The Building Bridges: Traditional Cultural Wisdom for Community Peace project will bring together cultural communities to participate in roundtable discussions focused on exploring traditional cultural systems for building peaceful communities.
Community members from varied backgrounds will have the opportunity to share traditional models for peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
By using traditional cultural systems for peacebuilding, CMCCF aims to uncover the underlying causes of social conflicts, community violence, racism, and discrimination.
The project will help communities develop strategies to address these issues both within cultural communities and the larger community of Manitoba.
The project activities will include: a cultural community reference group; a partner leadership roundtable; a cultural communities and families roundtable; cultural communities, service providers and policymakers’ forum; youth leadership and community peacebuilding facilitator training; development of creative communication products featuring community storytellers’ messages on peacebuilding; outreach to build partnerships and expand their network across Canada.
Our purpose
The project aims to utilize traditional community decision-making structures from various cultural communities to foster positive peace, reduce tension, and address conflict in both cultural communities and the wider Manitoba society. By tapping into these age-old systems, the initiative seeks to mend the social fabric, combat racism, hatred, and discrimination, and build more inclusive, healthy, and resilient families and communities. Striving towards a goal of positive peace is not simply having a community or society where there is an absence of violence and conflict but rather it is having a community that works towards fostering community wellbeing, mutual respect, social justice and equality. Positive peace rather than negative peace is essential for individuals, families, and communities to thrive.
CMCCF’s role is to explore and understand these traditional structures as tools for building positive peace and wellbeing and for resolving social conflicts, identifying root causes, and creating strategies to strengthen communities. The ultimate goal is to foster collaboration between cultural communities and Western-centric human service organizations to advance social justice, human rights, and dignity.
The project promotes fairness, diversity, and unity through two key actions: encouraging communities to reflect on their own biases and facilitating and strengthening connections between different cultural groups. This creates support networks, challenges unfair beliefs, and promotes collaboration. Cultural communities are seen as leaders in sustaining social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (J.E.D.I. lens).
The project is designed collaboratively by CMCCF and community members, with an iterative process of engagement and realignment of activities. It will take place both in-person and virtually, using community video productions and podcasts as tools for engagement and development, primarily in Winnipeg but potentially extending beyond the city.
Read Talking Peace With Alka Kumar a Series of Blog Posts as exploring peace and peace building initiatives.
Our Peace and Safety Roundtable, creating safe spaces to discuss community peace building.
Read about our Cultural Community Planning engagements and their positive impacts for communities.
Our Community Writers Project helps highlight and amplify voices from cultural communities and the issues that matter most.
