Hello Balfour Scholars!

My name is Mousumi De and I am one of the facilitators for the upcoming Balfour Scholars Program “Peace Through Art”. I am an artist and a researcher and very passionate about educating for peace through art, media and new media.  I also love to integrate technology in art learning and teaching.

I used to work in the corporate clothing industry, until one day I realized that I wasn’t making any tangible change to social problems in the society. I was always interested in addressing social issues. I quit the industry and pursued Design and Digital Media, then another Masters on using Interactive Documentary for Peacebuilding. In a nutshell, my background is in peacebuilding and peace education through the arts and media. In the past I had the privilege of working with students from diverse communities, cultures, and countries in the world.

In our program, we will explore what peace means in its positive and negative forms and learn about conflict transformation and how visual art, photography, dance, music and drama are used for peacebuilding in different parts of the world. You will get an opportunity to create your own art project. It is my hope, that those of you who enroll in this program would learn to resolve conflicts of any kind, be they personal, social, cultural or communal.

I welcome you all into our program and hope that it would be an enriching experience and a memorable journey for you.