Project New Hope transforms the lives of veterans through free retreats for veterans and their families – a "healthy environment to learn from others and expand their experiences to develop methods to move beyond negative impacts that may have resulted from deployments or service in America's Armed Forces."
"A Child's Guide to War" project founder Susan Hackley is shown here at a recent retreat in Groton, MA, with Silouan Green, Marine veteran and motivational speaker and writer. Silouan and Susan are planning an event in Indiana - "A Conversation about War" that will be open to the public and that will welcome everyone!

A Child's Guide to War is proud to be featured as the lead story in "The Peacebuilding Post," which is published by the Alliance for Peacebuilding. We hope that by spreading awareness in such formats we can increase our ability to bridge the civilian-military divide. Read the article that has been published on the link below:
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War Changes Everyone

Why should we care about bridging the civilian – military divide? Producer and project founder Susan Hackley talks about her motivation for launching this project, going back to the Vietnam War and the early days of the Iraq War. Listen to her interview on the link below with transpartisan public policy expert Michael Ostrolenk.
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Click here to listen!

On December 7th, Producer and Project Director Susan Hackley and internationally-renowned photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind led a discussion about how war impacts everyone, not just soldiers. From Ukraine to US, war changes everyone.
Here is the video, in case you missed the event!

You are invited to “War Changes Everyone”, a discussion to be co-led by Producer and Project Director Susan Hackley and internationally-renowned photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind.
Monday, December 7th
4:30pm-6pm
Harvard University
Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA
The talk is part of the Herbert C. Kelman Seminar Series on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution. The theme for this year's Kelman Seminar is "Negotiation, Conflict and the News Media".
In their work, Susan and Anastasia show how war has a profound impact on everyone, not just soldiers. Susan in her short film will show the impact of war on the children of American soldiers. Anastasia with her photographs will talk about the impact of war on Ukrainian women and others.
Read more about them & the event here: http://www.pon.harvard.edu/…/kelman-seminar-war-changes-ev…/

Martha Jackson, an educator and mother of an active-duty Army Ranger who has deployed twice to Afghanistan. Jackson is a member of Blue Star Mothers, a non-political, nonprofit organization of mothers of active duty service men and women and veterans. Blue Star Mothers provides support to deployed soldiers and assistance to veterans organizations. She has had a long career in teaching English to international students beginning as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. She has taught at Northeastern University, Boston University and Show Women's University. She was a Teaching Fellow under Professor Robert Coles at Harvard University. She has served on many educational boards, including The Brookline Educational Foundation, Facing History and Ourselves New England Board, and Beacon Academy. We are thrilled to have her support for this project!
Thank you to everyone on our Advisory Board and all of our supporters!

This article by Producer & Project Director Susan Hackley is from the July 2015 issue of Negotiation Journal.


In debates about war in the United States, voices in the conflict resolution community are too rarely heard. Those of us who work in the field think a great deal about conflict—how to prevent it, manage it, resolve it, recover from it, and learn from it. We examine conflicts around the world, but do we in the negotiation and conflict resolution field look carefully enough at the conflicts of which we are an important part?
I believe civilian and military Americans are vastly divided in our experience of war, and until we bridge that divide we civilian Americans in the conflict resolution field will be excluded from some of our nation’s most consequential discussions.
To bridge that divide would require that civilians must come to understand and appreciate what soldiers experience, and that military Americans be willing to engage the rest of us in conversations about that experience. We civilians may not have been to war, and we may sometimes ask dumb questions, but we want and need to understand the soldier’s point of view.
In my fourteen years as managing director of the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School, I have been privileged to be part of a vibrant community of scholars,authors,teachers,and students who are ... Read the full article here.

Jack McLean is the author of Loon: A Marine Story, the memoir about his service as a young Marine Corps infantryman in Vietnam. Jack is joining our project's Advisory Board and we are thrilled to have his expertise on our board.
Jack writes that he was “honored to be asked by Susan Hackley to serve on the Advisory Board of “A Child’s Guide to War”. As a former combat veteran, best selling author, and not-for-profit and for-profit CEO, I bring a wide range of experience and skills to this important effort. The Advisory Board, as now constituted, represents an extraordinary breadth of talent that will help lead to the ultimate success of this vital project.”