Here are people, organisations and resource material that we’ve been influenced by and that you may find interesting too…

STORIES

There are lots of great stories of peace-making at Peace Heroes and at the Nobel Peace site.

WRITERS

We’ve been very influenced by the writer/activists JP Lederach (especially his 2005 book, The Moral Imagination) and Ben Hoffman of New Math for Humanity (especially his Peace Guerrilla book).

LIKE-HEARTED INITIATIVES

And Neighbours United seems like a good local grassrootsy initiative.

Space2 are doing very creative community development work in different corners of Leeds.

The new-ish Leeds Community Organising is bristling with potential for making change!

We think the Transition Towns movement is doing vital stuff – the Leeds hub site for this is here.

Global Peace Builders and the Network for Peace are both good resources for networking into the peace-building field.

We like the work of the City for Peace group in our sister city, Bradford.

Somewhat further afield (in the South), but close to our hearts, is Peaceworks - doing great mediation work.

On the subject of mediation, we work quite a bit with Mediation Leeds: they’re good! (And they train up and work through volunteers – contact them to join them.)

We’re also developing work with the Centre for Good Relations, based in Burnley.

We’re committed to linking wherever possible with the UN Peace Day initiative each September, and – within that – the work of UK-based Peace One Day.

Whilst there are a lot of great interfaith initiatives out there, we really rate the local Concorde Fellowship, the regional Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum, and the Three Faiths Forum.

And Peace Direct do great work supporting grassroots peace-builders internationally.

STUDY

Both Leeds Met University’s Global Ethics dept and Bradford University’s Peace Studies dept offer very valuable and acclaimed learning and practical experiences.

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

We’re very inspired by the Tent of Nations bridge-building eco-project outside Bethlehem.

We’ve been recommended the interative Peace in Action network.

The Daniel Pearl Foundation does good work, building understanding in the Middle East.

MEDIA

The media we consume massively shape us! So we like Films that Change the World: could you host a life-changing film screening in your home?

Especially good is Encounter Point, about gritty reconciliation in Palestine and Israel, which we screened in Leeds in 2007. And Just Vision have just released ‘Budrus’ (2010), again looking at non-violent action in Palestine and Israel.

We also like any film which debunks ‘the myth of redemptive violence’ (the assumption that violence is necessary and potentially good, prevalent in MOST films): Disney’s Pocahontas and the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men are (very different!) shining exceptions. (Thanks to Vic Thiessen from the London Mennonites for putting us onto this.)

And, off the subject of films, The Onion and Private Eye are probably the best sources of news we’ve found.

LIVING WELL

The Generous site’s got lots of funky, do-able ideas for living well.

The Good Shopping Guide helps you shop well (or at least not terribly).

Better than that, Streetbank, Freegle and Freecycle are all grassrootsy initiatives to enable better community cooperation and generosity.

Finally for now, Lift Share helps you share lifts with other people, and cut your carbon footprint a bit too!