Global Peace Women and the Global Peace Foundation launched a new campaign, Women and Families in Peacebuilding: Catalysts for Transformative Change, to spotlight inspiring women from their networks who have shown exceptional dedication to peacebuilding, service, and community transformation.

Emphasizing the idea that “peace begins in the home,” the initiative highlights the vital role women and families play in creating lasting peace through compassion, education, and intergenerational values. These women—mothers, educators, faith leaders, and community builders—are recognized for their grassroots efforts in reconciliation, advocacy, and healing after conflict. Their stories aim to motivate others to embrace peacebuilding roles in their own communities.

Read their encouraging stories:

A GPW Leadership Academy graduate launched a mental health initiative in Ruiru, Kenya, with support from GPW’s Global Women Dream grant. Running from July to December 2024, the project offered training, counseling, and community activities to help women manage stress, anxiety, and trauma, empowering them to support both their families and communities. Read

In Mkovur Zema, Benue State, Nigeria, a Global Peace Women Nigeria project empowered women, especially widows, through sustainable livelihoods and nutrition-focused training. The initiative equipped 20 widows with leadership skills, economic tools, and support to rebuild their lives and strengthen their families. The project fostered self-reliance, unity, and community development. Read

Disasters do more than destroy homes—they upend lives and leave families struggling to rebuild. In 2023, Cyclone Freddy devastated Mtauchira Village in Chiradzulu district, killing 18 people and displacing 59 families. With the village rendered uninhabitable, residents were forced into camps. For these displaced families, recovery goes beyond emergency aid—it’s about regaining dignity, livelihoods, and a sense of belonging. The Family Matters Assistance Project is stepping in to help. Read

In Tanzania’s Mtwara region, the Familia Moja Initiatives: Amplifying Change for Sustainable Peace project is strengthening families as the foundation of lasting peace. Recognizing that peace starts at home, the project empowered vulnerable families to become agents of change. The initiative tackled issues like conflict and gender-based violence by helping families lead the way toward stronger, more peaceful communities. Read

In Hayin Dan Mani, Kaduna, a transformation is taking place. Thirty single mothers, once facing economic hardship and social stigma, are now thriving as business owners and community leaders. The Empowering Single Mothers through Craftsmanship and Entrepreneurship project has provided these women with income-generating skills, confidence, and renewed leadership in their families and communities. Read

In Malawi’s Machinga district, women are driving community change through Ndife Amodzi (“We Are One”), a peacebuilding and empowerment initiative that equips women with skills in entrepreneurship, sustainable farming, and civic leadership, promoting strong families as the foundation of peaceful societies. Read

Launched in 2022, Project Saksham promotes moral values and leadership in youth through values-based education. The program encourages peaceful mindsets and strong character to build harmony within families and communities. By January 2025, the project had reached 11 schools in Kathmandu District, engaging 268 students, 20 volunteers, and 11 teachers in interactive workshops focused on leadership, teamwork, and service. Read

In Tanzania’s Rufiji District, a young woman launched the Empower Women with Disabilities through Economic Generation project from July to December 2024. The initiative aimed to break the barriers of economic marginalization and social exclusion faced by women with disabilities by providing 40 women with entrepreneurial skills, seed capital, and tools to improve their livelihoods. Read

This compilation of stories is adapted from stories featured on the Global Peace Foundation website. The Global Peace Foundation is an international non-sectarian, non-partisan, nonprofit organization, that promotes an innovative, values-based approach to peacebuilding, guided by the vision of One Family under God. GPF engages and organizes a global network of public and private-sector partners who develop community, national, and regional peacebuilding models as the foundation for ethical and cohesive societies. Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon is the founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

R.Buckminster Fuller 

In the field of peace studies, it has long been recognized that – while everyone wants peace, most people do not know what it actually looks like and the necessary conditions for peace.

As we all know, building peace from the ground up is not easy. All the hot and cold conflict zones that exist around that world attest to this. Yet, as idealists, we continue to engage in the peacebuilding process around the globe in efforts to apply a global vision, universal principles and shared values to address specific community issues.

In Southern Kaduna in Nigeria, one of the most diverse states in all of Nigeria, 2016 and 2017 were particularly fraught times. There were killings, reprisals, destruction of property and fear, anger and unrest. And most of all, the people were tired of the conflict.

One Family under God campaign in Nigeria.

It was late in 2017 that, through connections that had heard of Global Peace Foundation’s work with the One Family Under God campaign in other parts of Kaduna state, the GPF Nigeria team began to engage with communities in Southern Kaduna. Through the long and arduous process of dialogue with different groups, negotiations and agreements, the communities began to form a dialogue platform that they dubbed the “Southern Kaduna Peace and Reconciliation Committee.”

This committee is made up of Muslim and Christian representatives from youth, faith, women and traditional leaders of different tribes and has been critical in handling delicate situations that had plagued Southern Kaduna for months.

In a recent review of data collected by Crisis Watch, an organization that tracks global conflict, GPF was able to ascertain some of the results of the work with the Southern Kaduna Peace and Reconciliation Committee.

In the 18 months leading up to the formation of SKPRC, and the training and programs the GPF Nigeria team provided for them, killings in Southern Kaduna state made up 54% of the total number of killings in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. And yet, in the 18 months after the GPF intervention, even while there was a 22% increase of killings as a whole, the number of killings in Southern Kaduna dramatically dropped to make up only 1% of the total number of killings.

These numbers are just one of the many remarkable results that we are beginning to see in Southern Kaduna. Increased dialogue and engagement between the community leaders and security agencies resulted in non-violent local elections and local communities have taken up the call to own the vision of One Family Under God for themselves, celebrating peace through a multi-cultural celebration of the International Day of Peace in 2018.

One Family Under God campaign participant at the Second Interfaith Youth Leaders Retreat in Kaduna State.

Models like this one allows us to test the validity and efficacy of this approach. The GPF approach of articulating a global and yet personal vision of One Family Under God and creating shared agreements on universal principles and shared values is something that can be applied to other contexts. Some of the critical lessons learned in Nigeria are even making their way over in consultation with key Korean faith leaders working towards Korean reunification and reconciliation.

Yet it is worth mentioning that programs like those conducted by GPF are emphatically not looking to make carbon copy communities but, in fact, are seeking its opposite: to encourage and inspire the development of a uniquely local model of peace and community-building. These models are intended to go beyond the one location by sharing lessons from different GPF “peacebuilding laboratories” around the world.

In this way, peacebuilding leaders intend the lessons learned in one model to allow them to then share practical, concrete lessons for our global family.

Looking back on 2018, important advancements in peacebuilding have been made around the world. With the vision of One Family under God and a growing multi-sectoral network of moral, innovative leaders, Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon worked to advance peace and development in the following key areas in 2018:

1. Korean Reunification
2. Moral and innovative leadership
3. Peace Begins in the Home
4. Community-Driven Peacebuilding
5. Education and Entrepreneurship

2019 is set to be a landmark year as Korea commemorates the 100th anniversary of the March 1st Independence Movement.

We invite you to be a part of building a world of One Family Under God in 2019.

“The family is the first place where children learn love and respect. Children also learn the lessons of integrity, hard work and responsibility.” —Dr. Junsook Moon

Peace Begins in the Home in 2018

In countries around the world, from Tanzania to Nepal, Korea, and Uganda, tens of thousands are showing their support for a global campaign that has swept all family members into the peacebuilding process that “Peace Begins in the Home.”

Programs implemented by Global Peace Women, the women’s division of Global Peace Foundation, remind parents that one of the most important leadership positions they hold is in their families. This is where they start as change makers in their society. From the family, they can positively impact the emotional and spiritual foundations of each family member. They can cultivate essential virtues like perseverance, dedication to the community, and integrity, and to inspire future generations with the vision to be moral and innovative people who can contribute to their world.

