Project PeacePal

Our Mission

We inspire young people to become peace building leaders.

About Us

Project PeacePal is a social profit organization that seeks to ignite a generation of young people to create peace globally through the development of person to person connections across borders and over time. Through these connections can come an understanding of our common humanity, and the recognition of our similarities, creating a feeling of kinship and the resulting desire to help each other. The work of PeacePal is to provide an antidote to the inevitable conflict which arises when people are disconnected and see themselves as different from each other.

We believe that sustainable peace is only possible in a world where we experience our kinship as members of the human family and find joy in helping each other.

PeacePal currently has programs in: Afghanistan, China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, Uganda, and the United States.

Who We Are

PeacePal is:

• A letter writing program for both teachers and students. For teachers, PeacePal offers a newly revised Common Core standards-based literacy and peace skills curriculum that develops students' abilities to communicate ideas, resolve conflicts and become leaders for peace. For students, PeacePal provides an opportunity to directly connect with a peer in a country across the globe. PeacePal letters provide a door through which students can step into another individual's world and begin to learn specifics about their life in a way that they might not otherwise learn.

• A service leaning program that helps improve the lives of PeacePals living in remote areas affected by war, poverty, or disease. Going above and beyond the level of personal correspondence, friendships created in the letter writing program are deepened by youth-driven service projects making a positive difference in communities around the world.

To date, Project PeacePal has:

• Connected more than 8,000 youth in numerous countries throughout the world, including many developing nations: Afghanistan, Burundi, Canada, China, The Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Republic of Congo, Senegal, South Africa, South Korea, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, and the United States. Leaders in these communities, volunteering their time and effort, act as international project directors for PeacePal building community and bridges of peace with local youth eager to connect with peers abroad.

• Developed and implemented two meaningful and dynamic service learning initiatives: (1) Adopt a Classroom, which educates students in the U.S. about limited access to education in developing countries around the world, and supports them in raising funds for school fees and supplies to support their PeacePal communities internationally; (2) Stamp Out Malaria, an initiative which inspires youth leaders to raise funds which will be used to purchase and distribute thousands of long lasting anti-malaria bed nets preventing this deadly disease in PeacePal communities in Togo, West Africa.

• Inspired student groups to develop service project initiatives specific to their PeacePal community. For example, students at one middle school in New Mexico raised funds to help their PeacePals in Pakistan to purchase a generator to provide ongoing electricity to their classroom during the ongoing domestic conflict in that country.

• Hosted Caravan To Peace, the world premier of the documentary film Stealing The Light. This event raised over $12,000 of which $8,000 was donated to partner organization Green Village Schools to help rebuild a school in Afghanistan destroyed during the war.

• Collaborated with partners Green Village Schools and the Afghan Sister Village Project to help establish an Advanced Education Center for young women and young men in Helmand Province, Afghanistan to develop their English language and computer skills.

Relevant Links:

http://www.peacepal.org/

http://www.facebook.com/ProjectPeacePal

http://twitter.com/ProjectPeacePal

http://www.youtube.com/user/projectpeacepal?feature=results_main