Building Cultures of Peace on the George Grant Show

We want to big up the work of
The Harford Village Peace Leaders and Maureen St. Claire!

Check out this blog post that Maureen St. Claire shared about the peace building work that they are doing in their community in St. Andrew, which is rippling out into the whole country. We had the chance to meet some of the leaders a few weeks ago, particularly the dance group. It was an honor to be invited to see them dance and experience the communal energy they are building through dance.

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The Harford Village Peace Leaders would like to give a big ‘Shout Out’ to Mr. George Grant for giving us the opportunity to share our voices on his Sunday Morning Radio program, June 24th, 2012. One of the main themes that surfaced during the interview was the importance of teaching peace to our children and youth at an individual, family, community, school and national level. We agreed that if violence can be learned then violence can be unlearned and peace taught. However in order to do that we discussed the importance of moving to a deeper analyses related to the conflicts youth experience in their lives. We confirmed that conflict is an inevitable part of life but violent reactions to conflict was not. The George Grant Show enabled the Youth Leaders to speak about the significance of analyzing and identifying root causes of conflict as a means of understanding conflict and thus finding peace-building strategies to address these causes and help youths find and exercise non-violent ways to deal with conflict. Some of the causes identified during the radio program included lack of parental guidance, lack of self-confidence, low self- esteem, peer pressure, absence of positive role-modals, the move from extended village families to ‘me’ oriented families and the cycle of violence that is prevalent within families, communities, workplaces, schools, politics and the media today.

Read the whole story on Maureen St. Claire’s Blog ~ Movements