Staff
Reverend Dr. Gopar Tapkida
API Coordinator and Committee Chair
Gopar serves as API Coordinator and MCC Rep in Zimbabwe. Before then, he served for 6 years as MCC Regional Peace Advisor for West and Central Africa. Gopar has facilitated training at Summer Peacebuilding Institute, Eastern Mennonite University, USA; Africa Peacebuilding Institute Zambia/South Africa; Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute in Burundi; Great Lakes Institute Uganda; Peacebuilding Training Center in Jos, Nigeria; as well as in several Seminaries. Gopar has further done training in many countries in Africa and North America. He is conversant with conflict transformation, religion and identity issues, EPRT, restorative justice, reflection on peace practices, trauma healing, conflict sensitivity development, Do No Harm, interfaith/inter-ethnic issues and a host of others. He has contributed to the writing of books chapters and several publications. He received Doctorate Degree on transformative approach to interfaith peacebuilding. Masters in Conflict Analysis and Transformation. Bachelors in Pastoral Theology, Diploma in Public Administration.
Melinda Norris
API Administrator and Committee Member
Melinda Norris Mdluli currently serves as the Administrative Assistant to the MCC Area Directors of Southern Africa and as the Administrator of Africa Peacebuilding Institute (API). She holds a dual BA in Peacebuilding & Development and Environmental Science from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Virginia, USA, as well as a BA Honours in International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa. Melinda has spent most of her time in Virginia’s great outdoors, organizing environmental campaigns and educational outreaches as a representative on the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition (VSEC) and EMU’s Creation Care Council. She has over five years of volunteer and environmental leadership experience, engaging and educating communities on the natural world around them both as a social club president and as a youth camp director. In 2015, Melinda volunteered with MCC as a Peace Club Coordinator in South Africa, a country she now calls her home. She is passionate about the intersections of faith, environmental education and conflict transformation. As API Administrator, Melinda is an active member of its Advisory Committee as well as a co-chair of MCC Africa Peace Network (MAPN).