Recent Events & Reports
October 1, 2011: Student Peacemaker Award Call for Submissions
NC Peace Action seeks to discover, honor and award young leaders who are working on solving the problems that face our world. We invite nominations of young adults age 18-24 and students age 13-17 who are involved in community service or social justice work that relates to broader problems facing the world as a whole. To complete entry, nominees must write an essay describing their service or active involvement in the community and how it relates to the global community. See guidelines for more details.
Deadline for submission of both the nomination and the essay is October 1. The Grand Prize for each age group is a trip with Witness for Peace to Latin America in 2012. Second prize is a trip to Washington in March to take part in a youth program to learn how to lobby Congress. Click here for forms and details. Direct question to Betsy Crites, 919.381.5969 or director@ncpeaceaction.org
September 21, 2011: International Day of Peace: Asheville
Join us in Asheville on Wednesday, 21st September 2011, from 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM, for the 2nd Annual International Day of Peace! Peacetown Asheville and Local 099 of Veterans for Peace, Mountain Area Interfaith Forum and other allies are increasing their Annual International Day of Peace celebration in 2011 from 1 hour to 3 hours, and from a corner by the infamous Magnolia Tree near Pack Square into Pack Square itself.
The Asheville region joins with hundreds of other communities around the world as they continue to dedicate one day of the year as a day of ceasefire from all conflicts locally and globally. International Day of Peace has been observed since 1921 through the League of Nations, and was later continued by the United Nations, adding the goal of the one day cease-fire in 2002.
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May 21, 2011: Nia Dance for Peace
April 18, 2011: Tax Day Protest
We are holding an April 18th Tax Day Protest to “Bring the War Dollars Home; Fund Our Communities.” Let’s “Move the Money” from wars to health, education, environment. Join us from 2:00 PM onwards at the US Post Office, 311 New Bern Ave. in Raleigh. Bring signs, we’ll have fliers to distribute. Sponsored by NC Peace Action.
April 22, 2011: Pilgrimage for Justice and Peace, “Living our Faith”
August 7, 2011: Dinner & Talk on “Drug Wars, Free Trade, and Immigration”
Join us for Dinner on 7th August 2011 at 6-8 PM with Sanho Tree, Director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, speaking on “Drug Wars, Free Trade, and Immigration: Market Madness vs. Sustainable Traditions.” Proceeds supports Witness for Peace and NC Peace Action’s youth peacemaker awards to Latin America. $15 tickets in advance, $17 at the door, $10 students. Groups are encouraged to reserve a table for 8. Send checks made out to “Witness for Peace” to 916 Knight Drive, Durham, NC 27712. For more information, contact NC Peace Action’s Betsy Crites at (919) 381-5969 … or call Witness for Peace’s Lonna Harkrader at 919.489-1656.
Location: Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
February 20, 2011: Report on Earlier Events
Betsy Crites at the MIC Conference
Report on the MIC@50 Conference
The Military Industrial Complex at Fifty got a thorough review on January 14-16, 2011 in Greensboro. At the conference attended by over 150, NC Peace Action Board members Mia Austin-Scoggins spoke on the “Extra Casualties of War”, and Wally Myers on “The Fall of the Empire”. The kick-off address by Peace Action’s National Field Organizer Judith LeBlanc, spoke about the Cost of War. Get highlights from their talks in the “Articles” section.
On January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the rise of the Military Industrial Complex: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. . . . We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
The conference was Sponsored by Quaker House of Fayetteville and Guilford’s Friends Center, and co-sponsored by NC Peace Action and The Eisenhower Chapter of the Veterans For Peace.
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