| Organization | Activities for Kids | For Parents and Educators | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peace Corps |
Peace Corps Challenge: Online Game Pretend you are a Peace Corps volunteer and solve the problems in this village. |
Peace Corps Educators Page: |
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| PeacePals | Activity Book to Download Check out this site to learn about these activities and see the beautiful artwork and videos of singing children. |
PeacePals is a program of the World Peace Prayer Society, which brings together people of all faiths, backgrounds and cultures to offer the simple prayer, "May peace prevail on earth." Many resources on this site. |
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| Kids for Peace | Lots of ways for kids to become directly involved in global, local and individual projects that help our world and environment. Join a chapter or start a new one. All it takes is two or more kids and a grown-up to help Great Kindness Challenge: A Kids for Peace project. “Anyone can participate. All you need to do is download the checklist and choose how you would like to celebrate and honor this special day.” For this year the date is August 13, 2011. |
This organization was started by a 16 year-old girl and is a great way to empower kids. Just takes a little grown-up support. | ||
| Can Do! | What YOU Can Do! |
Can Do! is dedicated to inspiring a "can-do" attitude and approach to life in everyone... no matter what their challenges... so that EVERYONE will be able to truly believe that "anything is possible". |
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| International Kids Club | IKC: World Peace and World Love. Friendship has no border! |
International Kids Club Promotes: Tolerance, understanding, friendship, unity, acceptance and above all, love and peace. |
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| Peace Learning Center | Kanji Listening: Active listening means listening with your ears, eyes, heart, mind and undivided attention. This interactive graphic helps you understand how to do that. Play4Good is an interactive e-learning experience. |
Indianapolis-based community educational institution promoting healthy learning, workplace and community environments. Has reached more than 140,000 people internationally. This site has curricular materials and more for young people from K-12. |
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| PeaceCENTER | Dictionary of Peace Symbols |
Peace Tools for Teachers: This site is a bit confusing--not sure how I got to this page from the home page, for example--but there is information and ideas that could be helpful. Popcorn Peacemaking project: discussion guides for selected movies for use with school age and adults. |
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| Pennies for Peace | Collect pennies--no nickels, dimes, or quarters allowed--to help children in impoverished countries have schools and materials for learning. | This program, which began with the work of Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, provides a Toolkit with curriculum guides, videos, and materials. | ||
| Art Miles Mural Project | Murals are painted by groups of children on 5 x 12 canvases, then shipped to a place where they are joined to others. You need some grown-help on this one, but it looks like it could be fun! Even looking at the murals done by others is fun! | Promotes global peace and harmony through mural art. Each hand and every mural aims to create and express a global voice to develop and advocate art rather that violence, cooperation instead of war. Instructions are given on the site. | ||
| International Day of Peace | The United Nations declared September 21st every year to be an International Day of Peace. It can be celebrated in big ways or small ones, from a personal moment of quiet, to a community event. the more of us who honor this day and this idea, the more it will spread. |
The first Peace Day was celebrated in 1982. In 2002 the UN General Assembly, declared September 21st the permanent date for the International Day of Peace, devoting itself to worldwide peace and asking all of mankind to work in cooperation for this goal. | ||
| Peace One Day | Another International Peace Day site. This one asks you to make a commitment and let them know. They have lots of ideas, too. Take these Three Steps to Peace One Day. | Peace One Day has the goal of providing free multimedia resource material to every school in the world! Six languages. | ||
| Pinwheels for Peace | "Whirled peace!" What a great idea! |
A project started by two art teachers to give students a way to express their desire for peace, harmony, tolerance, cooperation and unity. Beginning with 500,000 in 2005 to 3 and ˝ million in 2010, this is a great project for kids of all ages. | ||
| PeaceJam | Join or *start a PeaceJam Club, learn about and be inspired by Nobel Peace Laureates, and participate in Global Call to Action projects that are thought up, created and run by kids. *To start a Club an adult adviser needs to participate in a 6 hour training session. You need 8-10 kids in an age group; 5-11, 14-18, or 18-29. |
Educational program offers curriculum for various age groups from 5-11 up, centered on the lives and work of Nobel Peace Laureates as role models, and putting kids in the authentic role of peacemakers, addressing such issues as poverty, racism, violence and environmental problems. Presentations in schools, and Teacher Training available. |
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| Roots and Shoots | "If your heart is telling you to help the world and you're ready to take action, Roots & Shoots can help you organize your thoughts, develop a plan and make it happen!" "Roots creep underground everywhere and make a firm foundation. Shoots seem very weak, but to reach the light, they can break open brick walls. Imagine that the brick walls are all the problems we have inflicted on our planet. Hundreds of thousands of roots & shoots, hundreds of thousands of young people around the world, can break through these walls. We CAN change the world." - Dr. Jane |
A Program of the Jane Goodall Institute. Started by Dr. Jane and 16 students 20 years ago this has grown into a global movement of young people helping to create a better world. Parents and families can get involved. So can educators and leaders of other youth groups. |
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| UNICEF Voices of Youth |
Lots to think about here, some of it out of date. These links could be helpful: |
More for the older students here. | ||
| Free the Children | Participate in campaigns to raise awareness and funds to build schools, provide alternative income to impoverished families, clean water, and more. This site helps develop skills, provides guides and kits, and eduction on the issues. |
Free the children empowers children of North America to take action to improve the lives of fellow children overseas.
