The Global Peacebuilding Center works with young people to educate them about conflict management and to engage them in peacebuilding. As part of our work, we encourage young people to share their own ideas about the role they can play as individuals and collectively. The list below comes from the brainstorming of the next generation of peacebuilders!
Don’t forget to also read 12 Ways to Build Peace!
Things you can do as an individual in your daily life to build peace:
- Help tone down an argument at home or at school
- Say hi to people you wouldn't usually talk to
- Put litter in the trash; recycle when you can!
- Share with your siblings and with your friends
- Help people in the neighborhood with yard work or grocery shopping, if they need help
- Watch or read the news to stay up to date on important issues
- Talk to your family and to your classmates about global issues that matter to you
- Write a letter of thanks/encouragement to our troops
- Write a letter of thanks/encouragement to other peacebuilders, for example Peace Corps volunteers, leaders at the U.S. Institute of Peace, leaders in our government, etc.
- Share your culture and learn about different cultures
- Practice cooperating by participating in team-building sports or projects
- Challenge your own perceptions! Talk to someone with a different point of view
- Tutor or mentor younger children
- Attend a summer camp that focuses on peace and conflict management, like the Seeds of Peace camp
- Watch documentaries and other films to learn more about important global issues
Things a class/club can do together to build peace (special projects):
- Plant or tend a community garden
- Hold a bake sale, carnival, walk-a-thon, Olympic Peace Games, or other event to raise money for a charity that works on issues that are important to you
- Raise awareness about an important global issue through a movie screening or a play or a display of art work at your school
- Find volunteer opportunities in the local community, or projects that can have a global reach, like preparing care packages for troops overseas, collecting books for needy schools, etc.
- Link up with Kids for Peace, iEarn, or other organizations that are also working with young peacebuilders around the U.S. and around the world
- Connect with a school in another country to learn more about that culture and to help provide support if there's a need
- Set a peacebuilding World Record; be creative!
- Take part in a Model UN initiative, and learn about global issues and about negotiation skills that are important in peacebuilding
- Host a series of guest speakers at the school and then write a short book (or a speech) about what you learned, and share it with others
- Make a poster about peacebuilding and share it throughout the community
- Do a project to research a range of peacebuilders from the present and the past, and have a "social" where each person dresses and acts like their selected peacebuilder, to learn about each other
- Practice resolving conflict peacefully through role plays
- Sponsor a Mine Detection Dog through the Marshall Legacy Institute
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