Forums, conferences, campaigns and grassroots projects in 2018 brought the message that peacebuilding starts in the family, then expands to nations and communities around the world.

1. The women’s track, Peace Begins in the Home: Women-led Initiatives for Peace and Development, at the 2018 Global Peace Leadership Conference provided a wide range of approaches and models for comprehensive peacebuilding starting from the home and expanding to the world. Topics such as healthy relationship building, financial capacity building, and women’s participation in the decision-making process were an integral part of the discussion on how women-led initiatives could play a crucial role in bringing sustainable development and peace in societies around the world

2. Campaigns to bring peaceful reunification to the Korean peninsula inspired people from around the world to take part in the Korean Dream by first discovering how to fulfill it within their own families.

3. Global Peace Women’s ongoing campaign, Peace Begins in the Home, is spreading the message of empowerment for family-led peacebuilding in communities around the world.

A World of Peace through God-centered Families

The Family Peace Association celebrated its 1-year anniversary this year. At the December 2 inaugural ceremony last year, Dr. Moon issued a powerful call to strengthen God-centered families, as the cradle of civilizational advance and the cornerstone of God’s ideal of a peaceful world.

The role of God-centered families is central to all positive human development since it brings back the divinity in that sacred institution and aligns it to the original purpose of creation. Without such families, humanity will not have the moral clarity and conviction to take on the challenges of this age and build a brighter future for our children and grandchildren. The course of human society will turn on how well we understand this truth and the choices we make today to act upon it.

The Family Peace Association is working with partners across national, religious, and ethic differences, to support families in cultivating strong family traditions that connect them to God’s vision for humanity, and carrying on important universal principles and values from generation to generation.

The prevailing view was that [German] reunification was a distant dream, and key leaders in Europe did not support a unified Germany. Despite these obstacles, President Bush worked behind the scenes in support of a grassroots movement that led to unification in a way that established a major ally in Europe at peace with its neighbors and a bulwark against totalitarian aggression. Significantly, President Bush was able to advance German unification without alienating key Soviet leaders as they struggled to navigate major transformation in the U.S.S.R. and its empire.

Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon
Unified Korea: Strategic Framework for Resolving the Korean Peninsula Issue
December 12, 2018

Honoring Bush 41 and his role in German Reunification: Some lessons for Korea

Service members of the joint forces honor guard provide military honors during the arrival of former President George H. W. Bush. (Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Daniel J. Martinez)

Earlier this month the U.S. and much of the world mourned the passing of former president George H.W. Bush – Bush 41 as he is popularly known. During his presidency, he guided the U.S. and the world through momentous historic changes with wisdom, foresight, and a steady hand. As former president Obama said of him, “when democratic revolutions bloomed across Eastern Europe, it was his steady, diplomatic hand that made possible an achievement once thought anything but – ending the Cold War without firing a shot.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was born in an East Germany that was still part of the Soviet Bloc, said at the recent G20 Summit in Buenos Aires that she “probably couldn’t be standing here” if it were not for Bush’s role.

German reunification as the Cold War ended was by no means guaranteed. The prevailing view among Germans had been that reunification was a distant dream. When growing numbers of East Germans started to vote with their feet, ideas changed but elsewhere in Europe leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterand did not support a unified Germany.

Yet Bush did and so worked with the German chancellor Helmut Kohl to bring it about in a way that saw it wedded to the values and institutions of the Western liberal democracies, removing the Soviet influence of the past.

At the same time, he sought to use diplomatic persuasion to get Soviet leader Gorbachev to accept this change, always conscious of the reactionary opposition in Moscow that wanted to re-impose Soviet control throughout Eastern Europe. Bush supported Gorbachev in his reforms and never used “we are the victors” rhetoric against him in pursuing the goal of a Western-aligned united Germany. He was always patient and gracious.