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| Three Dot Dash |
Inspired by Mattie Stepanek's ideas of a Just Peace and peace being a choice, this organization was formed by global teen leaders and supported by WAFF. To be a part just use the hand signal, spread word, take actions to help others and the environment, and share what you do on the website. Sign off with : ..._ |
We Are Family Foundation (WAFF) Video tells the story of how Mattie’s poetry and vision of peace inspired the founding of three dot dash. Inspiring. |
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| Do As One | Enter a virtual room and breathe with the heart image for a few moments of meditation. Very calming. Or enter a room for laughter, or one in which you say "Om". As you do this, others all around the world are breathing at the same time in the same rhythm, allowing an awareness of our connection to one another. | You can set a timer and an" intention", such as peace, gratitude, or love, for your breathing session. Hopefully, hundreds, thousands, and millions of people will eventually connect and breathe "as one". | ||
| Global Coherence Initiative | Breathe and calm yourself, warm up your heart by thinking of someone or something you love, then send out caring and compassionate feelings to a specific place or all the earth as you watch the Google globe. | The Global Coherence Initiative is a project of HeartMath that is attempting to shift the global consciousness of instability and discord, to balance, cooperation and enduring peace. Based on the scientific evidence that our hearts give out electromagnetic energy that effects our environment. | ||
| The Hunger Site | Click once a day to help provide food for those who need it. | A good way to help others and increase awareness of the need for compassion. | ||
| Charter for Compassion | This site is really for grown-ups, but what it asks is that we agree to live by the Golden Rule. then make a commitment (promise) to do one simple act of caring for ourselves and our world. For example, I might make a commitment to be patient with my grandchildren. It is good to share your commitments out loud, or write them down and look at them now and then to see how you are doing. | The Charter was written by inspiring thinkers in all the major world religions and is a call for us to work for the welfare and benefit of the whole of humanity which, based on the idea that compassion is at the core of all our moral, ethical, and religious systems, is our moral duty. A positive site to share and make public commitments to that end. | ||
| The Peace Alliance | This group is working to get Congress to pass a bill creating a United States Department of Peace to expand our problem solving options, providing practical, nonviolent solutions to problems of domestic and international conflict. To pass this bill will require a lot of interest on the part of the American people. Do you think it’s a good idea? | Again, something more for grown-ups, but an interesting subject for discussion for young people. |
Curriculum Sites |
for Teachers and Parents: |
| Teaching Tolerance | Classroom activities, teaching kits and Handbooks, professional development. |
| UN Cyberschoolbus Peace Education | Teacher as learner, Learner as teacher, Units for various age groups, lots of links and resources. |
| Peace Child International | Educational programs and trainings, publications, and musical theater that focus on empowering young people. They are in the UK, but many of the ideas and materials could be used anyplace. Go to their Education Page. |
| Children’s Global Peace Project | empowers children worldwide to transform their challenging emotions and conflicts into healthy self expression and peaceful co-creation. Through experiential games and exercises, multicultural songs, dance, and art, students learn to move beyond prejudice and assumption to realize their potential, their connection to each other, and the global human family. Global network of schools where every child discovers the power of peace and our interconnectedness |
| Peace Education Foundation | Educating children and adults in the dynamics of conflict and promoting peacemaking skills in our homes, schools, community, the nation, and the world. Excellent resource materials for teachers and caregivers of all ages. |
| EPals Global Community | Where Learners Connect. Classrooms, including homeschools, in 200 countries connect learners locally, nationally, or internationally. |
| iEARN | International Education and Resource Network is the world’s largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world. 130 countries, 30 languages, 40,000 educators, 2 million youth. |
| Kidlink: | Kidlink Projects increase your students' life-skills and help children get friends, build social networks and get peers around the world. Let your students experience the communication tools inside of Kidlink! For Elementary age kids, sharing games, news and artwork in several languages. |
| National Association of School Psychologists | Promoting Tolerance and Peace in Children: Tips for Parents and Schools |
| Association for Conflict Resolution | Training, conferences, publications and more on mediation and conflict resolution. List of resources for all grade levels. |
| Institute of HeartMath | Partners with schools, social-service agencies and others to help people lower stress and build resilience. HeartMath researchers have learned that our heart is far more powerful than our brain, giving off electromagnetic impulses that can be measured as much as ten feet away, and that we are all connected at a deep fundamental level via electromagnetic and biofields. Relating peacefully with our environment is key to well-being, which is key to learning. By helping students harness the power of their minds and emotions, HeartMath's educational programs, practices, tools and technologies are helping tens of thousands of students build emotional flexibility and resilience, which promotes improved learner readiness, relationships, academic performance, classroom climate and more. |
| Worldview Literacy Project™ | An educational curriculum designed by IONS to illuminate the relationship between perception and experience and to cultivate health and wisdom. Their initial curriculum for high school students is being test-piloted. Get in touch if you'd like to be involved. |
| IONS | Institute of Noetic Sciences founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, after seeing the earth from space, to support individual and collective transformation through consciousness research, educational outreach, and engage a global learning community in the realization of our human potential. “Noetic” comes from the Greek word nous, which means “intuitive mind” or “inner knowing.” |