Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: youth

  • Peace and Security Begins with Youth

    At the age of 21, I was invited to travel to Japan from 13-21 November 2000 and speak in the Youth Forum of the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. It was an extreme honor to be a speaker at the Assembly. For me, the trip was more of a pilgrimage to the crime scene of the last atomic bomb dropping and it reminded me why I chose to work on nuclear abolition. Being in Nagasaki was a time to commemorate and honor those who have suffered so long from the production and development of nuclear weapons and energy.

    More than 200 young people and adults attended the Youth Forum held at Shiroyama Elementary School, a symbolic place for the workshop because the original was devastated on 9 August 1945, when the atomic bomb, code named “fatman” was dropped on the city. I was asked to speak at the Youth Forum because I believe that young people have a tremendous responsibility to effectuate the change needed to abolish war and all weapons of mass destruction. Peace and security are age-old issues that have been around since the advent of war. The existence of war and nuclear weapons evidences our insecurity and our inability to understand how our actions affect others. As human beings, we desire to be secure, yet we have some-how deemed it in our nature to live in fear of each other and therefore we try to justify our urge to resolve conflicts through violent means. Today, we have the greatest opportunity to make peace and security a reality in this globalized world and we as young people have the obligation to achieve it.

    Like many young people in countries that are termed “developed,” I did not grow up truly understanding the threat that nuclear weapons pose to the existence of Earth and its inhabitants. In fact, to the contrary, I grew up falsely believing that we need nuclear weapons to protect us and that war was necessary to resolve conflict. However, when I was 12 years old, I had the opportunity to visit Guatemala for the first time. In Guatemala, I experienced first-hand the devastation that war and weapons cause. It was there that I first began to understand how fortunate I was to grow up in a prosperous country where most people live free from the threat of war. However, it was not until I was studying Spanish and Global Peace and Security at the University of California at Santa Barbara that I realized how the belligerent, arrogant and willfully ignorant behavior of “developed” countries prevented “developing” countries from ever realizing lasting peace and security.

    After graduating from UCSB in 1999, I became the Coordinator for Abolition 2000, a global network of more than 2000 organizations and municipalities working together to achieve a nuclear weapons convention and redress the environmental devastation and human suffering caused by the nuclear cycle. There are many people around the world who believe this is possible and many of the international leaders of the nuclear weapons abolition movement participated in the Nagasaki Assembly. Despite growing international consensus for nuclear weapons abolition, there are very few young people who know about the nuclear issue and even fewer who are actively working to abolish nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, many young people do not understand that the nuclear cycle affects them and will continue to affect them for many years to come.

    The Youth Forum of the Nagasaki Assembly demonstrated that young people do care about making a difference, especially after they gain consciousness of an issue. Knowledge may give individuals power, but it also obligates responsibility. As young people we are responsible to share what we know about peace and security issues with our friends, our families, our communities and all those with whom we come in contact. We must realize that as individuals, the knowledge we have gives us the power to make a difference and we must not be afraid to stand up and be a voice for positive change. As Mahatmas Ghandi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Learning about an issue is the first step to realizing the responsibility we have as young people, but knowing is simply not enough. We must also actively work to achieve the secure and peaceful world we envision.

    At the close of the Youth Forum, I asked the participants as young people and as citizens of Nagasaki to be a strong voice for the abolition of nuclear weapons and to remind the world of the horrors that these indiscriminate weapons cause. The citizens of Nagasaki can speak from experience of the unjustness and devastation of the use of nuclear weapons.

    As a token of my appreciation, I gave each participant of the Youth Forum a packet of sunflower seeds to plant as a symbol of hope and a vision of a world free of nuclear contamination. Sunflowers became the symbol of the nuclear abolition movement on 4 June 1996, the day the US, Russia and the Ukraine celebrated the last missile being removed Ukrainian soil, making it a nuclear weapons free country. William J. Perry, former US Secretary of Defense stated on this day, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil will ensure peace for future generations.” On the inside of the sunflower seed packet, was a petition calling upon the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to immediately begin negotiations to abolish nuclear weapons and redress the environmental degradation and human suffering caused by more than 55 years of nuclear weapons testing and production. The participants were asked to sign the petition and to return the petition to Abolition 2000 in care of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which has collected signatures on this petition from more than 13.4 million individuals world-wide.

