The second Winnipeg Peace-First: CLNET Hub Gathering was hosted by WE YONE PALAVER HUT PROJECT INC. on Friday, February 20, 2026. This gathering built on the momentum of the first hub conversation and brought together participants who had attended the first session, along with new cultural community members interested in contributing to a broader peacebuilding vision for Winnipeg and Manitoba.
This second gathering was an important continuation of an emerging community-based dialogue on peace, belonging, inclusion, and the future of cultural communities. It reflected CMCCF’s Peace-First approach, which invites participants to think about peace not simply as the absence of conflict, but as the active presence of safety, fairness, dignity, opportunity, strong relationships, and a shared sense of belonging. In that respect, the gathering created a meaningful space for participants to speak from lived experience, reflect on their hopes for the future, and identify practical conditions that help communities flourish.
As with the first gathering, the format encouraged a balance of individual reflection, small-group dialogue, shared learning, and collective visioning. Participants were invited to move beyond immediate concerns and think more deeply about what a peaceful community could look like over the next five years, what ingredients would make that possible, and why those ingredients matter at the level of the individual, the family, and the wider community.
A representative from WE YONE PALAVER HUT PROJECT INC. opened the evening with a Land Acknowledgment and words of welcome. The facilitator from CMCCF then outlined the purpose of the gathering, reviewed the agenda, and organized participants into smaller discussion groups to support fuller engagement and deeper conversation.
Following dinner at approximately 6:30 p.m., participants began discussions in four small groups of approximately six people each. This small-group format allowed attendees to share openly, exchange ideas respectfully, and listen to a range of perspectives rooted in different cultural and community experiences. Each group later reported back to the larger gathering, sharing their reflections on the guiding questions for the evening.
The reflection questions for the second hub gathering were:
- What will your peaceful community look like in five years?
- What are the key components or ingredients that would help make your community more peaceful?
- How do these components contribute to positive peace, and why are they important to you?
Vision of a Peaceful Community in Five Years
When participants reflected on what they hoped to see and experience in five years, several common themes emerged. Together, these themes painted a picture of a community where peace is not abstract, but visible in the daily lives of people and families.
Participants expressed a hope for:
- Greater inclusivity, where no one is left out of social, economic, health, or justice-related systems and services.
- Safer neighbourhoods, where people feel secure, welcomed, and free from fear.
- Healthier individuals and communities, including longer and better-quality lives, especially for people from cultural communities who may face multiple barriers.
- A stronger sense of belonging, where cultural communities are not on the margins but are seen, respected, and engaged as valued contributors.
- A healthier ecological and social environment, where communities work together in ways that strengthen both social relationships and the broader environment.
What stood out in these conversations was that participants did not define peace narrowly. They viewed peace as something that includes wellbeing, visibility, fairness, trust, safety, and the ability to participate fully in community life.
Key Components or Ingredients of a More Peaceful Community
Participants identified several key ingredients that they believe are necessary for building a more peaceful Winnipeg community. These included:
- Availability of basic amenities and supports for everyone, recognizing that peace is difficult to sustain where people do not have access to essential needs and opportunities.
- Meaningful representation of cultural communities in policy development and decision-making, so that the lived realities of diverse communities shape the systems that affect them.
- A genuine level playing field, where race, colour, creed, culture, and background do not determine whether a person has access to opportunity, justice, or respect.
- Access to equitable social, health, and economic services, across generations and across communities.
- Stronger trust in institutions and public systems, built through visible fairness, accountability, and responsiveness.
These ingredients point to a deeper understanding of peace. Participants made clear that peaceful communities do not happen by chance. They require intentional action, fair structures, inclusive leadership, and systems that work for everyone.
Why These Ingredients Matter: A Positive Peace Lens
When discussing the third reflection point, participants were invited to consider the importance of these peacebuilding ingredients through three lenses: self, family, and community.
At the level of the self, participants spoke about how fair and inclusive systems reduce the stress, uncertainty, and emotional burden that many people experience when trying to adapt, survive, and move forward in a new or changing environment. When people feel that systems are accessible and just, they are more likely to feel secure, hopeful, and motivated to build their lives.
