Day 1– Saturday
Keynote Address
Dr. Margaret Flowers is the director of Popular Resistance and the host of Clearing the FOG Radio. She is on the administrative committee of the United National Antiwar Coalition and the executive committee of the US Peace Council. She is also an organizer with the Sanctions Kill campaign. Flowers traveled on peace delegations to Iran and Venezuela in 2019, was an international election observer for the Venezuelan National Assembly election in December 2020 and recently traveled to Nicaragua in March as part of a delegation with Sanctions Kill. She co-founded the Embassy Protection Collective, which defended the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC for 37 days in 2019 and subsequently was prosecuted by the federal government for that action. She is also on the board of the Backbone Campaign. A physician, Flowers has been active in advocating for a national improved Medicare for All and a wide variety of issues. are excited to host Margaret Flowers as our keynote speaker, the co-director of Popular Resistance, an online publication for movement news and resources.
Media Strategy Panel
Hassan El-Tayyab is FCNL’s lead lobbyist on Middle East policy. He is also responsible for representing FCNL with the various coalitions that work on these issues.
Prior to joining FCNL in August 2019, he was co-director of the national advocacy group Just Foreign Policy, where he led their lobbying work to advance a more progressive foreign policy in the Middle East and Latin America. He played a major role in the successful passage of the War Powers Resolution to end US military aid to the Saudi-UAE coalition’s war in Yemen.
Hassan’s passion for foreign affairs is rooted in his desire to make life better for people in the Middle East, including his extended family in Jordan. He is convinced that advancing a more peaceful and diplomacy-based foreign policy in the Middle East is critical, not only for the family he loves, but for peace and stability worldwide.
His writings and commentaries have been featured in numerous news outlets, including BBC World News, The Hill, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, The Intercept, and more.
Chris Geovanis has more than 25 years of experience as an advocacy journalist, writer, freelance reporter and communications professional in government, academia, business, the non-profit sector — and, of course, the street. She was one of the original organizers of Counter Media – the 1996 independent media project that set the groundwork for the creation of the global Indymedia network and its groundbreaking coverage of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. She has a strong background as an organizer and strategist for grassroots campaigns that tackle tough issues in the electoral sector, government and civil society, and she has a wealth of tactical knowhow in educating and messaging to diverse constituencies and communities.
In 2017, she joined the Chicago Teachers Union as communications director, where she’s stewarded public information campaigns on a series of strikes against charter operators — including the first charter strike in the nation — as well as the CTU’s 15 day 2019 strike for trauma supports, school nurses, social workers and other critical student needs. This spring, the CTU was the first union in the nation to win access to COVID vaccines for students and family members in school communities, whose overwhelmingly Black and Brown neighborhoods have been disproportionately hammered by COVID.
Former Environmental Reporter and 25 year host of Worldview with WBEZ
We’ve all heard the age-old proverb, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” But how often are we considering it in our movement work? Incorporating strong media strategy into our movements should be an essential step in our organizing efforts, and we’re excited for this panel representing journalists, producers, and activists to help you and your organization develop media strategy and make sure people hear about the important work you are doing!
Breakout #1
Activism 101
Unarmed Civilian Protection Tactics
Danaka Katovich, CODEPINK’s Yemen Campaign and Youth Outreach Coordinator spoke on the basics of organizing. She covered one on one meetings, setting demands, setting goals, and coalition building.
Marna Anderson, the Director of Nonviolent Peaceforce USA, spoke about using unarmed civilian protection methods in the U.S. and abroad and how we can reimagine safety and security. NP’s mission is to protect civilians in violent conflicts through unarmed strategies, build peace side by side with local communities, and advocate for the wider adoption of these approaches to safeguard human lives and dignity.
Learn more about Nonviolent Peaceforce by clicking here.
Lobby Visit Training
Setting up a Lobby Meeting Resources:
Education Not Militarization - Defend Indigenous Schools in the Philippines!
Building a Local Peace Economy
Nine out of ten Lumad (Indigenous) children in the Philippines have no access to education. To address this need, the Save Our Schools (SOS) Network helped establish schools that make free and accessible education a reality for Indigenous communities – teaching subjects such as language, history, math, agriculture, and the right to their ancestral lands.
Yet, the Philippine government sees these schools as a threat. Philippine President Duterte continues to call for the closure, destruction, and bombing of the schools. Over 200 Lumad schools have been forcibly closed under his regime, and countless Indigenous leaders were assassinated by government forces. $550 million U.S. tax dollars funds this bloodshed in the Philippines.
Learn how to rise in solidarity for Lumad rights and to demand an end to US military aid to the Philippines.
Learn more about and support the presenting orgs— Malaya Chicago and Chicago Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.
Workshop with Kelly Curry of CODEPINK
“Grounding Ourselves Through This Tumult — Fortifying our activism and inner strength through the intensity of uncertain and tumultuous times. What’s building a Local Peace Economy have to do with it?!”
Grassroots Discussion on the importance of our own personal inner grounding as we endeavor to grow & nurture community resources that call in love, hope, freedom, healing and equity as we deal with the ongoing tyrannies of colonization, White Supremacy & War Economy.
