian graduate students to study with Israelis. Another helped renovate the homes of poor residents in the West Bank town of Nablus.

Torczyner says MMEP has three main principles: that all people share the same rights; that they don’t have to love their neighbor but do have to accept that they have one; and that they can change reality by learning about their rights and responsibilities.

Watch a YouTube video about MMEP here.

Totczyner will speak about “Building a New Middle East from the Ground Up” at noon in the President’s Dining Room in Western Michigan University’s Bernhard Center. At 4 p.m. he will give the presentation “Fifteen Years Creating Engaged Citizenry in the Middle East” in Room 2008 in WMU’s Richmond Center for the Visual Arts. The events are co-sponsored by Western’s Center for the Humanities, the College of Health and Human Services, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Foreign Languages, and the Haenicke Institute for Global Education.