At the level of the family, participants noted that peaceful communities must include services, opportunities, and supports that reflect the realities of families across generations. Families need to see themselves in the structures around them. They need social, educational, economic, and health systems that are inclusive, culturally aware, and responsive to their lived circumstances.
At the level of the community, participants emphasized that these ingredients strengthen trust, cooperation, and peaceful coexistence. They help create the conditions for people from diverse backgrounds to live together with greater understanding, respect, and shared responsibility. In this way, positive peace becomes something practical: it shapes whether people feel visible, whether they trust public systems, whether they can participate, and whether they believe they have a future in the community.
This part of the discussion was especially important because it highlighted that peacebuilding is not only about resolving conflict after it appears. It is also about creating the conditions that prevent exclusion, hopelessness, mistrust, and disconnection from taking root in the first place.
Key Value of the Gathering
The second hub gathering demonstrated that cultural community members have clear, thoughtful, and experience-based insights about what peacebuilding requires. It also showed that when people are given respectful space to reflect together, they can identify both a hopeful vision and concrete conditions for moving toward it.
The value of the gathering lay not only in the ideas shared, but also in the process itself. Bringing people together across communities helped strengthen relationships, deepen trust, and create a growing sense that peacebuilding must be co-created with those who live its realities every day. The gathering served as another step in building a broader network of people committed to shaping more peaceful, equitable, and connected communities in Manitoba.
Looking Ahead
The evening concluded with strong interest from participants in continuing the conversation. Attendees expressed enthusiasm for the third Winnipeg hub gathering, which was scheduled to be hosted by ECCM on March 27, 2026. To support continued communication and future engagement, attendees’ phone numbers were collected as part of ongoing relationship-building and outreach.
Overall, this second hub gathering reinforced the importance of maintaining spaces where cultural communities can speak openly, imagine collectively, and contribute directly to the shaping of a peaceful future. It affirmed that peacebuilding begins with voice, relationship, reflection, and the courage to imagine communities where everyone has a place.
ok bro headings and bolds plz style thos come on
2:40 PM
Second Winnipeg Peace-First: CLNET Hub Gathering
The second Winnipeg Peace-First: CLNET Hub Gathering was hosted by WE YONE PALAVER HUT PROJECT INC. on Friday, February 20, 2026. This gathering built on the momentum of the first hub conversation and brought together participants who had attended the first session, along with new cultural community members interested in contributing to a broader peacebuilding vision for Winnipeg and Manitoba.
This second gathering was an important continuation of an emerging community-based dialogue on peace, belonging, inclusion, and the future of cultural communities. It reflected CMCCF’s Peace-First approach, which invites participants to think about peace not simply as the absence of conflict, but as the active presence of safety, fairness, dignity, opportunity, strong relationships, and a shared sense of belonging. In that respect, the gathering created a meaningful space for participants to speak from lived experience, reflect on their hopes for the future, and identify practical conditions that help communities flourish.
As with the first gathering, the format encouraged a balance of individual reflection, small-group dialogue, shared learning, and collective visioning. Participants were invited to move beyond immediate concerns and think more deeply about what a peaceful community could look like over the next five years, what ingredients would make that possible, and why those ingredients matter at the level of the individual, the family, and the wider community.
A representative from WE YONE PALAVER HUT PROJECT INC. opened the evening with a Land Acknowledgment and words of welcome. The facilitator from CMCCF then outlined the purpose of the gathering, reviewed the agenda, and organized participants into smaller discussion groups to support fuller engagement and deeper conversation.
Following dinner at approximately 6:30 p.m., participants began discussions in four small groups of approximately six people each. This small-group format allowed attendees to share openly, exchange ideas respectfully, and listen to a range of perspectives rooted in different cultural and community experiences. Each group later reported back to the larger gathering, sharing their reflections on the guiding questions for the evening.
The reflection questions for the second hub gathering were:
- What will your peaceful community look like in five years?
- What are the key components or ingredients that would help make your community more peaceful?
- How do these components contribute to positive peace, and why are they important to you?
