Working Together to Create Peace

Peace-building is a cornerstone of CONNECT’s work. In fact, CONNECT’s mission is “to create safe families and peaceful communities by transforming the beliefs, behaviors, and institutions that perpetuate violence.” It is therefore fitting to begin the year by partnering with LIFE Camp, Inc. for New York City Peace Week 2021. We have participated in Peace Week every year since its inception 11 years ago.

To us at CONNECT, a peaceful world where we all live in safety and free from violence is not only necessary but it is possible.

“We all have a responsibility.” – President Barack Obama

In a New York Times Op Ed, Obama explained:

Every year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns. Suicides. Domestic violence. Gang shootouts. Accidents. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost brothers and sisters, or buried their own children. We’re the only advanced nation on earth that sees this kind of mass violence with this frequency.1

In fact, domestic violence perpetrated with a gun disproportionately affects women in America. Nearly 92% of all women killed by guns in high-income countries were American women, and American women are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed than women in other high-income countries.2

In America, when an abuser has access to a gun, women are five times more likely to be murdered and more than half of the intimate partner homicides committed involve a gun. Moreover, even if a gun is not discharged, abusers often use the presence or threat of a gun to intimidate and frighten the people they are abusing.3

It does not have to be this way, though.

That is why each year, LIFE Camp and the City of New York host Peace Week, the goal of which is to end violence and create a culture of peace. The Peace Week Pledge is designed to reinforce each individual’s personal commitment to making Peace a LIFEstyle 365 days a year.

Here at CONNECT, we know it is possible to work together to create a society free from violence — a society of peace. Please join us in taking the #PeaceWeek pledge and commit to one week of taking personal responsibility for making #PeaceALIFeStyle.

1. Barack Obama: Guns Are Our Shared Responsibility, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/opinion/president-barack-obama-guns-are-our-shared-responsibility.html

2. Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Domestic Violence and Firearms, https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/domestic-violence-and-firearms/#:~:text=Firearms%20contribute%20significantly%20to%20domestic,to%20control%2C%20and%20to%20kill.&text=Over%20half%20of%20all%20intimate,has%20access%20to%20a%20gun.

3. Ibid.