World Recognizes International Day of Peace

Amid ongoing conflicts around the world, USIP commemorates the annual International Day of Peace with activities at home and abroad. What can you do to promote peace today?
 
Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention

• The Center is hosing the event, Mobilizing the Will to Intervene [1], today to discuss a new report from the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies. USIP Executive Vice President Tara Sonenshine [2] gives opening remarks at the event.

How can you participate?

• Watch [1] the live webcast and follow our live tweets live at 1PM EST. Sign up [3] to follow USIP on Twitter for real-time USIP updates.
• Read [4] a new USIP report assessing the state of conflict prevention as a global policy priority, and recommending ways we can bring more focus to stopping new wars before they happen.
• Review [5] other USIP work on early warning and conflict prevention.
• Learn [6] more about the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention.

Education and Training Center/Domestic

• In Washington, D.C., Raina Kim [7] and Dominic Volonnino are meeting with a group of Girls Scouts of the Nation’s Capital on Sept 21. They will talk about the remarkable power of ordinary citizens to overcome challenges to bring about peaceful change, and participate in an exercise where the Scouts will develop individual plans to build and maintain peace. USIP President Richard Solomon [8] will give the opening remarks to the Girls Scouts about International Peace Day.
• In Yuma, Arizona, David Smith [9] is giving the keynote speech at Arizona Western College’s all-day event, “Yuma Peace Expo Educational Conference.”  David will talk about how individuals are working for global peace.

How can you participate?

• Read [10] the winning essays from our 2008-2009 National Peace Essay Contest.
• Learn [11] more about the Education and Training Center/Domestic.

Education and Training Center/International

• USIP’s Mary Hope Schwoebel [12] just returned from Bogota, Colombia, where she conducted a workshop on "Community Participation in the National Reintegration and Reconciliation Process" in cooperation with a Colombian partner organization, Ideas for Peace Foundation.
• As part of USIP’s ongoing collaboration with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Ted Feifer [13] and Maria Jessop [14] have recently concluded a workshop in Pristina, Kosovo for staff members of the OSCE Mission there.  The workshop focused on teaching advanced negotiation and mediation skills to mission staff.  On a related note, Ted and Noor Kirdar are organizing a half-day seminar for a group of officials from Kosovo’s Foreign Ministry who are visiting the U.S.

How can you participate?

• Take [15] a free online course or participate in a simulation.
• Click here [16] to learn more about the Education and Training Center/International.

Grants and Fellowships

• Virginia Bouvier [17] returned to D.C. from Bogota, Colombia, where she spent five days training peacemakers.  This afternoon, she and Elizabeth Murray will attend the Inter-American Peace Forum event at the Organization for American States.
• Chantal de Jonge Oudraat [18], associate vice president of USIP’s Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program [19], is also returning to D.C. from a two week trip to Geneva, Paris and Berlin, where she met with scholars and practitioners to discuss the work of USIP’s fellowship program.

How can you participate?

• Apply [20] for a grant from the Priority Grant Competition. The deadline is rolling.
• Apply [21] for a grant from the 2009 Annual Grant Competition. The deadline is October 1.
• Apply [22] to the Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Program. The deadline is January 5, 2010.
• Click here [23] to learn more about the Grants and Fellowships progam.

Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations

• Teuta Gashi is in Kosovo doing interviews on the impact of the conflict there.
• Daniel Serwer [24] is preparing for a conference on Civil-Military Cooperation in Heidelberg, Germany from September 23-25.  The conference will examine the different approaches used to coordinate civilian-military action and how to reconcile the military’s emphasis on security with the humanitarian efforts of civilian agencies. 
• The USIP Sudan Working Group is meeting with representatives of Peace Polls, whose public opinion research in Sudan help inform policy makers.

How can you participate?

• Click here [25] to learn more about the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations.