MEN AS PEACEMAKERS

Organizational History
Men as Peacemakers was created as an effort to increase the involvement of men in violence prevention. While most of the violence in our community is committed by men, violence prevention efforts have almost exclusively been taken on by women. Men as Peacemakers is changing that. We develop male leadership in the area of peacemaking through new and different role models for men and boys. We work to activate men, creating a culture in which men are not bystanders to the problem of violence, but active participants in making peace.

Our mission: "to foster and develop men as peacemakers through modeling, mentoring, storytelling and dialogue."

Our vision:
To do this we:
1) Educate through activities that provide information, experience, or insight into violence and ways to create peace.
2) Provide service opportunities: activities that model a peaceful presence in our community, assist those impacted by violence, redefine gender roles and foster educational success.
3) Provide support: activities that provide men/women and girls/boys with emotional, psychological, educational, or spiritual assistance in adapting more peaceful ways of responding to a variety of situations.

What we are doing:
In the past several years we have:

• Last year we recruited 246 adults to mentor 456 children in our in-school and reading partner programs. Over the eight years since we started our first program 1,690 adults have worked with more than 1,970 students and volunteered 78,175 hours of their time to the community. Many of these volunteers return year after year to participate in the program.

• Organized and recruited an adult reading partner for every student at Grant Elementary School (156) and 25 reading partners at MacArthur School:

• Had our fifth year reading partner program at Stowe Elementary: 33 adults and 54 students.

• Provided 34 mentors for boys and girls at Nettleton, Lowell, Kenwood Edison, Congdon, Lincoln Park and Four Corners elementary schools .

• In our Restorative Justice Project we have worked with over 180 adolescents who have been arrested for shoplifting, committed a felony or gotten in a fight at school.

• Worked with the Minnesota Department of Health and the Gender Violence Institute to develop a statewide effort to involve men in sexual violence prevention that have involved 1600 people and 31 communities.

• Trained college and high school students, prisoners, and adults in violence prevention leadership.

• Working collaboratively with SOAR Career Solutions have assisted 55 offenders returning from prison to become productive members of the community, with the CORP program

• Assisted in the development of the Positive Attitude Development Program.

• Established a Girl's Program at Central High School to help very high risk girls graduate using restorative measures and practices; serving 50 girls.