The brand-new “Minnesota Peace Team” did extensive violence prevention work at the US Republican National Convention, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Its success was partially an outgrowth of NP’s implementation of its regional goals “to develop high-quality training for local and regional peace team members,” and to help Member Organizations (MOs) “develop, with NP staff support, local and regional pools of qualified unarmed civilian peacekeepers.” NP staff consulted with the initiators of the Minnesota Peace Team last spring.
NP introduced a local peace team curriculum at a US/Canada workshop for experienced trainers from its Member and Supporting Organizations (SOs) in May. Following this, trainers from MOs FOR-USA, Michigan Peace Team, US NP Chapters Association and SO Veterans for Peace traveled to Minnesota to offer a very abbreviated version of our six-day curriculum to local Minnesotans, in order to train over 100 people in the short time period leading up to the convention.
NP is proud of the work of the members of the new Minnesota Peace Team, and wishes them continued success.
Minnesota Peace Team’s violence prevention work received substantial local, national and international press coverage. Here is a sampling:
From a New York Times blog in the midst of the convention: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/onboard-with-the-peace-tea...
From a local Minnesota paper describing a peace team training session in detail: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2008/08/10/alan-wilfahrt-peace-team...
From Congressional Quarterly: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002944334