News

The Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement catalyzes collaboration to move the needle on important peacebuilding issues such as space security, technology, education, and inclusion. Tina Chan, the Centre’s newest Epp Peace Incubator program participant, is adding mental health to the conversation.

As students finish their last exams and assignments, and head home for the holidays, our Centre quiets. In the last days and weeks of this year (and this decade), we have been reflecting on exciting developments in the world of PeaceTech here at the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement during 2019.

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.

A foundational principle of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement is that peace is everybody’s business. The Centre has drawn on many different fields and disciplines across the University of Waterloo to catalyze collaboration within the peacebuilding field, and has injected a new energy and interest in advancing peace throughout Waterloo’s innovation ecosystem.

Canadians observe Remembrance Day on November 11, a tradition established following the First World War to mark the anniversary of the armistice or end to fighting.

Earlier this month, Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) hosted supporters from all across North America in Tucson, Arizona for their annual convention. MEDA’s work across the globe in sustainable development and international investment attracts a wide range of stakeholders interested in business solutions to poverty.

One of the most exciting times of the year in the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement is when a new exhibit is installed in the Grebel Gallery. In addition to inspiring reflection and conversations among members of our campus and surrounding community, these exhibits also contribute to the creative energy of participants in the Centre. The view outside my office door is always interesting, but our latest exhibit is particularly provocative.