Friends Peace Teams

The lack of economic justice is at least in part the source of the deterioration of human rights and other kinds of violence happening in Africa today. AGLI: Is still doing peace work in Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda & the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda: HROC continues workshops to train teachers to help pupils prevent violence at school & home. Kenya: Transforming Community for Social Change responds with effective programs at grassroots level to political, tribal & other conflicts in western Kenya & Kakuma refugee camp. DRC: AVP workshops are conducted for communities in North Kivu & South Kivu. AGLI and its partners launched activities to combat food insecurity in the DRC & Burundi, particularly in the territories of Kalehe, Walungu, Uvira and Mwaro. HROC workshops are held for various people in the remote areas. Burundi: Friends Women's Association is improving women's productive health, caring for HIV positive people & reducing gender based violence.

PLA: Hunger & domestic violence continue to challenge the people in this area. They are responding with resiliency & optimism to the suffering around them. We are reaching out to those communities in greatest needs that are not helped by the government or large relief organizations. Since its inception in 2002 PLA has offered support and training in the Alternative to Violence Project. Facilitators across Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia have completed over 900 workshops with more than 4,000 participants in communities, hospitals, schools, churches, police departments and prisons. PLA conducts workshops with youth in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia - offering an alternative to joining violent gangs (they anticipate beginning work in Honduran schools soon as well). Men and women who are incarcerated in Honduras; women, including Garifuna women in Honduras, Kichwa women in Ecuador. They are practicing permaculture to grow food locally while restoring the land in Ecuador and Colombia.

AWP: Continues to host International Peace Training in Indonesia with participants from several countries. AWP develops training & materials for facilitators of Creating Cultures of Peace & Power of Goodness who are engaged in actions for peace & justice. AWP seeks to foster economic justice by discerning ways to bring about economic justice globally, building self-reliance, recognizing financial and human resources in the region that can be used and shared in the region, balancing local and global funds, expanding relationships without supplanting local networks; seeking mutual aid, recognizing exploited and oppressed people's knowledge, insights, and gifts. Sharing global funding based on mutual discernment, erring on the side of local decision-making. Developing local cultures of volunteerism, generosity, and investing in public good. Encouraging more dialogue with activists, supporters and donors. Acknowledging injustices.

TRR: The goal of Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples is to build relationships among Native & non-Native communities based on truth, respect, justice & our share humanity. The Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples program supports Indigenous Water Protectors who are literally standing in the way of oil & gas pipelines, dams & destructive mining. TRR raises awareness of the ongoing harms to Native people from 150 years of family separation as churches and the federal government forced Native children to attend boarding schools. They provide spaces for settler families to acknowledge how they have unjustly benefited from the theft of Native land and to consider paths toward justice. Power of Goodness expands the PoG story and children's artwork collection and offers PoG/AVP mini-workshops for religious education or community events.

FPT Europe: The peace work of the new FPT Europe Team is primarily focused in the post-Soviet Union areas of Ukraine and the North Caucasus. Identities in these regions can be a mix of nationalities, ethnicities, languages, genders and classes. Any of these factors can bvecome the basis for identifying others as enemies or developing stereotyped negative self-images. Programs like Alternative to Violence Project, Creating Cultures of Justice and Peace, and Power of Goodness are bridges for these divides and help participants relate to others as human beings with shared hopes and concerns.