President George H. W. Bush and President Mikhail Gorbachev sign the United States/Soviet Union agreements to end chemical weapon production (Photo Credit: George Bush Presidential Library)

He told Gorbachev at the summit in 1990, “I hope you noticed that the United States has not engaged in condescending statements aimed at damaging the Soviet Union.”  He took this line despite domestic criticism for supposedly being too soft on the defeated Soviets.

This is a striking historical example of broad and effective diplomacy achieving stability and the peaceful unification of a divided nation in circumstances that could have resulted in chaos and conflict. A lesson we can learn for Korea today is the need for a broad policy that has a clear end goal in mind – unification – and works towards it wisely and systematically. We cannot afford to focus narrowly on one issue, denuclearization, and expect to make overall progress.

We will simply find ourselves back in the same spot again a few years hence.

“Religious people must work together within their communities to solve common social problems. The issue of the divided Korean peninsula should be viewed in this light. When you reach out and help those who suffer, they will meet God through you. This is how true missionary work can be done.”

-Bishop Sunday Ndukwo Onuoha

Bishop Sunday Ndukwo Onuoha has seen the power of interfaith cooperation first hand in his home country of Nigeria.

In 2009, an average of 300,000 people died from malaria. Studies concluded that the challenges were not for lack of knowledge or resources, but getting individuals and families to implement preventative measures into their daily life.

Nigeria Inter-Faith Action Association recognized that faith leaders played an important part in addressing the health epidemic. NIFFA calls it the “faith effect.” Faith leaders have the trust of their congregation, in turn, they can teach and enforce changes in mindset and behavior. Muslim and Christian leaders have worked together with NIFFA to take the message and practices of malaria prevention to their congregation. In Kaduna state, a year later, bed net usage has increased by 60%. Nigeria continues its battle against Malaria, but the casualties are falling.

Civic and religious leaders collaborate for grassroots efforts for reunification on the Korean peninsula

In a recent visit to Korea, Bishop Sunday called on faith leaders to work together to bring the “faith effect” into action to address the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

Bishop Sunday has also been active in promoting the Global Peace Foundation’s One Family Under God campaign that has brought communities in conflict in Nigeria together to build peace based on shared values and an affirmation that they are connected as children of God.

He cited other historical examples where faith leaders working together in pursuit of a common vision to ignite popular movements that transcended racial, cultural and religious bounds, to bring about significant social transformation, including Korea’s March First Independence Movement of 1919. Key to the public protests were faith groups that had laid the groundwork for years in their congregations, casting the vision of an independent Korea, articulating the principles and values of this new nation, and igniting a fire to lead to action.

Gandhi (center) with other peaceful protestors in the Salt March

Bishop Sunday brought forward other historical examples of social movements around the world such as Mahatma Gandhi, who reached out to people beyond the Hindu faith to advocate for India’s independence from colonial rule. He also noted that Nelson Mandela was able to embrace all people, no matter the color of their skin while endeavoring to end apartheid in South Africa. He also mentioned the example of the civil rights movement in the United States, which under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., was able to attract the support of people from all different religious, racial and political backgrounds.

Though the March First Movement did not lead to a free, independent and united Korea, the independence leaders who came from different faiths including Christianity, Buddhism, and Cheondoism, were able to unify millions of Koreans to peacefully protest colonial rule. Nearly 100 years later, Action for Korea United is drawing on the spirit of the March First Movement to drive towards the reunification of the two Koreas. Bishop Onuoha resolutely stated his belief that through people coming together, “reunification of the Korean Peninsula will happen.”

The original post appears on Global Peace Foundation. Global Peace Foundation is an international non-sectarian, non-partisan, nonprofit organization, which promotes an innovative, values-based approach to peacebuilding, guided by the vision of One Family under God.  GPF engages and organizes a global network of public and private-sector partners who develop community, national, and regional peace building models as the foundation for ethical and cohesive societies. Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon is founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation.