    During my speech, I also encouraged the young people to be involved politically. Many young people, especially in the US, tend to be apathetic to how their government acts. But governments only have the authority to rule based on the will of the people it governs. We must constantly remind our governments of their responsibility to us their citizens as well as their obligation to citizens around the world. Many participants made a commitment to write letters on a regular basis to their Prime Minister, urging him to support a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.

    It is very easy to be apathetic to peace and security issues as, unfortunately, many young people are, but even taking the smallest action will make a world of difference. As youth, we have the greatest challenge, but also the greatest potential to create a world that is just and secure for all.

  • Learning About Peacemaking Is a Step Toward Ending Violence

    Orginally published in the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition

    Martin Luther King, Jr. said that our choice is not between nonviolence and violence, but a choice between nonviolence and nonexistence. Statistically we are told that crime has steadily decreased for the past eight years, however we also feel an increasingly random, yet eerily personalized, degree of susceptibility to being victimized. Our neighborhoods and schools, once thought inviolable, are now the target of more bold perpetrators. And yet we have a choice: be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.

    But what’s the solution?

    How do we fix our ‘gated community’ mentality, mend our broken relationships, care for the castaways in society, and work toward achieving solidarity, tolerance, and peace? By making a commitment to educating the next generation of leaders, our young people, in the ways of nonviolence. If our human species is to survive, we must change the way we are doing things. Many of us feel helpless to fix our own personal troubles, much less rid the world of nuclear weapons, abolish the death penalty, make a more egalitarian economy, and protect global human rights. Violence originates in fear, which is rooted in misunderstanding, which comes from ignorance. And you fix ignorance through education.

    Violence is like a dandelion-filled yard. We tug at the stems and step on the flowers – and rather than ridding the yard of this nuisance weed, we beget more of them. Yet when we pull up the flower by the roots, we have isolated the problem and fixed it. Nonviolence education is like this. Educating young people about how to deal with the problems they face on a daily basis, as well as how to organize to fix world issues, is the most effective means to solving the endemic violence which has infiltrated nearly every corner of society.

    Through a structured, semester-long curriculum, students from junior high through college can read about the foundations, successes, and actors in the nonviolence movement. Exposing a young student to Gandhi and Thoreau can cause a permanent commitment to living a life of nonviolence. At the very least, it allows students to examine the institutional paradigms which govern their lives, like selective service registration, disparity of allocated funds for violent causes versus nonviolent ones, or perhaps conscientious purchasing power and food consumption. Nonviolence education stresses the availability of alternative options in conflict, like mediation and creative dispute resolution. Making an educational commitment to studying peace in our violence-inundated world is the very least we owe our future generations to whom we have left a legacy of destruction and might-makes-right domination.

    Societal trends seem to be working against the nonviolence cause. For example,our government allocates $289 billion for the Pentagon, and only $25 billion to Aid for Families with Dependent Children. Our justice system continues to be punitive rather than restorative, with little or no rehabilitation occurring in detention facilities despite the obvious need. New laws penalize communities and provide nothing for the welfare of victims nor restore the dignity of offenders, like the juvenile justice legislation Proposition 21 which was passed on March 7. We teach our children capitalistic consumerism yet tell them nothing about the lives of the workers who slave to assemble designer clothing, nor do we tell them about the animals which suffered to create fashion or food, nor do we inform them of the environmental impact of the trash which they create. And by no means do we tell them that these situations are inextricably linked, either.

    Yet there is hope! Learning about peacemaking is the first step to righting these inegalitarian situations. Students become aware that injustices exist; they then accept these injustices as tangible and real. Next, students must absorb this information in a utilitarian way; finally, they are ready to take action. The beauty of nonviolence curriculum is that it is available to everyone: it works at Georgetown University, as well as at maximum-security juvenile detention facilities. Deep-thinking is highly encouraged, and reflective and action-oriented writing is often assigned to students in nonviolence classes. Because this material speaks to students as co-proprietors of authority, rather than as subordinates, they tend to internalize the pacifist messages quickly and discreetly. It subtly permeates their thoughts and actions.

    We cannot continue to cheat our students by doling out tidbits of revisionist history. They deserve to know about Jeanette Rankin, Dorothy Day, and Oscar Romero. Institutionalizing nonviolence remains the goal, and to clearly send that message we must bring this peace studies class to our school boards and curriculum committees, and maintain persistence and fidelity to the cause of peacemaker education.

