Manuel Padilla, MA, Oregon Solutions Project Manager
manuelpadilla@pdx.edu | (503) 725-6980
Since 2010, Manuel Padilla has engaged in peace building, conflict transformation/reconciliation, humanitarian development, and dialogue locally and internationally. Some of his most formative years were spent in Haiti and Chad, where he worked to support peace education efforts in Cite Soleil, and to manage the formal education system with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and refugees displaced from Darfur. Manuel has focused much of the last 5 years on facilitation: doing mediation and restorative justice work (victim-offender dialogue) for Clackamas County, traveling the breadth of Oregon conducting public dialogue and bridging work for Oregon Humanities, and running workshops and trainings on IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) toward institution and culture change. After returning to the United State in 2015, Manuel worked as adjunct professor at Marylhurst University, teaching on intercultural communication and communication for social change, and was the executive director of Portland Meet Portland, where he got to build, among other things, podcasting and transmedia storytelling programs to raise the voices of immigrants and refugees. Manuel holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from PSU and a master’s degree in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies from the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace.