Joe and Janet Campbell have their home in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, where they work with the United Mission to Nepal (UMN).
Some 13,000 people were killed, 100,000 displaced and over 1,000 people are still missing following the 10-year Maoist insurgency which ended in November 2006. As a result of these years of conflict, there remains in Nepal a legacy of much pain and anger; but UMN is strongly committed to supporting the church and Nepali NGOs as they seek to help bring healing and reconciliation to the people of Nepal.
Joe is UMN’s Peace & Conflict Transformation Advisor, working with UMN’s Nepali partners and the Nepali Church in the development of peace and conflict transformation skills and vision. He’s also involved in supporting the development of a national peace infrastructure in the country.
Janet provides Pastoral Care to UMN’s 30+ international (expatriate) staff and their families, and contributes to peace and healing through the delivery of trauma awareness training. In addition, she is a volunteer with a YWCA project supporting women rescued from trafficking in India.
Before going to Nepal, Joe worked in teaching, then in the leadership of a city-based youth organisation in Belfast, and finally as Assistant Director of Mediation Northern Ireland. Janet’s background is in nursing and midwifery. In the 1970s she attended Bible College, studied language in Costa Rica, and spent two years in Peru with Latin Link.
Joe and Janet spent a year together at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, in the USA, where they undertook counselling, mediation, peace, justice and trauma studies.
The Campbells arrived in Nepal in September 2006, undertaking six months' language study and orientation before beginning their current roles with UMN.
Their work involves extensive travel by bus, plane or on foot to some very remote areas of Nepal, so safety in all travel is a continual concern.
Joe, who was brought up in Holywood (Co Down), and Janet, originally from London, have been actively involved in First Holywood congregation over several decades, where Joe is an elder.
Joe and Janet have three adult children and are grandparents.
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