Country/region: Northern Ireland
Conflict:
Organisation: Tides Training
Field of work: Mediation and training
Mary Montague has an established reputation gained over forty years, in peace building work across many of the most contentious interfaces in Northern Ireland both as a Mediator and Trainer. In 2000 she co-founded TIDES Training in order to design a range of accredited training up to level 4, in Mediation, Systemic and Restorative Peace Building Practice. This training has been delivered both locally and internationally.
Mary was a director on highly commended European projects such as TIDES Training of Trainers, Stepping into Diversity and Building Relationships in Communities. BRIC was one of the first using Systemic Mediative & Restorative Approaches project delivered across N. Ireland in partnership with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and Rural Development Council.
Mary has developed and delivered mediation interventions and training programmes in areas such as the Balkans, Afghanistan, Pakistan region and Sudan. She is a practitioner and tutor with Mediators Beyond Borders, International Institute for Women Leaders delivering mediation and restorative practice training to a range of global practitioners from North Africa, Middle East, Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and South America.
Formally for TIDES she led the Restorative Practice Training into many areas, the most notable was for Leeds City Council as part of their programme to create a Child Friendly City.
A published author of ‘Relationships to Reconciliation’, a manual for peace builders. She serves as a consultant to several organisations that are developing mediation and restorative practices. The most recent The Victims Centre, Pittsburgh.
In 2016 and 2017 she was a visiting Professor at Washington & Jefferson College Washington PA USA delivering classes on mediation and restorative approaches.
She lectures on mediation course for the Common Security and Defence policy programmes held under the auspices of the European Security and Defence College at The Edward Kennedy Institute, Maynooth.
She is founder member of Women Waging Peace Harvard and winner of the Life Time Exceptional Achievement Award in Peace Building from the Community Relations Council NI.
Mary received the Mediator of the Year Award in April 2015 from Mediators Beyond Borders at the congress in Bucharest. She has been awarded the 2015 International Bremen Peace Award for Public Engagement. She has also been nominated for the 2018 Fulbright Prize for International Understanding. Mary received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Washington and Jefferson College, USA for her peace building work May 2018.