  • Living with the Future

    “We need the exuberance, energy and vision of youth to make our world whole. We need to listen to their voices and encourage their participation in the planetary restoration that is essential not only for the survival, but for the dignity of humanity and other forms of life.”

    In July, the Foundation again joined with La Casa de Maria in sponsoring our annual Peace Retreat. The retreat was led by Joanna and Francis Macy, and its theme was “Coming Back to Life,” which is the title of Joanna’s new book. Some 50 participants explored our relationships with the Earth, our fellow humans, other creatures, and the future. In one exercise, we imagined speaking to beings in the future, and answering their questions about living on Earth at this critical juncture in time. “What was it like,” the imagined future beings asked, “living with the threat of global annihilation?” “Is it really true that in your time many people starved to death while others had more resources than could be imagined?”

    These are hard questions to grapple with, but they point to the responsibility that we share today to make the world safer and more equitable. The beings of the future will either thank and praise us for our committed actions today, or they will condemn us for our failure to face and solve the tremendous problems of our time. What we do today, for better or for worse, is helping to shape the future – just as what was done in the past has shaped our present.

    Under present circumstances, inertia – the failure to take active steps to change – is a formula for global disaster. We don’t have the luxury of putting our journey to the future on cruise control. Nor do we have the luxury of turning it over to political leaders who are too often indebted to corporate agendas more concerned with the bottom line than with the welfare of humanity, the environment and the future.

    Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction threaten our cities and our civilization, and even annihilation of our species and other complex forms of life. Inequities in resources cause mass starvation and epidemics of diseases. The poor are growing poorer and the rich are growing more apathetic and indifferent. This is another formula for disaster, one that is conducive to crime and terrorism.

    We need to live as if in the very presence of those who will follow us on Earth and take into consideration their needs and welfare. We should be doing this with today’s youth for whom the adult world sets an example. We need to set an example of caring and sharing rather than one of greed and indifference. We need the exuberance, energy and vision of youth to make our world whole. We need to listen to their voices and encourage their participation in the planetary restoration that is essential not only for the survival, but for the dignity of humanity and other forms of life.

    We concluded this year’s Peace Retreat in Sadako Peace Garden at La Casa de Maria. In this exquisite natural garden, we joined hands and sang with Janice Freeman the song she had composed for the occasion, “Coming Back to Life.” In the garden, Orange County Buddhist Church Junior Girl Scout Troop 855 had left 1000 colorful paper cranes hanging on the branch of an oak tree. Some of the cranes had messages from the girls who had folded them. I picked up one of the cranes that had fallen to the ground and read this message: “I wish for peace in our world and for no one to feel threatened by nuclear bombs.” It was signed, “Love, Rachel.” Thank you, Rachel. You wish for what we wish for, and we promise to work with you and other young people to create such a world.

    I’m pleased to report that Michael Coffey, 26, has joined the Foundation’s staff as our first Youth Outreach Coordinator. You’ll be reading more about Michael, and the programs he is coordinating in future issues of Waging Peace Worldwide. Michael is now in Africa in an intensive Youth Leadership course, which he will be helping to teach in the future.

    Marc Kielburger, 23, a Board member of the Foundation and chair of our International Youth Advisory Council, is a guest editor of this issue of Waging Peace Worldwide. He has brought together some powerful voices of youth to contribute to this issue. These young people are already dedicating their lives to social change. We are honored to share their ideas and commitments with you.

     

  • When Good Comes From Bad

    Most of us go through difficult stages in our lives. Some of these difficult periods transform and enlighten our views of life. The devastating effects of family problems and civil war in my country helped me appreciate my existence and that of others in a positive way. I was born in Sierra Leone West Africa in 1980. During my early childhood years, my country was peaceful and I lived a satisfying life that was full of love, friendliness and happiness. Between the ages of nine and eleven, everything changed. My father and mother separated and a civil war began. When I was thirteen, the civil war that had already been going on for several years, came to my town and changed my life. During that period of chaos, I lost my family and wandered about alone. I had no inclination where I was heading, but the determination to find safety. After months of traveling, sleeping in the bush, and having to eat and drink what the forest provided, I arrived at a village that was occupied by the Sierra Leone Military Forces.

