Peace Promoter: CREATORS OF PEACE ( C o P )

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OVERVIEW

Name: Creators of Peace (CoP) www.cop.iofc.org

Type: Initiative under Initiatives of Change. Initiatives of Change is a global NGO.

Mission Statement:

to engage women in their role as creators of peace at every level of society

Peace-promoting activities:

  • Creating a transformative space for interpersonal, interethnic and inter-religious dialogues based on the sharing of personal experience and information in a variety of forums, around conference tables, boardroom tables and kitchen tables.
  • Workshops for moral and spiritual capacity building to explore the dynamic of a change of heart.
  • The practice of deep reflection or listening to the inner voice of truth, or God, as a source of direction.
  • Promotion of Peace Circles – small, localized community gatherings of women who together work through material especially designed to deepen their friendship and understanding of each other and their peace creating capabilities. One aim of these Peace Circles is to identify issues in the community with a potential for conflict and then resolve to take common action.
  • Locally based initiatives that bring people together in community building activities.

Short description:

Creators of Peace (CoP) is an international women’s initiative started in 1991.

The Creators of Peace (CoP) initiative was launched at the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux, Switzerland by the Hon Anna Abdallah Msekwa of Tanzania, a respected politician and leader of her country’s women’s organizations. In her inaugural speech, she urged everyone to ‘create peace wherever we are, in our hearts, our homes, our workplace and our community. We all pretend that someone else is the stumbling block…Could that someone be myself?’

CoP is now a global network of people working on different continents through Creators of Peace Circles, workshops, personal encounters, community building activities and international conferences – Caux, Switzerland ’91 and ’94, India 2001, Uganda 2005 and Australia 2009. A delegation attended the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing (1995).

Creators of Peace celebrated its 25th anniversary in August 2016  with the international conference ‘Living Peace’ in the Caux Conference Centre in Switzerland.