Does anyone have any ideas about getting Peacemaking and Community Building

[LaurenG]

out and more mainstream?

I was thinking about how to make this issue more mainstream and getting ideas together that we can do individually and as a group.

My ideas are that we can accomplish more as a united group of voices but that we can also do much by just living peace each day as much as possible and finding common ground with others.

Does anyone else have more concrete ideas?

[LWolf]

1. One thing pops into mind.

I'm not sure what to do with it, but it somehow "tugs" at my attention. No surprise, since I'm a teacher.

I would like to see a larger, more cohesive, more comprehensive effort to focus on cooperation as a guiding principle, rather than competition. Where better to start than at school?

If the use of competition to drive performance was reduced, and the use of cooperation to create success becomes the focus, perhaps we can begin to rewire the next generation.

How about if "success" means success for all, instead of one?

[LaurenG]

2. I don't know if you are interested in networking on line or not

But this is called "A Global Network for Enlightening Peace Activism"

Welcome to the Peace Portal...Share your Peace Projects, Music, Videos and inspirations with the world on these pages. You can also start your own discussion groups, invite your friends, and get to know new people from around the world who share your commitment to Be Peace.

This website also offers a way to create your own space.
http://peaceportal.ning.com/

:hi:

[LWolf]

5. I've really enjoyed browsing this site.

It's amazing how much more peaceful I personally feel when I read other's thoughts and works of peace. :D

I'm still thinking about peace in the school community. I go back to work this month. I can't start, or operate a program focused on "creating peace" with those words. All the hawks in the community would dive bomb me, lol.

I can focus on cooperation as a guiding principle, though, and that's where I'm going to start. My school uses "Tribes," which is a cooperative group/social skills program that I think is ok; not great, but better than nothing. I'll probably start there, since I already have permission, and see what I can build on. Here is their website:

http://www.tribes.com/

It would be nice to have a group at the peace portal that was focused on peace in schools. I'll see how my efforts to do something more concrete, more explicit, go this fall, and if I have enough to work with, maybe I'll start one.

[cassiepriam]

3. Maybe we could come up with a list of goals to work on....

I am a big advocate for Peace in Iraq.

I post all the time on the main boards about stopping the killing, stopping the war.

[glowing]

4. I beleive we need to focus on creating "community buildings" that

focus on the community needs. I live in a larger city. I would like to see a large complex that features meeting rooms, that can house various functions... also, utilize the internet to connect groups, jobs, activities, and to be independant (off the grid--green building). With a kitchen even that serves only organic foods. I think the independence is important. Non-reliant on govt interference, something for the community to utilize, and something to bring people together by.

I actually have an outline that's quite detailed, unfortunately, until I have massive funding, it won't happen. I do believe, though, once built, the center would be able to sustain itself.

[TatonkaJames]

6. Participate in The Peace Journal Project

This website & blog is a project to run the entire year of 2010. It would be great for class projects
so students can interact with students here and overseas to work on ways to achieve world peace.
Participants will keep personal journals from a downloadable calendar with ideas for the month.
At year end all the personal journals from around the world will be culled into a document to be
presented to the United Nations 192 nations participants so they might understand it's governments/big coorporations
who want/make war, not the citizens of the world who would like to spend the short time we're on this pebble in space
living it in peace.

The blog site that can be reached from the parent site;

http://thepeacejournal.wordpress.com/

Facebook;

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30723647&id=1414998963#/group.php?gid=225680598148

Website;

http://www.thepeacejournal.com/

Peace

[OneGrassRoot]

7. Creating Compassionate, Cooperative Communities

We're not ready to launch just yet (and there are some messy things I need to erase that I created to test various features), but we are closing in on inviting a focus group to dive in very soon. Maybe this group would have an interest in participating?

Please PM me if so. :)

This is really a decade-long project. There are many, many elements to it, to be rolled out gradually, but I invite this group to check out Wishadoo, where the goal is indeed to Create Compassionate, Cooperative Communities.

www.wishadoo.com

Through various Community Philanthropy programs -- called The Piece Process -- we hope to indeed show how we can cooperate and create actual many types of co-ops and other outside-the-box ventures.

:hi:


P.S. If this feels familiar, we did a soft launch over a year ago and announced at DU, found many things about the website that just wouldn't work the way we needed it to, and the programmer disappeared. It's been quite the journey since then. :)

[freshwest]

8. I'm not sure if this is the answer you're looking for, but...

Check out David Korten. A fellow DUer posted a video leading me to his work. He's been outspoken for peace, getting away from corporatism and creating community.

You can find many of his talks through the youtube search option.
He's also written some books, here's a list of them:

* Globalizing Civil Society, 2010, ReadHowYouWant
* Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth – A Declaration of Independence from Wall Street, 2010 (2nd edition), 2009 (1st edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers
* The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, 2007 (2nd edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006 (1st edition), Kumarian Press, Bloomfield
* Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible, 2004 (2nd edition)
* When Corporations Rule the World, 2001 (2nd edition), 1995 (1st edition), Berrett-Koehler Publishers
* The Post Corporate World: Life After Capitalism, 2000, Berrett-Koehler Publishers
* Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda, 1990, Kumarian Press
* Community Management: Asian Experience and Perspectives, 1986, Kumarian Press
* Bureaucracy and the Poor: Closing the Gap, with Felipe B. Alfonso, 1985, Kumarian Press
* People-Centered Development: Contributions Toward Theory and Planning Frameworks, with Rudi Klauss, 1984, Kumarian Press
* Planned Change in a Traditional Society: Psychological Problems of Modernization in Ethiopia, 1972, Praeger Publishers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Korten

There's an online magazine he's involved with that shows what's being done now in the USA and across the world:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten

http://www.yesmagazine.org/

Check this out. You will be inspired. We are by no means alone in our desire for a peaceful world, as the corporate owned media would have us believe. We can perish along with the old system or make our new world.