Peace X Peace

Peace X Peace draws on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to join women in activism related to peace, political participation, and human rights.

Intercultural communication is a core component of this effort; the Global Network links "Sister Circles" (women's groups) in the United States with similar groups in other countries. These circles work locally on aspects of community building such as financial equity, prevention of abuse, inclusive governments, and truth in media. Sister Circle members are supported by translators, dialogue facilitators, and e-publications that are also available to educators, peacebuilders, and the public. The purpose of this collaborative strategy, according to Peace X Peace, is to enable women to communicate directly with each other - unfiltered by governments or the media - across geographic, political, ethnic, language, and economic divides. (To learn more about how to engage in these Circles, click here.)

Peace X Peace also uses ICTs to facilitate women's participation in activism. For example, "Act Now!" is a telephone and email hotline linked to a real person who provides information, links to organisations, and details about upcoming activities and campaigns related to women's participation in peacebuilding efforts around the world. Also, Voice X Voice is a growing online audio archive of interviews with women working to make change, and peacebuilders, around the world. Page X Page is a dynamic online workshop for gathering knowledge about women's activism; the Peace Papers available here illuminate issues identified by Peace X Peace members that affect the lives of women everywhere, such as civil society enhancement, development and relief, education and teaching, environment and agriculture, journalism/media, politics and power, and preventing violence against women and children. Each Peace Paper provides concrete examples of changemaking efforts, as well as a resource list for further research on issues related to women, peace, and sustainable development. The authors of these papers may be contacted directly by clicking on their byline on each individual paper. (To access all of the resources available on the Peace X Peace website, please click here.)

To illustrate this strategy in depth, Peace X Peace used ICTs - in this case, film/video - to raise awareness and generate activism by (in 2003) producing a feature-length documentary film called "Peace x Peace: Women on the Frontlines". Filmed in the United States, Afghanistan, Burundi, Bosnia, and Argentina, the documentary features interviews with women who work in each country, often in threatening circumstances, to heal communities and cultures and to build the conditions necessary for sustainable peace. It also shows how women empower themselves for peace-related work by organising themselves into inclusive self-supporting sister circles. The purpose of the project was to raise public awareness of the role of women worldwide in peace building efforts, in the process challenging traditional paradigms of that role. An all-woman film crew produced the 90-minute documentary, which features portraits of real, everyday women telling their own stories in their own voices - with actress Jessica Lange providing some narration. This "cinéma vérité" technique is used as a means of communicating to viewers the fact that, although these women's struggles differ, the ways in which they organise are the same. Further, the questions raised by their means of banding together are, according to organisers, universal: What makes women embrace peace, not violence, in the face of personal crises? How can women be empowered to effect a shift towards peace on a global scale? Why are women, linked together in groups with their peers, so effective?

Specifically, focussing on 2 particular women in each of the 5 countries in which the documentary was filmed, "Peace x Peace" takes viewers into the lives of women who are engaged in often-ignored aspects of peace building. Portraits are designed to provide intimate accounts that range from former underground teachers educating women and girls in Afghanistan, to female leaders of unemployed workers promoting participatory democracy in Argentina, to community builders providing micro-credit loans to women in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Hutu and Tutsi women working together to operate a peace radio station in Burundi, to women who lost family members on September 11 2001 and who are now working to foster peace in the United States. The portraits are interwoven with historical footage of the war and violence that have impacted these women's cultures. The film also features interviews with international female experts on various aspects of peace building to provide context about how women build peace and why they must be included in the formal peace negotiations.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) selected the film to premiere at the United Nations on October 30 2003; it served as part of a week-long anniversary celebration of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on "Women, Peace, and Security." The film was then broadcast on national (United States) television in late 2003 and was made available both in the United States and elsewhere (in translated versions) in its entirety and as educational "shorts".

Women, Peace, Democracy and Governance, Rights.

Peace X Peace was formed by a group of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish women in January 2002 in response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Click here to read about the history of this organisation.)

Peace X Peace won the Best Community Building/Activism category in the ePhilanthropy Foundation's 2007 International Awards.