    Since I was in pursuit of food and protection, I felt that it was safe to be with the military who provided me with nourishment and a place to sleep. As a result of what I thought was generosity, my interaction with the soldiers grew daily. The misery that almost cost me my life awaited just around the corner. After months of staying with soldiers, rebels started attacking the village. The soldiers fought back day after day. They lost most of their men in battle. As a result of fewer soldiers, the rebels came closer and surrounded the village. The military was in need of people to increase their number. All the boys in the village were asked to join the army. There was no way out. If I left the village, I would get killed by the rebels who would think I was a spy. On the other hand, if I stayed in the village and refused to join the army, I wouldn’t be given food and would eventually be thrown out, which was as good as being dead.

    I was briefly trained in warfare and unwillingly became a child soldier. I will never forget being in the battlefield for the first time. At first I couldn’t pull the trigger. I was lying almost numb in ambush watching kids my age being shot at and killed. The sight of blood and the crying of people in pain, triggered something inside me that I didn’t understand, and made me lose compassion for others. I lost my real being. I lost my sense of self. After crossing that line, I was not a normal kid. I was a traumatized kid. I became completely unaware of the dangerous and crooked road that my life was taking.

    In fact, most of the horrible events that I went through didn’t affect me until after I was taken out of the army and put into a psycho-social therapy home years later. I had been demilitarized as part as an effort by UNICEF and entered into a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers. At the psycho-social home, I began to experience trauma of another kind. I had sleepless nights. Every night I recalled the last day that my childhood was stripped away from me. I felt I had no reason for staying alive since I was the only one left in my family. I had no peace. My soul felt corrupted and I was lost in my own thoughts blaming myself for what had happened to me.

    The only times that I found peace with myself was when I began writing song lyrics about the good times before the war. Through these writings, as well as the help of the staff in my psycho-social therapy home, I was able to successfully overcome my trauma. I once again rediscovered my childhood that was almost lost. I realize that I had a great determination to survive. Also my songs gave me hope. Fifty percent of the kids did not overcome their trauma.

    Fortunately, I was reunited with my uncle and started school again in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. At this point in my life, I developed a sense of appreciation for everything around me and became only interested in the positive outcome of every situation. I came to the conclusion that I survived the war for a reason. That reason was to fight for peace so that the tragedy that befell me would not continue to affect the lives of other children in my country and around the world.

    In 1996, I was chosen to represent the youth of my country at a “Young Voices” conference at the United Nations. I went back home after the conference and started working with the youth of my country. First I tried to enlighten them about their rights, then, urged the government to make sure that the youth would have a voice in the decisions made for them. But the campaign didn’t last long because the civil war escalated to the city. All educational, governmental and productive institutions were brought to a halt. It became very dangerous for anti-war people to live in the city. With the help of Laura Simms, a facilitator who I met at the conference, I was able to leave my country. She brought me to the United States so that I would have a better education. I am currently living with her as my new mother in New York.

    One of the lessons that I learned from the tragic events of my life, summed up in a parable of my country, is that “once there is life, there is hope for a better future.” I think that every human being should be aware of the possibility of change. I strongly believe all humans are positive beings and are capable of thinking positively. It is just that life brings us different roads to travel, in order to find sanity in ourselves. It is possible for everyone to arrive at this hopeful conclusion.

    If we think of the future positively, our actions towards that future will be positive. Everyone can make a difference. You don’t have to be rich or famous to do so. If one person can change the way they interact with other people, no matter who they are or where they are from, that makes a big difference. It seems to me, one of the main problems of our last century was the inability of individuals to get along with each other.

    Back home my elders said, “Sometimes good comes from bad.” It is true. It is also true that good come from good.

    The Lord Is My Shepard
    by Ishmael Beah

    I give thanks to God for always helping me to see the brighter side of everything. Even in the darkest time of my life when I almost gave up and thought life was over. God made me realize and see that I have a reason to live a life guided by him. The following are a number of verses which I have written from a longer song:

    The lord is my Shepard
    I can never be lost
    Even when this daily life
    comes to the worst
    I keep his trust in my heart
    Through all the darkest hours
    I am protected by his powers
    God bless me everyday
    even when I fail
    in this day to day struggle
    he helps me pave my way
    out of the troubles I face
    making my fears less
    so when I am stressed
    I take it as another temptation
    to test my motivation
    But I fight this competition
    between evil and good
    every day and every night
    I sometimes am deceived
    intense struggles I perceived
    raising my praises
    cause my beliefs get stronger
    so I no longer
    live like the Pharisees, you heard
    The God’s marvelous display
    keeps me safe
    even when I am lost in this place
    do not feel disgrace
    Because his grace is always with me
    once blind, now I see.

