BELFAST — Restorative justice innovator Dominic Barter shares his decades of experience in community-based systems for justice, education and economics on Wednesday, Sept. 18, from 6 to 9 p.m., at Belfast's Unitarian Universalist Church, 37 Miller Street.

Barter, along with his colleague Rebecca Sutton, will also participate in three community circles in Belfast in the days following his talk: Sept. 19, from 5 - 8 p.m., at the Little River Community Land Trust, 3 Adney Place (off of Edgecomb Road in Belfast); Sept. 20, from 5 - 8 p.m., at the Rockweed Community Center in Belfast, 156 High Street; and Sept. 22, from 6 - 9 p.m., at the Possibility Alliance, 85 Edgecomb Road (bring warm clothes it will be around a campfire)

According to a news releaes, Barter is known worldwide for his work with conflict, an approach which emerged in gang-controlled communities of Rio de Janeiro in the 1990s and has since been applied in a wide range of contexts, including families, workplaces and prisons. For 29 years, he and his colleagues in Brazil and around the world have been using dialogue to support communities to develop unique, locally-grown social systems, including justice systems, community funding models and a public high school initiated by Barter and his then-teenage daughter in Rio de Janeiro.

Barter and Sutton visited Belfast last year, met with staff and volunteers of the Restorative Justice Project in Belfast and Damariscotta, visited White Ash Learning Cooperative, and gathered with local community members at the Possibility Alliance and Belfast Cohousing. They look forward to being back, continuing previous connections and making new ones.

Since his last time in Belfast, Barter has been part of starting another student-initiated high school in Genoa, Italy, as well as building and supporting systems for conflict in several prisons in Italy and an elementary school in Zurich, while continuing his work in Brazil.

Barter's presentation will share learning from this work and invite those present to reflect on its relevance to local conditions. The intention of the community circles is to see what emerges locally from engaging with these themes together; all are welcome regardless of attendance at the Sept. 18 presentation.

For more information about Dominic Barter, visit restorativecircles.org.

For questions regarding these events, please contact Ethan Hughes at the Possibility Alliance at (207) 338-5719.