Give (Local) Peace (Work) a Chance

A friend, knowing my interest in supporting a culture of peace, recently sent me this link to an article by H. Patricia Hynes about a local peace project.  Hynes talks about getting a whole community involved in positive promotion of the culture of peace, which is helpful in building a proactive, pro-peace pattern of community interaction.  Shops in Greenfield, MA, participate in the "Shops for Peace" with signs posted in their windows with peaceful messages:  "Food for All, not War."  Hynes links to research that suggests that such activities are a means of building a peace culture.  Some of the features of a peace culture referenced in that research include:  

shared identity, interconnectedness, a positive history of relationships, prosocial norms, transcendent or caring values, peace symbols, governance, and peace leaders, and additionally, peace education, peace vision, positive reciprocity, and positive goals

Reading about this project and the support in recent research, gives me a little boost for my own Peace Charm Initiative.  By the time this post is published, I will be on a plane to New York City.  I will be visiting the New York Society for Ethical Culture to talk about a couple of other projects that I am working on related to the Ethical Culture Movement, and I will be packing Peace Charms to share during meetings with my fellow Ethicals so that we all will have visible reminders of our personal roles in proactive peace building.  

While in New York, I will also be meeting with folks to talk about a project to support "caring values." I have more to learn about the project, but I already know that it will include supporting women in India (and elsewhere, I would hope) in asserting the value of the care work that women do.  This will, I expect, involve enhancing the communities' understanding that care work is important, a valuable and essential contribution to the economic and social well-being of the community, and should be granted a higher status in any accounting for value of both the caregiver and the service provided.  Since we also have this set of social problems in the US at both ends of the spectrum, I can see some potential for "local" efforts to include communities here as well.  These problems usually diminish women, who are assumed to be the caregivers, which then encourages dismissal of the importance of giving care--and providing that service with paid and qualified workers. 

It's time to stretch ourselves to make a connection between the value of care and caring values.  This is a path to peace as well as a path to equity.