The United States observes Thanksgiving on the third Thursday of November. Most every citizen acknowledges the national holiday as a day to express gratitude for the blessings in their lives, enjoying time and sharing food with family and close friends. However, many might not know or remember the origins of Thanksgiving, which emerged after one of the most painful periods of American history: The Civil War.

Union soldiers capture Vicksburg during the American Civil War

It is remarkable to note that it was the selfless leadership of a desperate president that endured the unimaginable weight of a nation divided, an incomparable challenge, only to emerge with optimism for the reunited country’s bright future. It encapsulates many lessons, one of which can be related to each of us: pain is not just a challenge to suffer, but rather to conquer and grow from. We must all face painful circumstances in life, but it takes maturity and selflessness to take it in, not run away, and instead acknowledge that we are stronger than we think. Together, as citizens, families and communities, we have the power to grow and change the course of our lives and society for the better.

President Abraham Lincoln challenged Americans to seek out the virtues of gratitude and forgiveness, pointing back to the nation’s founding Declaration for shared principles and values to bring North and South together once again. By pursuing this dream, a young nation would eventually work towards rebinding their wounds “with malice toward none and charity for all.”

Today, another nation remains divided by North and South.

Boasting more than five thousand years of shared history, Korea today is home to families, brothers and sisters, spouses, mothers, fathers and children that are divided by the 38th parallel. The peninsula now displays two radically and desperately divided economies, cultures and nations. People in the North suffer in a battle for basic human rights and the threat of nuclear weapons. The South struggles to reconcile the pursuit of material wealth with the social values to combat broken families, a shrinking population, and high suicide rates.

In America, reunification was possible because of the founding values expressed in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” which finally led to the abolishment of slavery following the Civil War.

One Dream One Korea concert for a United Korea in Washington DC.

In Korea, those principles are expressed in the ideal of Hongik Ingan, the destiny of the Korean people to “live for the benefit of humankind.” Hongik Ingan has proved throughout the peninsula’s long history to be a powerful unifying aspiration in times of crisis and threats to division predating the end of a World War that resulted in its division in 1945.

Today, movements like the One Korea Global Campaign are attempting to show a peaceful way forward toward reconciliation and reconstruction of one Korea. The dream of one Korea is not just a dream for Koreans, but for the entire world. The reunification of the Korean peninsula under this vision has potential to bring benefit to the world and finally bring an end to a war that has set “brother against brother.”

This is a challenge that we cannot run from. We must face it. Together, we can overcome the painful history that has divided our human family, learning from the past and charting a course for a brighter future: for Korea and for the world.

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” —Abraham Lincoln (16th President, United States)

When confronting the challenges that impact our everyday lives, from global issues of peace and development, to local work of community development and social cohesion, all too often the approach is framed in an “us” vs “them” framework.

Yet, it is this very mentality where the problem lies. The idea is grounded in the perspective that we don’t belong to one another, and the idea that once “they,” whether it is racial, political, national, religious or ideological group, are vanquished, the problem will be resolved.

This perspective keeps us hopeful but looking elsewhere. Anywhere but at ourselves, anywhere but here.

It is the endemic hope that something else will rescue us and conquer “them”. That public opinion will save us. Public pressure, organized boycotts, newspaper articles, condemnation from top political or celebrity figures, op-ed articles, open letters, petitions and more will get us “there”.

But the problem is that none of this can resolve the challenges we face, because the problem is never, ever just with “them” because them is us. The problem will not be fixed out there, when “they” have been snuffed out – the problem is a shared problem, and its resolution is a shared task.

Faith leaders, politicians from conservative and liberal parties, civil society activists, and international scholars convened in Seoul in late September 2014 to discuss a “vision for a unified Korea.”

This kind of leadership perspective pushes us to take responsibility, make a positive impact and to share in the work of peacebuilding. It is this perspective of interwoven destinies that has undergirded the models of national transformation that the Global Peace Foundation and its partners are developing.

