Category: SOCIO-POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION

Stories and ideas about being in harmony and at peace with Others.

CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM THEOLOGIANS INITIATE DIALOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS

The Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) headed by its National Director, Bishop Noel Pantoja, together with a group of Evangelical theologians and professors had an interfaith dialogue with a group of Muslim religious leaders, professors, and Shari’a jurists headed by Ustadz Abdulkadir Abubakar. This was held last 24-25 October 2015 at the Southern Christian College in Midsayap, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/11/christian-and-muslim-theologians-initiate-dialogical-relationships/

COFFEE FOR PEACE RECEIVES AWARD FROM UNDP AND N-PEACE NETWORK

21-23 October 2015. Joji Pantoja, CEO of Coffee For Peace (CFP), received an N-Peace Award from the United Nations Development Program – Impact Investment Exchange Asia (UNDP-IIXAsia) in behalf of the women who comprise the 80 percent of the farming farmers of CFP. The N-Peace Awards Ceremony was held at One UN Hotel, New York, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/10/coffee-for-peace-receives-award-from-n-peace-network-and-undp/

PBCI CELEBRATES WITH TALAANDIG’S “FEED 10,000 JOURNEY”

PBCI celebrates with the first year milestone of the “Feed 10,000 Journey” of the Talaandig Tribe The Talaandig tribe celebrated its first-year milestone of what it considers as a revolutionary effort against conventional farming and food systems. In 2014, the Talaandig started the “Feed 10,000 Journey” which aims to feed 10,000 people in a month. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/10/pbci-celebrates-with-talaandigs-feed-10000-journey/

QUEENIE LIWAT CAMPAIGNS FOR PEACE IN NORTH COTABATO

Queenilyn Liwat grew up listening for gunfire. In her hometown of Banisilan, North Cotabato, she and her friends learned from an early age how to survive in a warzone. “Whenever there are gunshots, even if we are afraid, we have to be brave and alert, or else we will die like the others. There’s only …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/09/queenie-liwat-campaigns-for-peace-in-north-cotabato/

A CFP BARISTA’S INTERFAITH FRIENDSHIPS

In 2009, when she had worked for two years at the Davao City café operated by Coffee For Peace (CFP), Catherine Moreno Olitao received the offer of a job in Cotabato City, on the opposite coast of the island of Mindanao. The offer came from a Moro lady of importance named Bai Jehan Baraguir, whose …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/08/a-cfp-baristas-interfaith-friendships/

KRIZ CRUZADO’S PAR STUDENTS PREPARE FOR DISASTERS

Last week, in the Davao City offices of PeaceBuilders Community, Inc. (PBCI), Kriz Cruzado and her assistant were revising field reports, sorting and transcribing receipts (“liquidating funds” in the Filipino English usage), and tying up the hundred loose ends of a nearly two year PBCI operation in the Visayan island region – a project which …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/08/kriz-cruzados-par-students-prepare-for-disasters/

PBCI FINALIZES PAR-DRN ORGANIZING IN EASTERN SAMAR

This month we mark the completion of a nearly two year PeaceBuilders Community Inc. operation designed to enhance the disaster response capabilities of the Church in the Visayan Islands of the central Philippines. From small beginnings, this program really took off thanks to the enthusiastic participation of the Visayan pastors and the financial backing of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/07/pbci-finalizes-par-drn-organizing-in-eastern-samar/

BARISTA CATHY OLITAO SPREADS THE FAIR TRADE MESSAGE

Longtime Coffee For Peace (CFP) barista Catherine Moreno Olitao wants the Philippines’ small farmers to hold onto their land. She sees how the modern, globalized economy squeezes the life out of traditional family based agriculture, pressuring poor rural folk to cash out and move to the city. Catherine’s farmer relatives live under this strain, and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/07/catherine-moreno-olitao-learning-and-teaching-at-coffee-for-peace/

MORO AUTONOMY: A MINDANAOAN CHRISTIAN’S THIRTY-YEAR ADVOCACY

Young Jun Aparece pricked up his ears when Bobby Alonto began to tune the guitar. In the Muslim dormitory, on Mindanao State University’s main campus, Alonto and his brothers were about to launch into a chorus lauding their Moro people’s age-old, ongoing struggle for self-rule. It was the early 1980s, and nearly two decades of dictator Ferdinand …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/06/moro-autonomy-a-mindanaoan-christians-thirty-year-advocacy/

JUN APARECE: HARD LESSONS OF THE PURGE

During the final years of the Martial Law era in the Philippines, massive dissatisfaction with President Marcos’s brutal dictatorship prompted thousands of idealistic young Filipinos to align themselves with the Philippines’ various rebel fronts. Most joined up with the leftist revolutionaries of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA), and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/06/hard-lessons-of-the-purge/

JUN APARECE: ACTIVIST, MISSIONARY, AGITATOR, AND PEACEBUILDER

For the last seven years, Mindanaoan acitivist Jun Aparece has given great service to PeaceBuilders Community, Inc. as a partner and consultant. To our shared tasks of grassroots organizing, rallying Mindanaoan communities for anti-war demonstrations, and broadcasting the cries of war-weary Mindanaoan civilians to their countrymen throughout the Philippines and to lawmakers in Manila, Aparece …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/06/jun-aparece-activist-missionary-agitator-and-peacebuilder/

PBCI VOLUNTEER ASSASSINATED; FIVE NEW PAR MONITORS COMMISSIONED

For more than two decades, an indigenous southern Philippine tribe, the Dulangan Manobo of Sultan Kudarat Province, have reportedly been harassed, intimidated, and forced to struggle for the right to live and to practice their livelihoods within their own ancestral territory. Since 1992, when government contracts placed much of the Dulangan Manobo territory under the control of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://peacebuilderscommunity.org/2015/05/one-pbci-volunteer-slain-five-new-par-monitors-commissioned/

OUR GLOBAL PEACE COMMUNITY

Together with Mennonite Church Canada Witness and our international peacebuilding partners, we journey in companionship, nurturing relationships that strengthen our collective commitment to justice, reconciliation, and lasting peace.