Our Strategic Partners

“Art of Peace is a place where I'm learning to understand the nature of our conflicts as a society and how to solve them peacefully. Looking back now, I see that it has taught me to understand the power I have to change things, even if it's just my own views. By doing activities like decoding articles and stories, I'm gaining skills like learning to not only accept that others may have views other than mine but also to understand why they might be thinking that way. These are important qualities I want in myself.”

Lilah-14 (November, 2020)

Art of Peace Club

Los Angeles, CA

Pioneered in 2010, education innovator and author Jodi Wing (The Art of Social War/ HarperCollins) created and evolved The Art of Peace content strand and ‘Club’ curricula within Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and LA’s BEST Afterschool Enrichment Program, teaching students ages seven – 17 how to manage social conflict and competition online and offline, to exercise emotional fitness and safety, to make winning choices. It is transformative thought-leadership and prevention education. Over 2500 California children have graduated the elementary-age program to date, with another 6000+ impacted in related middle and high schools. In 2013 new curricula and workshops were developed and launched, designed exclusively for boys. Much more than an anti-bullying initiative, The Art of Peace is a practice-based, empowering, and dynamic intervention and mentorship program at the ages where social, digital, and civic education is relevant and actionable.

The Art of Peace provides strategic instruction in terms of managing oneself and one’s resources efficiently in a context of social conflict and crisis, applying clarity, logic, evidence-based thinking and methodology to ever-changing circumstances, processing and synthesizing information, and managing human entanglements. Most importantly, we teach how to avoid disaster by thinking critically and regulating our emotions and impulses, as doing so enables us to limit the amount of exposure and damage we may inadvertently bring upon ourselves, or on those around us.

Cyber Dignity

Bay Area, CA

Attorney Carrie LeRoy launched this pro bono program in 2013, to inform and educate children fourteen - 18 (and educators) of their rights, obligations and 'how to' protect their dignity in the digital age, thus deterring unintended and undesired consequences through iterative discussion of high-profile cases involving cyber-crimes, issues regarding consent and negative online behaviors including sextortion, cyber bullying and the unlawful possession and distribution of content, such as nude images of minors.

Over 40 California lawyers have participated and the program has been taught to over 9,000 California teens. And the number of trusted adults willing and committed to go out into the community continue to grow. This information is just that essential to disperse to American youth, so they are equipped and empowered to make more responsible choices, report even when they feel their circumstances may fall into a gray zone and, most importantly, to prevent tragic outcomes from occurring in the first place, and that those most at-risk (whether the perpetrator or the prey) will adjust their behaviors accordingly.

The program relies on legal concepts to focus on ethics, civic and personal responsibility, especially as it relates to holding healthy personal boundaries, reinforcing the need for examining healthy interpersonal and gender dynamics.