Through years of engagement with community leaders around the world, GPF has developed a process of building a consensus around shared values and formulating practical plans of action.

The process involves asking questions like:

1. What is the big picture? Ideally, how would we approach this situation/sector/problem in an inclusive, solution-oriented way with results for the greater good?
2. What is my specific role in relation to making #1 happen? What role can I play in bringing this about?
3. What are the things that must be done in order to make #2 happen so that it can contribute to #1?
4. How might I work with others in order to bring about the best results? How can I work with others to create mutually beneficially, synergistic partnerships that deliver substantial, practical results?
5. How can I achieve a standard of excellence worth sharing for others to learn from? – this is the leadership mentality that goes even beyond ownership.

These questions focus in on personal responsibilities but in a context that works towards the greater (collective) good, with the assumption that this will further growth and create opportunities for each individual in a valuable way. Ultimately we want to work for the good of the individual and the collective by aligning the individual to the collective good but allowing for personal will, duty and responsibility to be the way through which they achieve this good.

Rise Nepal volunteer delivering aid to remote villages in need.

This process can be used as a training exercise to discuss and dissect situations, problems and to find simpler, practical solutions.

It is a framework that focuses in on what I can do, not what others need to do. It is an approach that is meant to empower people to, in a paraphrase of the famous Gandhi quote, become the change he or she might wish to see in the world.

As a framework, it can be used on any solution, past or present. Case studies have been used as examples of how to use the framework in situations in order to develop the mindset of the moral, innovative leader we need so desperately in our world today.

Once we realize this, we can begin to work – as partners, allies, brothers and sisters – to solve the world’s most intractable problems.

The vision of One Family under God has been inspiring faith, community and cultural leaders around the world to seek out solutions towards a peaceful and prosperous future. The following is a simple, but substantial example that reflects the change of heart and mind that takes place when people begin to see each other as family.

Leaders from around the world gather in Uganda for the 2018 Global Peace
Leadership Conference

With a simple, all-inclusive and values-based platform, Global Peace Foundation is taking an interfaith approach in partnership with the Interreligious Council of Uganda to provide a much-needed space for religious and cultural leaders to discuss a common vision for the good of all people.

A key GPF initiative that resulted from these kinds of interactions between community leaders was one apple-planting program. In this program, families that had previously been in conflict were given an opportunity to meet together in peace and to make a shared commitment to move forward, using the symbolic act of planting apple seedlings together.

This initiative was inspired by a traditional Ugandan practice in which conflicts between families would be settled where a daughter would be married to a member of the aggrieved family. Here, instead, the families would plant apple trees together.

Apple trees are traditional cultural symbols of love and peace, and the joint planting represented the commitment to move forward, together. Beyond the act of planting, the families were encouraged to care for the apple trees together, and with increased interaction and cooperation, build ties and eventually— literally— reap the harvest of apple fruits.

CCI Uganda schools celebrate International Day of Peace with GPF

These kinds of initiatives, although simple in concept and design, can be powerful models for reconciliation. Yet, to engage in such acts of forgiveness, requires deep reserves of faith, love, hope and commitment to a shared future. When families see themselves as part of One Family Under God, they were able to naturally seek out win-win solutions to conflicts to the benefit of the entire community.

Moreover, it is in the commitment of the interfaith and intercultural leaders towards building communities of peace and social cohesion that allows for this kind of initiative to take place.

When faith and cultural leaders take the lead, modeling behaviors and mindsets of leaders of a community of “One Family Under God,” other positive developments naturally follow.

The original post appears on Global Peace Foundation. Global Peace Foundation is an international non-sectarian, non-partisan, nonprofit organization, which promotes an innovative, values-based approach to peacebuilding, guided by the vision of One Family under God.  GPF engages and organizes a global network of public and private-sector partners who develop community, national, and regional peace building models as the foundation for ethical and cohesive societies. Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon is founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation.