Would you like to start a peace café in your community soon?

Maybe you don't currently call it a "peace café", maybe it's a worker co-operative café or coffeehouse or community centre, maybe it's a public outreach centre or a general public education centre. There's many terminologies that can be used to describe the idea.

Today I'm in Waterloo at the Wilfred Laurier University's Global Citizenship Conference, to present on peace cafés and I've found yet another group working on something similar. The approaches to creating a space for community engagement and empowerment are as varied as the communities within a city, region, province, state, or as varied as cultures worldwide. There is no one way of doing it, no cookie cutter that will work everywhere like a franchise. (Not that any franchise can work anywhere...)

As I said there's many approaches, most of which follow the path of forming a group of interest, finding a space of interest, and working together with a common cause and common values. A peace café may be something which exists only at certain times at first (event-based approach) or may exist where food and drink aren't yet necessarily available (someone's office with a self-serve kitchenette), or may travel as a meeting concept (like conversation cafés). Maybe it's a concept you'd like to connect to similar kinds of businesses (like a bed & breakfast, an inn, etc.).

Do any of these things sound like something you're involved with? Or want to be? If we don't know about you yet, perhaps you should contact us -- info AT peacecafe.ca.

No scope is too small. Some might be too big, but never too small.

The website is being updated this week -- there may be a few oddities while we transition to this more robust system! Thanks!

Just as a quick update on what's happening lately:

With the leadership of YMCA Québec exchange student Anne-Marie, we're starting to do some painting of a mural in our Hamilton office. No more bland white for us.. pictures will certainly follow at a later date!

I'm updating the website at the moment, giving it some much needed software upgrades, which should make it easier for us to update our calendar and blog more frequently with less of a learning curve.

If you're in Hamilton, be sure and come out next Monday night for our Culture of Peace Network night!

A few weeks ago, some of the Peace Café folks took a day-trip up to Walkerton, Ontario. With an early start on a Sunday morning, Julie, Rob, Danielle, and myself jumped into the car and made our way North. Before we were even out of Hamilton we had already spotted a deer and the sun was shining bright in the blue sky. The rest of the day unfolded with similar blessings as we pulled into Walkerton and had a delicious lunch and fair-trade coffees served up by our friend Josh in the Walkerton Peace Café, the White Rose Coffeehouse. A main reason for our trip was to attend the 9/11 Truth event, “The Public Mythology of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror”, and we had the pleasure of participating in some fascinating discussions with some of speakers of the event over lunch.

In the afternoon we perused the small shops and Old Mill in Paisley, explored the Saugeen First Nations reserve along the shore of Lake Huron, passed through a rural field of wind turbines, and ended up on the dock on the secluded shores of a lake where we were joined by a few snakes as we watched the minnows and relaxed in the sun. After a few hours of wonder we managed to make our way back along the trail, surrounded by purple wild flowers and old Cedars. Once back in Walkerton, we joined the excited crowd at the historic Victoria Jubilee Hall, thankfully managing to find seats in the packed hall as the presentations began.

After insightful presentations from Dr. Anthony Hall and Dr. Michael Truscello, the highlight of the evening for me was the presentation by Dr. Graeme MacQueen. Dr. MacQueen has been active in various peace initiatives in the Hamilton area, and he even played a big role in creating the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University, which the Hamilton Peace Café has a strong relationship with. Dr. MacQueen’s presentation challenged the widespread public perception of what happened on 9/11, and his strong evidence and concise delivery was riveting.

When the event finished, we realized that it was getting quite late and we still had a few more hours in the car. Though we were all pretty knackered when we finally rolled into Hamilton, it was a fun yet relaxing day, and we all seemed thankful for it. It was nice to see what the Walkerton Peace Café is up to, and spend some easy going time with the busy bees of the Hamilton Peace Café. In fact we liked our trip North so much that perhaps a Friends of the Peace Café Canoe Trip is in the works for sometime later this summer??? We will be sure to keep you posted!

Our brochure has been updated to include more info about what exactly is going on in Hamilton and Walkerton, as well as a "how to" for creating a Peace Café.

There's some great stuff upcoming in Hamilton: a teach-in this coming Sunday (April 26), a film night (11th Hour, 7:30pm), and another film night (Tue Apr 28 "Pete Seeger" doc) and we're about to launch our first regular workshop schedule.

Workshops that we'll see in the summer in Hamilton, include:

• Peace 101, a free monthly session that will also double as a volunteer information session.
• Performing Peace, free sessions on connecting various forms of performance to activism and personal development that will conclude with a theatre production (also a Freeskool course)
• The Pragmatic Activist, which covers everyday practical actions that can increase your ability to create, organize, and understand the community around you by understanding how your body and mind function together
• Storytelling, a special guest workshop late in the summer on building community relationships through the telling of stories
• and more to come!

Some of these workshops will likely also travel to our Walkerton location, and perhaps a couple Toronto gatherings!