In the face of the innumerable forms of violence confronting humanity today, people are increasingly using creative nonviolence to challenge the cycle of violence, foster democracy, take action for justice, struggle for freedom, protect the earth, and work for the survival and dignity of human beings everywhere.

Creative nonviolence is a force for justice, human rights, and personal and social well-being using neither violence nor passivity. Nonviolent living puts this creative nonviolence into practice. It is a comprehensive, ongoing process for unleashing the power of compassion, imagination, and strategic action. Nonviolent living is deepened and broadened by a growing network that supports the emergence of a more nonviolent world.

In light of both the enormous violence humanity faces and, at the same time, the growing application of creative nonviolence (including a series of recent examples of nonviolent people-power movements that have produced dramatic social change without violence), there is a growing need and opportunity to create the conditions where people from all walks of life:

• Become increasingly familiar with the power of creative nonviolence;

• Are offered ways to tap this power; and

• Are supported in bringing it alive in their lives and in their world.

In short, there is a need to mainstream the vision and methods of this comprehensive process of nonviolent living for personal and social transformation. Pace e Bene’s new program, Engage, is designed to encourage and contribute to this process of mainstreaming the power of nonviolent living.

Mainstreaming the Power of Nonviolent Living

Mainstreaming nonviolent living is a long-term process. It requires ongoing programming, creative media strategies, and organizing campaigns to:

Reframe public perceptions of nonviolence. This will involve communicating how creative nonviolence is at the heart of society’s central values (fairness, equality, freedom, justice, and democracy, which is the historical process of replacing bullets with ballots); how innumerable examples and stories of the power of creative nonviolence demonstrate that it is an effective method to fashion just and lasting solutions in ways that violence or passivity cannot; and how each of us can cultivate and use nonviolent power to transform our lives and our world; Make available the vision, skills, stories, and practices of comprehensive nonviolent living to people from all walks of life; and Create and expand settings and networks that support learning about, experimenting with, and deepening nonviolent living for social and personal transformation.

Together we can experiment with creating ways to make nonviolence — our core human value — the default in challenging and transforming that blocks the life of our planet and all of its inhabitants.