Future Vision

Sharing global stories and curricula are important steps in the cry for peace, but the journey is much farther. If you want to move forward in one of these directions, please contact us to brainstorm ideas:

• Teach our Are We Together? peace curriculum to teenagers in Africa, and beyond (our active project).
• Develop peace workshops for schools or churches that mobilise ordinary people as peacebuilders in the One Global Family.
• Explore music and dance as powerful pathways to inner and communal peace. If we eat together, and dance together, isn't it less likely that we'll fight together?
• Produce a book of peace testimonies from around the world. I've already collected some, and you can Write on the Wall to share yours.

This 2020 update video is dated, but the need to find creative paths to peace is more urgent than ever:

Music with a Message

Music is a very powerful medium for peace, both inner and communal. As a musician and dancer, I love using music and dance as pathways to peace. CryPeace held a PositiveSpin dance party, taught 5 Rhythms dance for inner healing in Rwanda, and led a dance workshop at the Parliament of the World's Religions. If you are as inspired by music as we are, could you:

• Promote our peace song, Nous Sommes Ensemble (We Are Together), or use it in a local peace event? 
• Collaborate on a new song, One Global Family? Carole wrote the words and melody, but it needs world beats and global voices. It would be especially poignant if musicians from conflict zones contributed to it. 
• Host a 5 Rhythms-style dance for inner peace?
• Host a PositiveSpin dance party - maybe on the International Day of Peace?
• Suggest new songs with danceable beats in a multitude of languages for our CryPeace Spotify playlists?

PositiveSpin Dance Parties

Sometimes we need to talk about peace; sometimes we need to embody it. That's why we held a PositiveSpin dance party to nurture peace through music, to reunite body and soul. Dances provide a joyful space where you can hear uplifting music, meet positive people, nurture your playful side, and move how the spirit leads you. Wouldn't it be fun to hold an international dance party using webcams at different locations?

Beautiful Resistance: If your prayers were a dance, what would they look like?

Every Friday, there is a protest at the Israeli/Palestinian wall. In North America, protests for democracy, racial equality, and rethinking the role of police are becoming more frequent. Many other demonstrations for justice occur around the world.

At one Black Lives Matter demonstration, one of my peacebuilding friends asked, "If your prayers were a dance, what would they look like?" It inspired people who were observing on the edges to move into the public square and dance. They expressed their fears, hopes, dreams and unity by dancing to the same simple drumbeat. What positive energy could we release by embodying peace through dance at more of our demonstrations?

Global Dances for Peace

Wouldn't it be awesome to hold PositiveSpin dance parties around the world on the International Day of Peace? We're too small to be the ideal organizer for this, but we will host a party if this is something you can coordinate. Let's get prepared by collecting more international, multilingual songs for our CryPeace PositiveSpin Dance playlist on Spotify. Meanwhile, nothing prevents us from dancing in our kitchens, gardens, or communities. When you do, please share the joy on Instagram and tag your photos @crypeace2 #danceforpeace.

Longterm Dreams: Supporting Peace in the Middle East

Erasing the Wall: Envisioning Peace in Israel and Palestine

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Peace has long been fragile in the Middle East, so in 2014 I followed the gravitational pull on my heart to visit Israel and Palestine. I collected stories from the ground and met with grassroots peacebuilders. I found the situation discouraging, deteriorating, and deep fatigue amongst residents and peacebuilders. It is even worse now. Some of these ideas are hard to imagine while the war in Gaza rages, but one day or some way, can we renew hope and visualize positive change by "erasing the wall"? 

1. In Beit Sahour, I saw a white "screen" painted on the security wall in front of a cafe for screening movies. Suppose, where streets are dissected by the wall, a live camera feed of the opposite side was projected? Palestinians could view the Israeli side and Israelis view the Palestinian side, enabling them to literally envision a future without walls - and wave at each other, dance together, see each other.
2. There are many powerful murals on the wall. Are there enough that convey a unified future? Could they be designed collaboratively by peace lovers on both sides?
3. The wall makes it difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to meet in person, and there are language barriers. Can Peace Cafes help them meet socially in a non-threatening, non-political encounters, using interactive video to play checkers or have a translated chat over coffee?
4. Nothing prevents sound from scaling the wall. Imagine a joint dance with a singer and strings player on one side of the wall, and a percussionist and singer on the other side of the wall?
5. Imagine a joint peace rally held on both sides of the wall, either with the sound unifying it natually, or from any distance using webcameras?

I'm sure some of these ideas are realized. There should be more apps that encourage and enable interaction between diverse (and historically divided) people, so we can build relationships with each other and better understand each other. We are more similar than different; we are all members of the One Global Family.

If this idea excites you too, please get in touch to request our Erasing the Wall concept paper, and how you can partner with us on the next stage of the project.

Water in the West Bank: Turn on the Taps

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, water is a serious issue. While in the West Bank, 74% of homes have running water, flush toilets, and maybe a washing machine, there’s one problem: Israel controls the taps. They turn them on sporadically, without notice, and infrequently. Since people have been living without reliable water for years, they have come up with strategies to survive up to three weeks with no water supply. But they are getting frustrated. They would like to know when Israel will turn on the taps.

To raise awareness and advocacy about this issue, we created a concept for an app, an experience, and an advocacy campaign to ask Israel to "turn on the taps." If your organisation is excited about using new technologies to promote people's right to water, the primary necessity of life, let’s help them turn on the taps!

Israel, Please Turn on the Taps

I live in a cage with very prevalent walls
that block me in and hide the sun

You hold the power of whether I can drink, or wash
Access my ancestral well, or dig one afresh

The Israelis on the hill have water all month
But I wait anxiously each day for a chance to fill twelve tanks

In my village I had a deep, pure well
I could slake my thirst, and water my groves
Now, I turn on the taps, and nothing flows
Except the sewage streaming down from the city on the hill