ABOUT PEACE CHILD INTERNATIONAL

Peace Child has contributed a treasure trove of teaching resources over its 45-year history – most of which are available for free on this website. Since spinning off its West African Youth Employment Programme, the charity works with a small permanent staff, adding additional staff members and partners as projects require. Enquiries to info@peacechild.org are handled daily, and the Board of Trustees meets quarterly to ensure that the Charity’s finances and services are working smoothly.

OUR MISSION

At Peace Child International, we believe that young people have the power to create positive change in their communities and in the world. That's why our mission statement has remained unchanged since shortly after our foundation in 1981:

“EMPOWERING YOUNG PEOPLE”

We work to empower youth to become active global citizens through our unique education and training programmes which include producing musical shows, books, congresses, peer-to-peer teaching programmes – and – youth-led development projects, job creation & business improvement programmes. Some extend the Mission Statement to include the famous Gandhi quote, thus: “Empowering young people to be the change they want to see in the world.”

The word ‘empower’ identifies exactly the skills, the confidence and the appetite we seek to give young people to make a difference in the world before their 18th birthday. This 1-minute cartoon video will give you a light-hearted understanding of our Mission. These pages (LINKs) will give you a detailed introduction to the History of our Mission and Values as an organisation.

OUR ACHIEVEMENTS

Introduction:
As our 40th Anniversary Video shows, young people have moved from the fringes of most sectors of social activity to much closer to the centre of many areas of political life, including the field of International Development. Peace Child has been a part of that change by:

Helping to end the Cold War: By adopting the Lincoln principle that “…the only way you destroy an enemy is by making him your friend,” the Peace Child musical helped build the trust relationship between the USA & USSR that ended the Cold War.

Mainstreaming Youth-led Education: Peace Child pioneered the idea of youth-created text books, and promoted the value of Peer-to-Peer education both as a way of providing effective, low-cost education and a way to enhance the confidence, knowledge & self-esteem of the peer-teachers.

Promoting Sustainable Behaviours & Career Development: We have developed a Create the Change programme with a ‘Lifestyle Contract’ that promotes a transition to sustainable behaviours + a career development programme, Work the Change. Both are Peer-delivered.

Youth-led Development: Peace Child coined this phrase at our 1st World Youth Congress in Hawaii, and promoted it through our Action projects and Be the Change Academies. Other organisations including USAID, the World Bank, UNDP and Restless Development now promote it

Kids on Strike: In 2008, long before Greta Thunberg launched her Schoolstrike4climate, the cast of a Rochester NY Peace Child show, renamed it: Kids on Strike as its climax saw them mounting a Global School Strike to force UN Member states to take action for Peace & Sustainability

Intergenerational Conversation Cafés & Model Citizens Assemblies: Doing a Peace Child musical is hard, but hosting an Intergenerational Conversation Café or Model Citizens Assembly is easy: any group of pupils with a supportive teacher can use our model to explore LOCAL as well as GLOBAL issues with their teachers, parents, friends and community leaders.

NEXT STEP - a Digital United Nations? For the UN’s 75thAnniversary, we held an Inter-generational Festival to explore What Next for the UN? A Conversation Café came up with the idea of a Digital UN – an idea that we hope to see realised in the next 40 years of Peace Child’s history.

OUR PARTNERS

Over the years, Peace Child International has worked with a multitude of partners in almost every UN Member state. Collaboration is key to achieving our mission: unless the whole of society seeks to empower young people, youth will remain un-empowered and at a disadvantage in society. Our partners include governments, UN Agencies, NGOs, schools, businesses, Philanthropists and Foundations. It is impossible to mention them all here for they number in their thousands, in almost every UN Member State. The key ones which have helped us promote our shared goal of empowering young people to help create peace, a clean environment, sustainable development, full employment and a fairer world with justice and human rights for all, include the following:

UNDP, State of Hawaii, United Games, Princes Trust Intl.

UNICEF, Government of Canada, Voice of the Children,Teach a Man to Fish,

UNEP, Government of Morocco, Taking IT Global, Youth Business Intl.

UNESCO, Government of Scotland, Fred Matser, Johnson Matthey,

World Bank, Parliamentary Network for the World Bank and IMF, Levi Strauss Foundation, Charities Aid Foundation,

NORAD, The World Bank and IMF, Sam Rubin Foundation, Patrick Rowland Foundation,

DANIDA, City of Rio de Janeiro, Ruth Mott Foundation,

UN HDR, Government of Turkïye, Paul Hamlyn Foundation,

UN DESA, UK Government – DEFRA, The Connolly Foundation,

UN DGC, UK Government – DFID, Wixamtree Foundation