News

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Past Peace Innovators - Where are they now?

The Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, along with its partners, The Ripple Effect Education (TREE) and Kindred Credit Union, kicks off the next cycle of the Peace Innovators Scholarship and Mentoring Program on March 1, 2021 when the 2021-2022 application period opens.

In anticipation of this, we caught up with program alumni to learn where they are now and how they look back on their time as Peace Innovators.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

TREE grows online: Introducing the Conflict Toolkit Cohort program

Conflict Toolkit Cohort, a TREE program for youth graphic with wrench and bolt background

Despite worries that the COVID-19 pandemic might interfere with the ability of Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement participants to continue their peacebuilding efforts, transitioning to a virtual environment jump-started new innovation at established organizations and new peace start-ups alike. This February, The Ripple Effect Education (TREE) introduces a brand new virtual program: The Conflict Toolkit Cohort.

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

(Putting) bombs away: how the Centre community supports nuclear disarmament

Photo by Laurentiu Morariu on Unsplash

Friday, January 22^ndwas a monumental day for many countries around the world as the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) became international law for over 51 states in 122 nations. More work needs to be done, but as Core Collaborator at the Centre, Project Ploughshares, explains in Five things to know about the nuclear ban treaty, the TPNW is “the most consequential nuclear disarmament development in decades”.

Last Friday, many participants at the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement shared their excitement for this step forward in peacebuilding and disarmament. The TPNW is a global effort, and one that the Centre's community of peacebuilders have been involved in since the very beginning.

Monday, January 25, 2021

New Incubator venture a local leader in housing equity

Affordable housing is becoming harder and harder to find. Union Sustainable Development Co-operative, the newest member of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement’s Epp Peace Incubator program, is addressing this problem by helping Waterloo Region build the city—or rather, the home—they truly want, together.

Monday, January 18, 2021

Students in the Centre for Peace Advancement: Impact Beyond the Workplace

As students and working professionals struggle to find employment in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Conrad Grebel University College and the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement (the Centre) have increased their opportunities for meaningful work. Past and present participants can attest that the benefits of working at the Centre extend beyond the workplace.

Monday, December 21, 2020

Peacebuilders inspiring peacebuilders: Centre participates in #12Days4Good

Portraits of 10 CPA participants in a circle surrounding "Peacebuilders' Inspriation Toolkit" text

In response to Kindred Credit Union's call to generosity this holiday season, the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement got creative about how to give back to its local community.

For the past three years, for twelve consecutive days in December, the Centre has joined eleven other local organizations in participating in “acts of good” during #12Days4Good, a social media campaign led by Kindred Credit Union. The Centre kicked off the 2020 campaign on December 7 with the release of an online Peacebuilders’ Inspiration Toolkit.

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

The Centre for Peace Advancement Shapes Peace Together

SIx Centre for peace advancement participants sitting outside on chairs in a circle in the Grebel garden

Originally published in the Fall 2020 issue of Grebel Now.

The theme of the 2020 United Nations International Day of Peace, “Shaping Peace Together,” resonated with the mission of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement. Essential to the spirit of the Centre is a shared understanding of collaborative peacebuilding, which has laid the groundwork for our community’s resiliency throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Monday, November 30, 2020

Professors champion systems thinking across disciplinary divides

Portraits of Jonathan Baltrusaitis, Karin Schmidlin, Matt Borland, Paul Heidebrecht, Simron Singh, and Tobias Thielen

The Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, alongside six passionate University of Waterloo faculty members, are championing systems thinking on campus.

A unifying approach between the myriad of peacebuilding professionals who are advancing peace in the Centre is the use of systems thinking, a holistic way to analyse a problem that considers the impacts of interrelated, interdependent parts of a whole. This is the heartbeat of Map the System—an annual, global competition brought to the university by the Centre for Peace Advancement.

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Peace Incubator start-ups display progress and promise

The heartbeat of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement’s work is mobilizing impactful, collaborative social innovation efforts to advance peace. Participants in the Centre’s Epp Peace Incubator program pair their expertise with the Incubator’s support to catapult their ventures to new heights.

From top left, counterclockwise: Cassie Myers, Lunaria; Amin Gharebaghi, GeoMate; Nastaran Saberi, GeoMate; Tina Chan, PASS

Three of the Centre’s current Incubator start-ups, Lunaria Solutions, GeoMate, and Panic, Anxiety, + Stress Support (PASS) have a history of consistently leveraging the program’s resources and connections to grow their businesses. Over the past couple of months, each of these start-ups has received external affirmation for their progress and promise. Here is an update on the recent successes of these Incubator ventures.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

In conversation with peace scholar Dr. Eric Lepp

When Research Fellow and Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) professor Lowell Ewert retired in June, the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement had a faculty spot in the community to fill. In response, the Centre invited PACS Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Eric Lepp to join its diverse community of peacebuilding researchers, activists, entrepreneurs for the duration of his time at Grebel.