The August 2005 Women’s International Grassroots Peace Congress
Nairobi, Kenya: August 18-20, 2005
The International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence (2000-2010) aimed at fostering peace through education, promoting sustainable economic and social development, human rights promotion, equality between women and men, tolerance, participatory communication, and promoting international peace and security. The Culture of Peace program focuses on making and keeping peace, at the grassroots level through education programs and mass media communications which facilitate mass participation.
Since the beginning of the decade for a Culture of Peace, many conferences have been held around the world in general and in Africa in particular. Notably, the Women’s Agenda for a Culture of Peace was highlighted in Kampala Action Plan for Peace (1993), the Beijing Conference (1995), and the Pan-African Conference on Peace, Gender and Development of Kigali (1997). In May 1999 UNESCO organized a Pan-African Women’s Conference on a Culture of Peace in preparation for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, the year 2000. In all these conferences, the role of women in conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding in Africa were noted. All these meetings focused on women leaders and the elite who are seen as the main stakeholders of the decade of the culture of peace.
From the onset, the focus of the programs for the Culture of Peace decade highlighted the role of the grassroots voices and programs, an aspect which so far as not been addressed at an international conference although many grassroots initiatives have been started and are in operation around the world in general, and Africa specifically. Indeed, this recognition lead to the formation of a broad-based Women’s Forum for Peace and Development (WFPD) with the vision of integrating a gender perspective into existing and emerging peace building mechanisms within the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). For example, in South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, and Somalia, many grassroots and African Traditional Conflict Transformation models have been used to address conflicts that have plagued these countries for many years. In other parts of the world too where conflicts have persisted, people have used their own peacemaking methods to enhance a culture of peace.
The August 18-20, 2005 International Grassroots Women’s Congress endeavors to fill this gap by inviting grassroots women to share with the world their contribution to the Decade of a Culture of Peace. The theme of the Congress is, “Women, Conflicts, and Peace.” A significant sub-theme “Gender does make the difference,” aims to showcase how the intersection between people and conflict needs to include looking at how the different experiences of women and men are relevant to safeguarding the integrity and diversity of humanity through creating a culture of peace for their security, livelihood and the sustainability of the planet and its peoples.
What can we learn from the similarities and differences among women’s experience in war, nonviolence and peace historically, cross culturally and internationally? Health is a peace issue in these days of HIV/AIDS. When families lose their economic base in the form of able-bodied women and men to AIDS, there is no peace in the home and in the nation. The Women’s Congress will highlight among other issues how women at the grassroots have responded to conflict and the challenge of HIV and AIDS and what unique peace initiatives have emerged from these responses. This will be a multi-cultural, international Forum aimed at helping create new and more informed strategies for thought and action.
Presentations will be in form of panels, individual papers, workshops and creative pieces that explore the theme and in particular, provide cultural and international insights into unique and ‘best practice’ grassroots nonviolence, health (women’s responses to HIV/AIDS) and peacebulding initiatives around the world. We also welcome your own ideas.
Some 500 members of local and international grassroots women organizations, partners and guests are expected in Nairobi, Kenya for the event, which will include over 30 sessions as well as launching the International Nonviolence Institute for Peace in Nairobi and the ‘Across Africa Women’s Peace March’. The International Grassroots Women’s Peace Congress will explore the world's most pressing sustainable peace challenges under several broad themes:
• African Traditional Conflict Transformation Models,
• Gender, conflicts, and security
• Women, Conflicts, and Peace;
• Nonviolence and a culture of peace
• Grassroots peace initiatives: Conflicts and Health
• Conflicts and development
• Security, human rights, and women’s rights
• Institutions, development and peace
• The media and peace
• NGOs and peace
• Art and peace
• Sports and peace
• Youth and peace
• Children and peace
• Peace education
• The international community and peace
• Nature, environment, and peace
• Spirituality, religions and peace
• Disabilities and peace

Dr. Arun Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi will be the keynote speaker at the Conference. Professor Wangari Mathaai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner will be our Special Guest at the Congress.
International Peace Initiatives (IPI) promotes peace throughout Africa and for the world. We recognize that viable social, economic and cultural development in Africa in particular depends upon a sustainable peace that embraces social justice, democracy, and human rights.
IPI’s mission is to “empower individuals, communities, organizations, and institutions to overcome devastation of conflict, disease, and poverty through vision and action for a culture of peace.”
IPI takes cognizance of the fact that millions of women struggle on a daily basis to contribute to a culture of peace and the promotion of human rights. IPI underscores the fact that gender equality and equity are matters of fundamental human rights and social justice, and that gender equity is a prerequisite for a culture of peace to safeguard the integrity and diversity of humanity for sustainable peace and development.
IPI validates the grassroots efforts of women dedicated to peace-building within their villages, communities, and across borders. IPI provides a forum for women with vision and the energy to bring it about to speak and be heard by their peers locally, nationwide, and worldwide. Through IPI, such women speak for themselves and tell their own stories. At the 2005 International Grassroots Women’s Congress, African women and those around the world will share their visions and tell stories about their significant contributions, to peace, democracy, and individual and community empowerment.
IPI believes that bringing together people whose actions have empowered themselves and others will provide experiences and tools that can change attitudes about what’s possible in overcoming conflict and adversity in the world.
IPI believes that women’s grassroots initiatives are the way forward for peace and healing in this world. The August 2005 Grassroots Women’s Congress is a forum for discussing the unique approaches and solutions women have arrived upon to help attain cultures of peace. The Congress will provide space for women to exhibit the great works of their hands and minds - promoting opportunities to demonstrate that their ideas and actions, no matter how seemingly small or local, contribute significantly to worldwide efforts that have promoted cultures of peace.

The Launch of the Nonviolence and Peace Institute

August 20, 2005

Peacebuilding and the creation of a culture of peace in Africa will be attained through grassroots organizing that brings together women’s groups, leaders, churches, the youth, government, opposing/rebel groups, and the international organizations. Training of these groups, mediators, NGO staff, military and the inclusion of traditional dispute resolution processes and adapting them to contemporary use are significant aspects of peacebuilding in Africa. Finally and most critical, is the training of media to communicate messages of tolerance and peace and teaching peaceful resolution of conflicts in schools. In the end, only homegrown peace initiatives will save Africa from the current quagmire of persistent conflicts.
The Nonviolence and Peace Institute will focus on studies that enhance the principles of nonviolence and peace as articulated by Mahatma Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jnr., Professor Wangari Mathaai, amongst others.
The mission of the institute will be to promote and apply the principles of nonviolence locally, nationally, and globally, to prevent violence and resolve personal and public conflicts through research, education, and programming. Human Rights will be a significant area of focus at the Institute. The institute will be an independent, interfaith, not-for-profit organization that will create resources, provide learning experiences, and advocate publicly for people’s human rights, as well as, alternatives to violence and injustice at the individual, family, community, institutional and global levels.
Funding will come from contributions from individuals, publications, program fees, membership, and grants.
Areas of training will include workshops, seminars and lectures on nonviolence and peace to individuals, families, institutions, the media, and religious groups. International, regional and local conferences will also be held annually to enhance dialogues on human rights, nonviolence and peace practices that have had success around the world. The institute will be a continental and international hub for human rights, nonviolence and peace discussions both for the academia and grassroots.
We are looking for sponsors of the launching event which will be held at a hotel in Nairobi on the night of Friday August 19, 2005.