  • Bubbles – Not Bombs

    This past month, I was in Washington D.C. at an international conference on human rights. Tired from a long morning of meetings and uninspiring speeches, I decided to slip away from the gathering early and play the role of tourist. Even though I have been to Washington on many occasions, I had never really had the opportunity to see some of the remarkable sights which the nation’s capital has to offer. My first stop was a tour of the White House, an international symbol of democratic government (and place of wrongdoings of more than one President). I approached the White House from Lafayette Park, the adjacent green area, which had been set aside by Thomas Jefferson, when the home of the President was built in the late 1700’s. Since 1984, Lafayette Park has been popularly known as “Peace Park” by many demonstrators, guides and media types from all over the world.

    That day, however, I never made it to my White House tour. On the edge of Lafayette Park and Pennsylvania Avenue stood a man with long hair, a scruffy beard and tie die clothes. He looked like the typical hippie who never quite made it out of the sixties. Strapped over his chest, was a cardboard sign with a message scribbled by a black magic marker. He was engaged in blowing bubbles from a large tub of soapy water next to him. Curious, I altered my path in order to walk towards him to find out just what he was doing, as he continued to blow bubbles and hand out leaflets. He saw me gaze inquisitively at him and looking in my direction, he said in a loud voice “Bubbles – not bombs!”. Confused, I sheepishly said “Excuse me?”. Once again he said, “Bubbles – not bombs!”. At this point, I realized that I was committed to a conversation and I walked over to speak to him.

    He introduced himself simply as John and I soon discovered that he had spent the last 20 years with his friends in front of the White House maintaining a vigil to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. He explained that he has been helping to maintain the 365 days-a-year, 24 hours-a-day vigil for peace, which has been in effect since June 3rd, 1981. Perhaps you, yourself, have seen him or even spoken to him during a visit to the nations’ capital. Every night, John sleeps outside, braving frequently difficult climate conditions and occasional verbal abuse from the police. The only time that he leaves the area where he is encamped is when he showers at a near-by YMCA and when he buys food at a local grocery store. Even when he leaves, his friends stand guard of the site because of the real possibility that the police will confiscate their placards and materials.

    John began to tell me his story. Twenty years ago, he was a successful business man with a large house in a typical American middle class suburb. He had two cars, a mortgage and a well paying job. One day, he woke up and began to question himself and his life. He asked himself if he wanted to continue to be a slave to his material possessions. He had become angry that many of the decisions our governments made were threatening our futures and the well being of our children. He had grown more and more concerned that we were living in a society very much threatened by weapons of mass destruction. His thoughts along these lines resulted in a decision to sell his house and possessions to simply begin walking. John wanted to walk across the United States to become more in tune with “real people” and to protest the fact that the American government was building a formidable arsenal of weaponry that could destroy all of humanity.

    John’s meandering eventually brought him to Washington. He arrived at the White House and he has been there ever since. He told me that nearly 3 million people come to this landmark every year and that he thought that his actions were an effective way to educate America about the absolute necessity of abolition of nuclear weapons. In 1988, he was arrested for “camping” and recently charged with having a sign which was ¼ inch larger than the permitted dimensions for protest materials. His efforts, however, have helped in the recent introductions of Proposition One into Congress, which calls upon the American government to “disable and dismantle all nuclear weapons and refrain from replacing them at any time with any weapons of mass destruction”.

    I was amazed at his dedication and commitment. I was inspired by his story and taken aback that he would give up all that he had worked so hard for in order to live a life of protest. I shared with him a famous quote from Gandhi, one of my heroes. Gandhi, once asked by a reporter if he had a message for people in the industrialized countries, simply replied, “my life is my message”.

    Struck by the fact that I was speaking to a man who has been camped outside of the White House for nearly two decades, I did a quick mental calculation in my head and realized that he has been in front of the same building in a five square foot area since I was three years old. I asked him how long he planned on being out there. He replied, “I will be here until there are no more nuclear weapons”.

