Movements_Campaigns - Peace - The Commons Social Change Library

SNAP: Synergizing Nonviolent Action and Peacebuilding: An Action Guide

A strategic framework for activists, peacebuilders, and organizers working to transform violent conflict and advance a just peace.

Illustration representing goal bars that become the shape of keys at the bottom. The title reads Less Locks More Keys

Understanding and Responding to Repression: Lessons from Peace Brigades International

Lessons from Peace Brigades International and how it can be applied to understanding and resisting repression in an Australian context.

Bryan Law wearing a white hat and suit in his theatre costume of 'peace preacher' being interviewed by a news reporter. A cameraman is filming him. There is a van in the background with anti-war slogan.

The Peace Preacher as Anti-War Organiser in Regional Australia

A personal account of Australian activist, Bryan Law, the ‘Peace Preacher’. Learn about his anti-war campaign and its execution.

Change Makers (Text on orange background)

Changemaker Chat with Steve Killelea: Businessman and Peacemaker

Steve Killelea -one of Australia’s successful businessmen and a self-described peace maker! We talk about why he combined these two passions.

Smiling archers carry cut out letters spelling peace.

A collection of nonviolence quotes

A collection of quotes to be used as part of training on strategic nonviolence and nonviolent direct action. The sixty quotes are chosen deliberately to represent a diversity of opinion in regard to nonviolence. Perspectives from women and men, from Christian, Islamic, Jewish and Buddhist perspectives are included as well as activists from the global south.

Nonviolent Community Safety and Peacekeeping Trainers’ Manual

This handbook is a resource for trainers focused on community safety and peacekeeping. It includes training resources for practical ways to intervene in violence, to transform conflict and to build peace. Many parts of this manual may be translatable to other contexts.

Nonviolent Community Safety and Peacebuilding Handbook

This handbook is a handy and unique resource for activists and community workers engaged in work for peace at a community level throughout Australia. It includes practical ways to intervene in violence, to transform conflict and to build peace.

Always look on the bright side of life: The AIDEX ’91 story

In 1991 over 1000 protesters blockaded the National Exhibition Centre in Canberra with the goal of shutting down the Australia International Defence Exhibition. This book includes a detailed account of the blockade, the context of the growth of the Australian arms industry, and the words of the protesters themselves.

Photograph of hands holding cups with lit candles against the dark sky.

After Florida Can America change its gun laws?

The massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida is similar to many that have happened at schools across the USA. But there is a hope here in Florida that feels different to previous tragedies, because of the powerful political analysis and leadership coming from students.

A city scene at night. There are bright lights and people walking with their features blurred. Arrows are painted on the road, pointing downwards.

De-escalate, Manage and Transform Conflict

Many conflicts get worse than they actually need to be because the participants lose control of themselves and retreat into self-reinforcing patterns of attack and counterattack. Here are some suggestions, drawn from the literature of conflict resolution and psychotherapy, that can be used to de-escalate conflicts.

A genderqueer person sitting on a therapist's couch, listening

Active Listening

Active listening is a fundamental skill for peacebuilding and social change. It is more than hearing, it involves processing what has been heard and skilfully selecting a response. Active listening serves to encourage the person to tell more and most importantly, communicates to the person that you are interested and listening.

Strategies For Peace

Johan Gultung identified three major approaches to peace: peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding. Strategies can be applied proactively, to prevent violence occurring or reactively to reduce the likelihood of violence reoccurring. Each strategy on its own cannot really be effective in creating peace without the application of the other strategies.

Black and white photograph of protestors walking along a railway line.

Surviving the ups and downs of Social Movements: The Perception of Failure (Part 2)

In the second part of this article Mark and Paul Engler further explore Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan and its implications for social movements.

A diagram of the eight stages of social movements

Surviving the ups and downs of social movements

We tend to talk about activist burnout as an individualised experience – but the Movement Action Plan, a framework for understanding social movements, factors in perception of failure, providing insights and hope for navigating the downs in movement life.

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