Our Mission, Approach,
Structure and Programs
Photo: A Dialogue Table Whose Design Does Not Privilege Any Individual Seat (Common Space Initiative, Beirut).
OUR VISION:

We envision a world where peace and nonviolence are the reality for for all children. 

OUR MISSION: 

Our mission is to catalyze social change processes with local partners to advance just peace. 

OUR APPROACH

We partner with a global community of peacemakers to advance just peace.  We work by invitation. In collaboration with local, national and international partners we help stakeholders develop peace and national change processes to transform conflict.   These processes are usually long-term, multifaceted and involve a multiplicity of interdependent individual and institutional actors, initiatives and ideas, a veritable "ecosystem of peacebuilding."  Our efforts encompass three distinct, but mutually reinforcing elements:
  • Peace Structures- we work with local partners to catalyze and develop institutions and other formal, as well as informal, structures and programs to support dialogue across many divides and negotiations.   (See "Where We Work" for further information on several of the 7 distinct structures we have helped catalyze, e.g. Sri Lanka's One Text Initiative, the Nepal Transition to Peace Initiative, the Beirut based Common Space Initiative, Cyprus' Cyprus Dialogue Forum, etc.)
  • Knowledge Resources - we assist stakeholders in developing and disseminating the broad range of tools, research and information resources needed to enhance effective peace and conflict transformation efforts.
  • Human Capital - we support key local actors and changemakers in facilitating and advising national change processes, fielding international experts as requested and appropriate.

In the conduct of our work, we subscribe to and promote several core values and principles:
  • Inclusivity – processes must embrace the diversity of national stakeholders if they are to take root.
  • Authenticity - processes must both be owned by and reflect the cultures, traditions and needs of local stakeholders.
  • Innovation – processes must constantly adapt to the changing realities of the dynamic systems underlying political conflicts.
  • Independence – individuals and institutions serving these processes must preserve strict independence while simultaneously being engaged with, and understanding of, each party's interests.

STRUCTURE

The Peace Appeal Foundation is a largely volunteer network of committed individual and institutional stakeholders, including our Board of Directors, Support Staff, Volunteers, Associates, Advisors, Institutional Partners and Local Counterparts.

Since our founding, we have chosen to work flexibly through, or in partnership with other institutions, as the conditions in the countries we work necessitates. The focus of our efforts is always on the processes and initiatives we serve, regardless of shifting winds or priorities of government and private donors.  Our partnerships with local institutions, many of which we helped nurture into being, continue far beyond our physical presence on the ground.  

The Peace Appeal Foundation is not a grantmaking institution. We mobilize resources, human, financial and knowledge, for institutions and processes on the ground in countries in conflict.  Most of these resources flow directly to our partners, not through the Peace Appeal Foundation.

PROGRAMS

Peace Support

The Peace Appeal Foundation's major area of program focus is Peace Support, aiding stakeholders in conflict design and implementation of processes and supporting structures that facilitate the just resolution of entrenched (often violent) national conflicts.  Through our institutional network the Peace Appeal Foundation brings knowledge, expertise and financial resources together to aid local parties in these efforts.  For further information on the specific initiatives in Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East which we support, please see: "Where We Work."

Peace Education and Research

Since the Peace Appeal's inception, peace education and research have been a core component of our efforts.   Our co-founders were pioneers in non-violence education and promoting media as a tool of conflict resolution.  Their efforts contributed to the launch and promotion of the Appeal of the Nobel Peace Laureates for Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, which played a central role in launching the United Nations Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Non-Violence.  For more on these efforts, please see "Our History."   Today our peace education and research efforts are both integral as well as complementary to our peace support initiatives in countries in conflict, and include the following components:


Peace Advocacy

As international peacebuilding efforts have come to increasingly rely upon broad coalitions of governmental and non-governmental action stretching the resources and attention of the international community, the Peace Appeal works with national and international networks to draw attention to the needs and opportunities for direct assistance to countries in conflict.  Concurrent with seeking to raise awareness of both the needs and opportunities, we are working to improve the international regulatory environment affecting and resources devoted to peacebuilding initiatives.   In particular, we work with several coalitions (e.g. the Alliance for Peacebuilding and the Charity and Security Network) in promoting peacebuilding and studying and educating policymakers on the unanticipated impact on humanitarian relief and peacebuilding efforts in countries of conflict of many of the anti-terrorism laws passed in the years leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and in their wake.