MISSION STATEMENT
Urban Visions, Inc.

Urban Visions, Inc. is in the business of transformation of organizations and people in the interpersonal and the ecological arenas. It aims to develop, use and replicate non-violent methods of interaction-verbal, physical, and ecological-for management, education and training. To do this Urban Visions, itself, models cooperative and effective management.

Transformation means increasing people's awareness of their interdependency with the world and their ability to live harmoniously. It implies principled openness, individual and corporate, and desire to increase the peace in society and environment rather than to wrest resources for individual gain. Transformation is growth.

Nonviolence means helping people in communities and natural environments to accept conflict as normal, to ensure that power is distributed in an organic, equitable way and to seek solutions that benefit all parties. Therefore, the Company works against human and ecological exploitation. Nevertheless, serving clients well requires the delegation of power and distinctions between people on the basis of tasks and abilities.

Urban Visions can replicate itself by forming or assisting other corporations, which must be in accord with its mission of non-violent action. Together with Urban Visions they comprise a “commonwealth” of similarly engaged companies. In the beginning Urban Visions will provide corporate training, quality control, governance and support. But as the commonwealth matures Urban Visions intends to transfer these functions.

About BILL LEICHT

Coordinator & Facilitator-Trainer
Organizational & Course Development, I-Key Workshops, Community & Safety Programs

Bill Leicht's job is to bring I Key dispute resolution methods to new organizations. He developed these methods to provide nonviolent ways of responding physically as well as verbally to aggression. He wrote the I Key Facilitation Manual to integrate physical and verbal conflict resolution.

Bill's background is broad, covering science, art, business and conflict resolution. A New Yorker since 1963, Bill hails from Minnesota where as a young naturalist he developed skills now useful in Simeht's ecological projects. An SB (biopsychology) and AB (liberal arts) from the University of Chicago led to research in neurochemistry (1957 1966). Then with an MA in Fine Arts and Fine Arts Education (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1967) he began a sculpture and teaching career. In 1968 Audubon Artists' awarded him its national medal of honor for sculpture.

From 1968-1974, as an instructor first at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Dept. of Psychiatry), then at Hunter College (Art Dept.), Bill began street work in the South Bronx. He shared his art and communication skills and learned community organizing with United Bronx Parents (parent activists) and with the Ghetto Brothers (youth gang becoming community organization). His commitment to nonviolent social action begun in sixties civil rights work was growing.

Six years later art and community action merged when Bill set up Urban Visions of America, Inc. His company trained visually talented hardcore unemployed people for 12 weeks under CETA as graphic artists; 95% got and kept full time arts industry jobs. However, CETA funding ended in 1984 and he turned to ergonomic and computer consulting with his partner, Anne Carriere.

In 1983 Bill began aikido, a nonviolent, Japanese martial art. By 1985 he was synthesizing this art and the verbal nonviolence of Alternatives to Violence, Inc. ("AVP "). The result, "I Key Workshops," was a new approach to values education and conflict resolution that used body-centered learning to build conflict resolution skills. Those who have taken these workshops facilitators, parents, children, teachers, peace officers have found that their I Key experiences and skills help to transform their lives and work. By 1994 I-Key Workshops had become the unique core of Simeht Ltd's dispute resolution business.

As a staff developer in NYC public schools (conflict resolution, Educators for Social Responsibility, 1992-94) Bill helped entire schools change the way they manage and educate young people. This experience confirmed his vision that transformative physical education can help young people to acquire the values and skills to become responsible adults. Simeht's 1998 training of conflict resolution trainers for the School Safety Academy integrated safety and enforcement skills for safety officers in N.Y.C. public schools. Bill continues his school safety work as a member of the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Gangs.

Some of Bill's recent projects: as a board member, Aiki Extensions, Inc. he organized the first national conference on physical nonviolence; for AVP he created an I Key training; and at John Jay College with Don Goodman he developed an on-the-mat course to learn and test conflict theories from Plato to Fanon. At "Bronx Peace Village,"a collaboration of a Pentecostal mission, the Order of Peacemakers (Zen) and Simeht Ltd, he now trains peacemakers, including leaders of street organizations, in meditation, nonviolence (physical and verbal) and aikido.

Bill still enjoys backpacking and wilderness canoeing as he once did in Minnesota.