Building Coalition and Solidarity: Projects and Practices of the Women's Center and WGS at DePaul
We all belong here. We will defend each other.
In this session, members of the Women’s Center and WGS Department shared values, ideas and strategies we draw from as we seek to build relationships that support accountability, coalition, and solidarity for social change and transformation. We will focus on building through and across the power lines created by capitalism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy and heteronormativity, imperialism, ableism and other systems of oppression and violence.
Day 2– Sunday
Antiracism in Organizing Workshop
Breakout #2
Kingian Nonviolence Principles
Strategic Campaign Design
Learn the principles of Kingian Nonviolence with the facilitators from the Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training. Their mission is to engage and empower communities with the philosophy and methodology of Kingian Nonviolence, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s approach to nonviolent conflict reconciliation.
Learn more about the Addie Wyatt Center.
This workshop will be a high-level overview of the makings of effective, creative campaigns. We will focus on exploring a suite of tools for campaign development – all available for further exploration in the free, online Beautiful Trouble Toolbox.
Further Study:
Dept. of Peacebuilding Campaign Presentation
How we strive to co-create the beloved community in our teams advocating for a cabinet-level Department of Peacebuilding–transforming ourselves, our communities and our government toward a culture of peace.
Link to podcast on “Overview of DoP Legislation and Scheduling a Meeting with a Member of Congress
Link to podcast on “Overview, tips and role planning a meeting with a Member of Congress”
Link to Department of Peacebuilding speaker summit September 2020 on YouTube
Independent Peacebuilding/Violence Reduction Training and Communication Programs:
∙ Center for Nonviolent Communication
∙ The Connection Practice
∙ National Association of Community and Restorative Justice
∙ The Arbinger Institute (Books: Anatomy of Peace/Leadership and Self-Deception)
∙The Gender Knot (A. G. Johnson book on transforming the patriarchal system)
∙ The King Philosophy on Nonviolence and the Beloved Community
∙ Convergent Facilitation
Creating Organizing Spaces that Don't Lead to Burnout Panel
Panelists: Kathleen Dillon, Ebony Deberry of One Northside, Nancy Bartekian of SWANA Chicago, and Leah Bae of The Burnout Project.
The topic of burnout has become a growing point of conversation, especially in the pandemic world. We often see self care lists that include things like mediation, taking time-off, saying no— all important things, but also all things that put the burden of doing something to prevent burnout on those that are often overworked. It’s time for organizations and leaders to start asking themselves what they can be doing to create an environment that doesn’t lead to burnout.
Breakout #3
Community Organizing Workshop: Lessons from the Rust Belt
Moving Beyond an Us vs Them Perspective
Workshop with Vincent Emanuele of PARC- Politics Art Roots Culture
Politics is about power. And right now, ordinary people have very little. Over the past four years, Vincent Emanuele has been organizing in Michigan City, Indiana, a deindustrialized city that’s been ravaged by Neoliberal economic policies, the War on Drugs, and over-policing. In 2017, Vince and Sergio Kochergin opened P.A.R.C. | Politics Art Roots Culture, a community center and organizing space that’s hosted hundreds of events ranging from political organizing workshops and live music performances to poetry readings, felony expungement workshops, soup kitchens, documentary film screenings, community barbeques, art installations, and much more. Vince will talk about the methods and approaches they use in Michigan City, Indiana.
In this breakout, peace journalist Robert C Koehler, addresses questions such as— what is Restorative Justice? What is a peace circle? How do they fit into a transcendent future? He reviewed excerpts from his work “Power With, Power Over”; talk about his book project, which is about moving, at an institutional as well as a personal level, beyond a belief in domination, violence and punishment to connection, empathy and healing; then opens things up to a Q&A discussion.
Activism Through Pop Culture
Pop Culture Activism Examples:
Featuring Frank Dorrel, the publisher of Addicted to War, and Emily Dorrel, CODEPINK’s Social Media and Communications Director
This breakout room focused on distilling and disseminating challenging and complex information to be accessible to a wide range of audiences. Frank discussed his work publishing the illustrated expose, Addicted to War, and how he’s sought to get it into homes and classrooms across the US and the world. He also discussed his compilation film, What I’ve Learned About US Foreign Policy, and his work compiling and curating works from great activists as a tool for teaching foreign policy. Emily will discuss her work as CODEPINK’s social media communications director, and the methods through which she presents foreign policy issues in an engaging, concise, and easily digestible way for social media audiences.
Defund the Pentagon
Kathy Kelly on Banning Killer Drones
CAPA is advocating for a 10% cut to the bloated military budget for next year’s National Defense Authorization Act. Watch this breakout to learn why we need to defund the Pentagon, learn about the campaign, and how you can get involved!
Learn more about the campaign by clicking here or send an email to CAPA@ChiPeaceAction.org
Kathy Kelly talked about experiences living in lands where weaponized drones fire at civilians who also experience trauma because of constant drone surveillance. Noting increasing use of drones by police and military groups in the U.S., this breakout session will consider campaigns for an international treaty to ban weaponized drones and also prohibit police and military use of drone surveillance.
Help us support our Student Network and become a sustaining member!
CONTACT US
If you would like more information, to volunteer, or intern for CAPA please contact us