About Us:
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Peace Banner Project ( PBP) is designed to refine and establish a "culture of peace" in the greater New Haven area and act as a model for other communities - local, national and international - that wish to replicate our efforts. The Project will:
Stimulate broad-based public involvement in refining our collective understanding of what it means to live with peace as our primary organizing social, political and economic principle;
Increase proactive support and participation on the part of individuals, groups and organizations for activities that operate according to a "culture of peace;"
Provide public exhibits and displays of artistic expressions of what living in a "culture of peace" entails;
Publish and disseminate an anthology of New Haven's first edition of our Declaration of our Culture of Peace.
Project activities have/will include:
Dialogues/discussion workshops designed to elicit information and opinions about what peace looks like from a broadly representative sector of greater New Haven residents. This material will be collected and used to inspire artistic representations, both visual and verbal, of aspects of a peace culture and a selection of these verbal images will be published in the forthcoming Declaration of Our Culture of Peace.
Workshops designed to produce banners for public lamp-post display: The banners will express participants' experiences and visions of a culture of peace. Banner design and production workshops have/will be held with elementary school children, members of peace organizations, senior citizens groups, groups representing a broad sector of the ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds residing in our community and will be held in public schools, libraries, senior centers, meeting halls, public parks, artist's studios, etc.
Peace Banner Exchange with children in Sierra Leone, courtesy of the schooner Amistad. The Amistad will ship a selection of the New Haven school-children's' banners on its voyage to Sierra Leone in June along with kits for their production of peace banners, which will be shipped back to New Haven on the Amistad's return voyage.
Lamp-post Banner Exhibits. Two exhibits are planned on the lamp-posts on the streets of downtown New Haven, surrounding the New Haven Green and radiating out along the major downtown streets. The first, Preludes to Peace, is planned for March and April. It will serve to help inspire participants who will be contributing additional banners to the Project as well as to introduce the activities of the Project to the wider New Haven Public. The second, New Haven's Peace Messenger Exhibit in September 2007, will display a minimum of 60 sets of banners.
Celebrations to showcase the thoughts and images contributed by the creators of all the banners in the exhibit and to publicize "success stories" from our fellow New Havenites who are already crafting our Peace Culture. We will announce future activities inspired by these accomplishments and recruit and inspire new participants. Two celebrations are planned: One at the opening weekend of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas on the New Haven Green on June 23-24. The other will launch the New Haven Peace Messenger Exhibit on International Peace Day, September 21st.
Publication of an anthology, New Haven's first edition of our Declaration of our Culture of Peace. This work is intended to disseminate the artistic and verbal contributions of the Project's participants and inspire other communities to replicate our efforts to involve their neighbors in establishing their own peace culture.
Arrange a traveling exhibit (either via media or in person) with national and international exchanges among other Peace Messenger cities here in the US and abroad. Cambridge Massachusetts and Serbia have emerged as likely candidates to partner in these exchanges.
Encourage and assist other Peace Messenger Cities to replicate our projec
Where we're located:
Peace Banner Project
City of New Haven Peace Commission
569 Whitney Ave
New Haven, CT 06511