INPeace

INPEACE - The Institute for Nonviolence and Peace - is a program of International Peace Initiatives (www.ipeacei.org) that funds special projects that promote peace across diverse communities, as well as participates in facilitating international peacebuilding initiatives for women.

In 2005, INPEACE sponsored its first world-wide Women’s International Grassroots Peace Congress of over 200 participants in Nairobi, Kenya. The second Women’s Peace Congress was held in Meru, Kenya in August 2009 and attracted over 200 participants from around the world, the keynote speaker was Naomi Tutu. Men and youth attend these women’s congresses. The third Congress will be held in Meru, Kenya in March 2012.

Through the Institute, IPI facilitates peace workshops for communities engaged in conflicts over resources and other community issues that lead to violence. Our approach is participatory, inclusive and facilitates a dialogic approach where people develop effective communication skills so that they can speak productively with each other. Our approach enables participants to develop their own peacebuilding capacities so that they continue to enhance peace in their communities without the need for facilitators from outsider.

 

During post-election outbreaks of violence in Kenya, Dr. Ringera not only took supplies to women in the camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), but she also hosted peace circles in the IDP camps. She also initiated peace dialogues to promote inter-ethnic harmony in areas where violence had not erupted and advocated for girl’s and women’s human rights within the context of displacement. Dr. Ringera also facilitates mediation between groups fighting each other over issues relating to resources (http://www.ipeacei. org/programs/inpeace.html). 

 

As an ongoing peacebuilding initiative, Dr. Ringera has initiated partnerships with high school and college students to hold peace dialogues and to brainstorm ways to sustain peace in our individual lives, in the lives of family members, the community and the nation at large. Dr. Ringera is currently (2010/2012) leading the Kenya Peace Partnerships program for youth with women as adult partners/mentors in an effort to build peace among various groups in Kenya in the advent of elections in 2012 but also as an effort to build nonviolent communities