peacewe-blog

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This is another great organization based in Sierra Leone that uses football (soccer for Americans) as a peacebuilding tool for youth

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An inspiring project. Maybe they'll inspire one of us!

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Check out the inspirational speech by Malala Yousafzai to the United Nations. The 16 year old Pakistani teen activist is from Pakistan and was shot in October in response to her speaking out about the right to education. 

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Hello PCB and peace.we participants,

Heidi and I thought it would be helpful, along with other project ideas that we've come across, to post the guidelines that we'll be using for your peace.we projects.

Projects must be actionable (The project must be something this group can accomplish)

There must be representation from at least two countries in the project team

Teams must have at least two team members

The final presentation must include project team’s philosophy/definition of peacebuilding, project goal, theory of change, list of conflict factors, and a project risk analysis.

Hopefully that will clarify the program a bit more! Thanks for reading!

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Check out this project by Palestinian youth, Hashem, a former participant of Seeds of Peace, who lives in Al Arroub Refugee Camp. 

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Project Examples

Hey All!

It is 14 days and counting till we all hit the ground running at Bryn Mawr for PCB 2013! Can you believe that? Its almost been year since some of us have seen each other? A year since we competed in the "Olympics"? A year since we were immersed in a great little community of people from around with the world? Crazy!

As we said in a previous post, we want to put some  peace.we peacebuilding project examples out there into the hearts and minds of brainstorming community members. One I thought of today comes from my experience living in an international dormitory in grad school called International House. Every February there, ten residents are awarded ten thousand dollars for projects chosen by the Davis Projects for Peace committee.

These projects are funded by the late Kathryn Davis who passed away this spring at the advanced age of 106! On her 100th birthday she decided she wanted to fund a variety of projects developed by young people that might spur on innovation in the fields of peacebuilding and development. Of course, she said it best, "I want to use my 100th birthday to help young people launch some immediate initiatives — things that they can do during the summer of 2007 — that will bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world."

How cool is that? "Use my HUNDREDTH birthday?"

Immigration and Arizona

I was lucky enough to get to join colleagues of mine to work on two such projects. The first involved heading to the western U.S. to teach teachers in Arizona public schools skills for dealing with conflict in their classrooms. Teachers in these schools were at the time (and have been and will continue to) dealing with an influx of immigrants. Also at the same time the state of Arizona was considering some new laws that were controversial and generated much conflict between the various social identity groups represented in their classrooms. My colleague from International House thought the conflict resolution skills that she and I were learning in grad school would help the teachers and the students in this tough situation.

Election Violence in Ghana

Then I was REALLY lucky to travel to West Africa to teach public speaking skills to young students in the capital of Ghana, Accra. My colleague from Ghana thought that with the possibility of tribal conflict complicating the free and democratic elections that were coming in a few months, if students could speak about the challenges the country was facing and ask people in their communities and tribes to refrain from violence, then crisis might be averted. In the end I hope he was right, but sometimes in peacebuilding it can be a little hard to tell!

These are just a few examples from my experience of what can be done in the field of peacebuilding. I am excited to see and hear Heidi's stories as well as all the fantastic ideas for projects that you all come up with in your communities all around the world! Thanks for keeping up with us and get brainstorming!

Tommy

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peace.we Intro

Hi PCBers!

It is Heidi and Tommy here and we’re excited to send out an introduction to the peacebuilding elective we’re leading this year called peace.we.

The backstory of peace.we is that over the past year since PCB 2012, Tommy mentored at a great event in New York City called Startup Weekend and Heidi facilitated a conference with the United Nations in Cyprus. After these experiences we compared notes and realized that bringing these two experiences together to create peace.we, might unlock the magical potential of all of the PCB Community.

We learned in our respective events that even in just a few days, with a great team, a sharp focus, and lots of hard work, we can create incredible projects and programs-- a truly great internet company (in the case of Tommy’s event) or a really impressive solution to a development or peacebuilding problem (as in the case of Heidi’s event in Cyprus). Having learned this, we thought, why don’t we do the same at PCB this year?

You each have amazing ideas for how to seed and build peace and as groups coming together from around the world, you can make it happen.  Our job as facilitators of peace.we is to help you develop these projects and access the resources and advisors you need to make your ideas come to life.

So, on the first day, PCB participants who sign up for the the peace.we fixed elective will “pitch” their ideas for peacebuilding projects that can be completed or solidly started in the week of PCB. Then, everyone will “vote with their feet” by going around the room and deciding which project they want to work on so that winning projects have great teams. Finally, by the end of the first day of regularly scheduled programming, teams will have already started working on their projects. By the last day of the elective classes, peace.we teams will have accomplished amazing things with impacts reaching far and wide.

Now you might be wondering what a “peacebuilding” project might look like. Right?  Well, thanks to Yaron and Bauback and Peace in Action of PCB 2012, we all have a clearer idea.  Nonetheless, we will try to post on the peace.we blog over the next few weeks projects that we think might inspire some great work in peace.we this year that we hope will get your brainstorming going! And if you have ideas or examples, email us at peace.we.pcb2013@gmail.com.

We can’t wait to see you all again and we’re looking forward to what you all can accomplish individually and as a PCB community  in building peace around the world.