News

Past and present CPA participants featured in the Fall 2022 Grebel Now magazine

Earlier this month, Emma Kirke packed into a van along with 5 other Grebelites of varying years and programs and headed down to Lancaster Pennsylvania to attend MEDA’s annual convention. Focused on “Celebrating Entrepreneurship,” the convention highlighted the past successes of the organization, as well as exciting new developments to watch for in the coming years. The Mennonite Development Associates organization has been a part of the international economic development arena for nearly seventy years, working in over the same number of countries. Beginning as a collective of Mennonite businesspeople, the organization focuses on creating business solutions to poverty. 

Beyond Pride month in June, there are many opportunities to celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community throughout the year, for example, October marks 2SLGBTQIA+ history month. First celebrated in 1994 in Missouri, the month serves as an opportunity to reflect on how far the 2SLGBTQIA+ community has come and how far there still is to go.

The University of Waterloo recently put a spotlight on former Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement Communications Assistant Kirsten Mosey. Mosey was selected earlier this year, out of over 6,500 applicants, to be one of ten UN Youth Champions for Disarmament.

Student engagement is an important part of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement’s mission to advance expansive and innovative understandings and practices of peace. Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, youth have continued to be a resilient, driving force in community change. With an increased willingness to challenge the status quo and keenness to consider fresh perspectives, students have a distinct and important role to play in social innovation.

Positive messages on bridges to assist in suicide prevention. A conference to develop affirming churches. Youth workshops to improve mental health literacy. These are the kinds of lasting impacts that come about through the Peace Innovators Scholarship and Mentoring Program.

How do we prevent nuclear war? Ban autonomous weapons? Champion climate action, or effectively regulate the effects of technology and warfare? Sometimes hard questions are best left alone, and sometimes we need to dig in.

Project Ploughshares is addressing these concerns by choosing dialogue as a method for understanding through cross-country policy labs. To conduct these conversations, Ploughshares is leveraging its passion, perspective and position to create space for Canadians to voice their concerns.

On Monday, December 9, the Centre for Peace Advancement helped kick off Kindred Credit Union’s 12 Days 4 Good social media campaign for 2019. 12 Days 4 Good is engaging partners across Waterloo Region by having each of them to designate a day for an act of good that aligns with one of the central themes of this year’s campaign: affordable housing, climate action, or food security.

As a PeaceTech Peer Leader, I am excited to share what I have learned about inclusion and diversity in the last few weeks.

For those of us who work and study in universities, there are distinct rhythms to each semester, and right now we are entering a time of endings. Classes are wrapping up, major projects are coming due, and exams are looming. Meetings and publication deadlines that some of us have managed to put off are starting to pile up. And, right on cue, the University of Waterloo is providing a dizzying array of opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs to test and showcase their efforts.