Vision of a Peaceful Community in Five Years
When participants reflected on what they hoped to see and experience in five years, several common themes emerged. Together, these themes painted a picture of a community where peace is not abstract, but visible in the daily lives of people and families.
Participants expressed a hope for:
- Greater inclusivity, where no one is left out of social, economic, health, or justice-related systems and services.
- Safer neighbourhoods, where people feel secure, welcomed, and free from fear.
- Healthier individuals and communities, including longer and better-quality lives, especially for people from cultural communities who may face multiple barriers.
- A stronger sense of belonging, where cultural communities are not on the margins but are seen, respected, and engaged as valued contributors.
- A healthier ecological and social environment, where communities work together in ways that strengthen both social relationships and the broader environment.
What stood out in these conversations was that participants did not define peace narrowly. They viewed peace as something that includes wellbeing, visibility, fairness, trust, safety, and the ability to participate fully in community life.
Key Components or Ingredients of a More Peaceful Community
Participants identified several key ingredients that they believe are necessary for building a more peaceful Winnipeg community. These included:
- Availability of basic amenities and supports for everyone, recognizing that peace is difficult to sustain where people do not have access to essential needs and opportunities.
- Meaningful representation of cultural communities in policy development and decision-making, so that the lived realities of diverse communities shape the systems that affect them.
- A genuine level playing field, where race, colour, creed, culture, and background do not determine whether a person has access to opportunity, justice, or respect.
- Access to equitable social, health, and economic services, across generations and across communities.
- Stronger trust in institutions and public systems, built through visible fairness, accountability, and responsiveness.
These ingredients point to a deeper understanding of peace. Participants made clear that peaceful communities do not happen by chance. They require intentional action, fair structures, inclusive leadership, and systems that work for everyone.
Why These Ingredients Matter: A Positive Peace Lens
When discussing the third reflection point, participants were invited to consider the importance of these peacebuilding ingredients through three lenses: self, family, and community.
At the level of the self, participants spoke about how fair and inclusive systems reduce the stress, uncertainty, and emotional burden that many people experience when trying to adapt, survive, and move forward in a new or changing environment. When people feel that systems are accessible and just, they are more likely to feel secure, hopeful, and motivated to build their lives.
At the level of the family, participants noted that peaceful communities must include services, opportunities, and supports that reflect the realities of families across generations. Families need to see themselves in the structures around them. They need social, educational, economic, and health systems that are inclusive, culturally aware, and responsive to their lived circumstances.
At the level of the community, participants emphasized that these ingredients strengthen trust, cooperation, and peaceful coexistence. They help create the conditions for people from diverse backgrounds to live together with greater understanding, respect, and shared responsibility. In this way, positive peace becomes something practical: it shapes whether people feel visible, whether they trust public systems, whether they can participate, and whether they believe they have a future in the community.
This part of the discussion was especially important because it highlighted that peacebuilding is not only about resolving conflict after it appears. It is also about creating the conditions that prevent exclusion, hopelessness, mistrust, and disconnection from taking root in the first place.
Key Value of the Gathering
The second hub gathering demonstrated that cultural community members have clear, thoughtful, and experience-based insights about what peacebuilding requires. It also showed that when people are given respectful space to reflect together, they can identify both a hopeful vision and concrete conditions for moving toward it.
The value of the gathering lay not only in the ideas shared, but also in the process itself. Bringing people together across communities helped strengthen relationships, deepen trust, and create a growing sense that peacebuilding must be co-created with those who live its realities every day. The gathering served as another step in building a broader network of people committed to shaping more peaceful, equitable, and connected communities in Manitoba.
Looking Ahead
The evening concluded with strong interest from participants in continuing the conversation. Attendees expressed enthusiasm for the third Winnipeg hub gathering, which was scheduled to be hosted by ECCM on March 27, 2026. To support continued communication and future engagement, attendees’ phone numbers were collected as part of ongoing relationship-building and outreach.
Overall, this second hub gathering reinforced the importance of maintaining spaces where cultural communities can speak openly, imagine collectively, and contribute directly to the shaping of a peaceful future. It affirmed that peacebuilding begins with voice, relationship, reflection, and the courage to imagine communities where everyone has a place.
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