    Fate is a strange thing. If I had not left the conference early that day, to take a tour of the White House, I would never had met this truly remarkable individual and be moved by his overwhelming desire to have peace in the world. A world free from nuclear weapons was never something that I was concerned about while growing up. When I first became involved in social issues at the age of 13, my interest was in helping the environment, protecting human rights and providing meals to the homeless. I soon came to realize, however, that all of these social issues are interconnected. Nuclear weapons threaten our world, our species, our natural surroundings and are an abuse of our most basic human rights. It is for these reasons that I believe that we must all raise our voices to let decision makers know that we demand to live in a world free of nuclear weapons. We also need to support the actions of those individuals who are courageous enough to stand up and speak out against maintaining weapons of mass destruction. Young people, especially, have an important role to play in creating a world devoid of the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Youth must to ensure that adults follow John’s suggestion and make bubbles, not of bombs.

    In April, I hosted a peace leadership training in Santa Barbara under the auspices of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and made possible by the generosity of Mr. Pierre (Clysons). Over the two-day session, forty young people, from all walks of life, came together to be taught valuable communication, interpersonal and fundraising skills in order to help further their social involvement. The participants learned, for example, how to write and deliver a speech, work with the media, fundraise and inspire others. If we are to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons, we need the involvement of young people. Youth have energy, enthusiasm and many good ideas to share. Most importantly, however, it is young people who will be inheriting the problems which have been left to them by the generations past.

    This issue of Waging Peace is one which I believe is very exciting. We have asked a number of outstanding young people to write articles, share their stories, outline their social involvement and provide their views from the future. Three young people have contributed to the journal, including Dianna English, a young woman from Connecticut, who became involved in helping her peers in Kosovo without leaving her home town; Lorissa Rienhart, a Santa Barbara resident who recently addressed hundreds of people, including royalty, in a rally for peace and Ishmael Beah, a former child solider from Sierra Leone who now speaks out on behalf of children in armed conflict. I hope that the words and actions of these youth will inspire you as much as they motivate me. It is through examples of individuals like Dianna, Lorissa and Ishmael that more and more adults are coming to realize that young people are not simply potential leaders of tomorrow. Many, indeed, are in fact the leaders of today. Give young people a chance, our generation may just surprise you!

     

  • State of the Nuclear Age

    Can you remember where you were when the Berlin Wall crumbled? Watching CNN in our global living room, we shared a hope that the end of the Cold War signaled an end to the madness of the nuclear arms race and we were on our way to a more peaceful world. I, like many here tonight, dreamed of building a nuclear weapons free world from the debris on the streets of Berlin.

    More than ten years later we stand instead on the verge of a new nuclear nightmare. India and Pakistan have the Bomb. The Russian economy, a new form of Russian roulette, makes safeguarding nuclear materials nearly impossible. Iraq ignores UN weapons inspectors and North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship challenges international agreements. And to the shock of most everyone in this room, the United States Senate defeated ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall we are on a dangerous backslide. The awful possibility of a nuclear accident and the threat of nuclear weapons continue to form a backdrop for our everyday lives.

    With your help, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation stays in the fight. It exerts bold leadership to educate the public about the dangers of the Nuclear Age. We are providing leadership in Abolition 2000, a network of some 1,800 civic groups and municipalities in 93 countries; we are one of eight leading organizations in The Middle Powers Initiative; and we are launching a Campaign to Alert America.

    The Foundation is home for the Coalition Against Gun Violence, The Renewable Energy Project, the Nuclear Files, The Peace Education Project, and Artists for Peace. We publish a highly respected journal, Waging Peace Worldwide, and we now receive over two million hits a year on our web sites, www.wagingpeace.org and www.NuclearFiles.org.

    Dreams have crumbled but are not crushed. Our first ever two-day Peace Leadership Training for Youth, this year was led by the brightest young people I know: Marc and Craig Kielburger and Roxanne Joyal, Carah Ong of Abolition 2000, and Zack Allen of the newly created Institute for Global Security. Santa Barbara’s young people will be offered tools to build the dream of a nuclear weapons free and peaceful future. I believe that the training of a new generation of peace leaders would be an accomplishment that this year’s recipient of the foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leader award, King Hussein, would applaud.

    While we work at training this new generation, we will also be doing everything in our power to assure that we fulfill the greatest responsibility of any generation – to preserve our world intact for the next generation.