<bt>There is at least one peace organization in the area that was not painting signs or planning a public spectacle last week. Peace x Peace (pronounced Peace by Peace), an international women's peace group based in Vienna and headed by Vienna resident Patricia Smith Melton, doesn't do protests.
The obstacles they encounter are not concrete blockades or police lines but language barriers, cultural divides and indifference. When they form circles, it is not to surround the White House but to share their stories. They may not often make headlines because their work is not done in the streets but in meeting rooms, in African villages or on the Internet. They are in the business of putting women from around the world in touch with each other.
On Sept. 16 and 17, Peace x Peace, in partnership with the Vermont-based Peace Company, kicked off a 10-city, nationwide tour called Celebrate Peace, designed to educate both current and potential peace builders and to make attendees more aware of the peace that already exists.
"There's actually more peace than war in the world, but we have to remind ourselves," said Sohini Baliga, managing editor of the Peace x Peace newsletter and online resources.
The Celebrate Peace tour began in the Grosvenor Auditorium of the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. with a special, collaborative presentation that Melton, the Peace x Peace executive director, called "an integration of poetry, music and short speeches by key people who are peacemakers." These included herself, Dr. D.C. Rao from the Interfaith Council of D.C., representatives of Brahma Kamari and Union Temple Baptist Church, and several others.
Saturday morning at All Souls Church in D.C., Peace x Peace hosted their own workshop, Connecting Women for Peace, which is based on seminars they have been hosting for various groups all over the world, from church fellowships to lending organizations. The purpose of the workshop, said Linda Higden, who helped develop it, is to "directly show American women how their power to connect can be global."
DURING A SESSION of Connecting Women for Peace, women are seated six at a time in "sister circles" and taught to use what Higden calls "circle principles," which include sharing leadership, listening without judging, speaking one at a time and speaking from the heart. They are given questions to discuss, the last of which being which country they would choose to connect and work with and why.
Then, says Higden, "Peace x Peace can then show [participants] how they can connect with sister circles in other parts of the world."
About 30 people were present at Saturday's workshop, said Melton, and attendance at future workshops on the tour is expected to get up to about 60. Melton also pointed out that attendees "are usually in key positions" in churches and other organizations, so they can take what they learn back to their own groups.
Later Saturday afternoon, the Peace Company hosted its workshop, Becoming a Peace Builder, and in the evening, vocalist Snatam Kaur and the Celebrate Peace Band performed a concert.
This two-day program will be repeated in nine more major cities over the next several months, with the exception of Friday evening's special presentation, which was to celebrate the program's launch. Future programs will begin Friday afternoons with a Celebrate Peace Children's Hour hosted by Kaur and consisting of music and yoga.
Currently, the entire program is free of charge; however, organizers may begin charging a nominal fee, according to Gisele McAuliffe, Peace x Peace's media liason.
In the weeks following each Celebrate Peace program on the tour, Peace x Peace will remain in touch with participants, said Melton, and they will return to all of the cities about a year later.
ONCE A CIRCLE has been formed and its members are educated on "circle principles," they register their group online and are asked what kind of sister circle they would like to be connected to and in what country, said Higden. Then Peace x Peace makes a match. "Then we offer resources to support that match," she said, such as translators, publications and logistical support.
Meanwhile, liasons are working in other countries to make contacts and establish sister circles.
According to Carol Fleming Al-Ajroush, the organization's translation manager and events manager, "Peace x Peace now has 285 volunteers from all over the world translating in 22 languages," from Portugese to Urdu to Mandarin Chinese. Almost all their work is done online, where they translate e-mails between sister circles, as well as the group's Web site and other publications, she said.
As a result of these concerted efforts, a group of American university professors is working with a group of university professors in Baghdad. A rape crisis center in Israel is connected to a rape crisis center in the U.S.
"American women and international sisters are learning they have a lot in common, and actions follow after they learn this," said Higden. "Peace x Peace doesn't direct these actions. The activities depend on the type of interaction."
FOR EXAMPLE, AS a result of the partnership between U.S. and Iraqi professors, a professor from Baghdad embarked on a speaking tour of American universities. Peace x Peace took care of the logistics. The work between a sister circle in Denver and another in Kenya resulted in the African Women's Grassroots Congress, said Higden, where the keynote speaker was Ella Ghandi, Mahatma Ghandi’s granddaughter.
Peace x Peace is also in the process of building Peace Centers in other countries, Higden said. Four of these centers, which would make training and Internet access available to women from rural villages, are currently in the works in Kenya.
"Women are seeing new ways to connect," Higden said, "and amazing things are happening."
Sohini Baliga, the group's managing editor, said women are twice as likely to be injured by warfare as they were 100 years ago. Yet, when it comes to the peacemaking process, "They're the ones usually not in the room. You cannot cut out half the population and expect society to move forward."
Accordingly, Peace x Peace does not exclude any men who might be interested. “Men are coming to the workshop and finding it very useful,” said Higden.
Upcoming Peace x Peace events include the Pua Naturally Fashion Show for Peace: Where East Meets West, on Oct. 11 at the Wooly Mammoth in D.C., and Art for Peace, an art auction, on Nov. 30 at the Hemphill Gallery of Fine Arts also in D.C., said Fleming Al-Ajroush.
Proceeds from these events will help fund the Women’s Global Initiative Forum, which will bring 13 women from sister circles in Muslim regions to a three-day meeting at George Mason University with their American Sister City counterparts. The discussion will focus on breaking down barriers between Western and Muslim societies, she said, and the results of the forum will be incorporated into a handbook to be used by facilitators of peace movements, academia and other sister circles.