FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

September 22, 2022

CONTACT

Nick Zuroski | (202) 822-2047 | nick@allianceforpeacebuilding.org

Washington, D.C., USA. –  International Day of Peace, Wednesday, September 21st, will be recorded as a new milestone for peace education, training, and mentoring in the United States. In collaboration with the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), nonprofit NewGen Peacebuilders is announcing that the innovative online course called My Peacebuilder Foundations is available upon request and at no cost for up to 1,000 high schools. The course is part of the Youth & Peace in Action (YPA) initiative first made available on International Day of Peace in 2021.

In making today’s announcement, NewGen Peacebuilders Executive Director Patricia Shafer (a Rotary Peace Fellow and Rotary Positive Peace Activator) said that the response to YPA over the past year has been incredibly positive. More than 300 high schools signed up; 45,000 hours of peace education content and experiences were delivered; and 1,500 young people received peacebuilder certifications by completing the YPA My Peacebuilder Foundations online course and/or the live, virtual Leading Peace Project Teams experience.

Liz Hume, Executive Director of AfP, described the YPA news on International Day of Peace 2022 as an exciting step toward making peacebuilding education broadly and equitably available in the U.S. Hume noted that the 2022-23 edition of YPA includes an additional toolkit of downloadable activities, materials, and conversation prompts that teachers can use in ways that support subject lessons and standards. Shafer and Hume both emphasized that support and engagement from Rotary Zones 33 & 34 and Rotary International strategic partner Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) have played central roles in the accessibility of YPA. In 2021-22, more than 20 Rotary Districts spanning the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. joined together as founding sponsor, and IEP makes a variety of positive peacebuilding frameworks, tools, and indexes available for use.

Importantly, in YPA 2022-23, high schools and service clubs that sign up for My Peacebuilder Foundations can also apply for sponsorship of $500 needed for a group of students to participate in Leading Peace Project Teams training and mentoring.

See an overview of YPA for educators here, and an overview of YPA for rotarians here. For more information, contact YPA at info@youthpeaceaction.org or toll-free tel/text: (980) 999-0573.

The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), named the “number one influencer and change agent” among peacebuilding institutions worldwide, is an award-winning nonprofit and nonpartisan network of 170+ organizations working in 181 countries to prevent and reduce violent conflict and build sustainable peace. AfP cultivates a network to strengthen and advance the peacebuilding field, enabling peacebuilding organizations to achieve greater impact—tackling issues too large for any one organization to address alone.