A Brief History of NVC
As a child growing up in a turbulent Detroit neighborhood, Marshall Rosenberg knew he wanted to find a way of speaking that would decrease the occurrence of physical and verbal violence. As a clinical psychologist in 1961, he set out to create such a language—and to teach it. Within forty years, people on five continents were speaking that language, which Dr. Rosenberg called Nonviolent Communication
From his childhood years, Dr. Rosenberg was intent on understanding what motivated people toward violence and why some people, even in trying circumstances, were moved to compassion instead. After studying comparative religions and the stories of peacemakers throughout history, and using his own varied life experiences, he was convinced that human beings were not inherently violent. That belief is the basis of the concepts and skills of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
In the early 1960s Dr. Rosenberg left his clinical practice and literally went on the road, teaching people what he had learned. He wanted to “give away” the communication skills that he had been teaching his clients as a psychologist..
In his efforts to apply these skills to the needs of people in everyday life, Dr. Rosenberg found people all over the country who wanted to learn Nonviolent Communication and he offered it to a broad base of people in their communities.
To meet this need and to more effectively spread the skills
of NVC, he founded the Center for Nonviolent Communications
in 1984 as a non-profit organization. A volunteer staff
who shared his vision of a more peaceful world started
to organize workshops in an ever-increasing network of
communities across the United States, and then in Europe
as well.
The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) is a global
organization whose vision is a world where all people
are getting their needs met and resolving their conflicts
peacefully. In this vision, people are using Nonviolent
Communications (NVC) to create and participate in networks
of worldwide life-serving systems in economics, education,
justice, healthcare, and peace-keeping.
In addition to groups across the U.S., CNVC now has regional
teams of trainers and organizers in Eastern Europe, the
Middle East, Western Europe, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia,
India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi,
and several countries in Latin America. By 1998 the CNVC
team in the former Yugoslavia alone, had trained over
600 hundred teachers who taught over 12,000 students
and parents, and now has developed curriculum materials
for use with children from kindergarten through high
school.
We now have more than 250 CNVC-certified trainers throughout
the world and estimate that, in each of the past two
years, over 250,000 people have received training in
NVC in a multitude of countries, cultures, and languages.
Many thousands more people have informally shared what
they have learned, thus enhancing the lives of their
families, workplaces, and communities. Because NVC is
such a practical and do-able process, the old adage truly
applies, “each one teach one.”