Mishy Lesser

I am passionate about making the connection between genocide and how we treat one another in our schools and communities. Through my collaboration with documentary filmmaker Adam Mazo, we use film and curricula to make othering socially unacceptable. Our first film, Coexist, focuses on post-genocide Rwanda. The Coexist Teacher’s Guide, which I authored, came from years of developing and beta-testing learning activities with students and teachers.

I came of age as a trainer and facilitator by learning from community leaders and organizations in Chile and Ecuador, and continue to be inspired by the challenges of curriculum development, workshop design, and group facilitation. Trained as a circle keeper, I bring circles into my workshops to ensure that all voices and perspectives are heard. My work has been featured on WBUR (Boston) and PRI/BBC’s The World. I am an associate of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and earned my doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I live near Boston and am excited about the Upstander Academy for teachers, which The Upstander Project will launch in July 2015 in partnership with the Dodd Research Center at UConn.