NewGen Peacebuilders: Peacebuilding is rice

There are 3 billion people in the world under the age of 30. While today’s young people have unprecedented awareness of local, regional, and global issues, as well as a desire to solve problems, there is a lack of peace education, tools, and experiences available to young people. NewGen Peacebuilders’ mission is to make learning to be a peacebuilder a rite of passage for everyone. Participants analyze issues and conflicts, imagine innovative solutions, and design and implement team peace projects that create positive change in their communities. Participants who complete workshops and implement a team peace project become certified NewGen Peacebuilders… and part of an international network of young peacebuilders. 

Here’s an example of a project, #RiceForLife: When a team of NewGen Peacebuilders from East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, NC, decided to focus on hunger, their journey led them to create an innovative peace project that they titled #RiceforLife—a drive to collect food donations in ways that build bridges between students, the community, and diverse, global cultures. Their goal is to help build peace in their schools and communities by completely changing their school’s annual hunger drive to collect food donations that help reduce food insecurity. At the same time, the hunger drive brought people together from different backgrounds to learn about each other’s cultures, showing how they can all work together to solve a problem. To see more, watch it here!