"I cried," said the caller. "I'm not sure why it got to me this time, but I needed to cry. Then I called you." I can't tell you how many of my friends, family members, and those I hold dear have reached out to me to unpack THIS moment - for so many reasons. This letter is to invite us to unpack it together. 
 
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Billi Wilkerson, and I joined the Board of Directors for Little Friends for Peace toward the end of 2019. For more than ten years, LFFP has been an integral part of my family. Many of you may recognize me through my children, Nandi, Maya, and CJ. CJ was 5 when he started coming to Peace Camps - he is 17 now, and last summer CJ was a camp counselor. Maya is 19 and in college. Nandi is all grown up with a baby of her own. She has integrated peacemaking principles into the design of her one-year old's play room.
 
I am a lawyer and an advocate for peace, justice, and equality. I currently work at the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law. Prior to law school, and for twenty-plus years, I worked with individuals, in communities, and with organizations teaching racial reconciliation, demonstrating peaceful conflict resolution, and advocating for marginalized communities here in DC and beyond. 
 
Since the death of George Floyd, and the protests that followed, I have had several people approach me with questions like: What is the best way to be an ally in the struggle for racial justice? Should I take my child to a protest? Am I wrong to judge another mother for taking her child to a protest? What should I do with the anger that is building inside me? If I feel helpless, what can I do? Will COVID-19 actually spike following recent protests?
 
Using the tools developed at LFFP, research, and insights from various sources, I would like to begin a series of conversations to address questions from parents, students of peace, and young children. The work that is to be done is color conscious, not color blind. There is a spectrum in the ebb and flow of life and each of us stands in a different place than the next. It's not helpful to suggest that the solutions to the problems presented in our communities are one dimensional. And yet, the simple truth is consistent. 
 
In this moment of anger, grief, violence, and unrest, I feel a deep sense of call to bring my gifts and experience to the greater community of LFFP. As you know, over the past few decades, LFFP is not as little as it once was. We have expanded our programs to include peacebuilding opportunities for adults (including adults who are experiencing incarceration), college students, teens, tweens, and children. 
 
Please let us know if you are interested in joining this conversation by emailing Caity Dee, [email protected].
 
In peace and hope,
 
Billi Wilkerson
Member, Board of Directors
Little Friends For Peace

​Learning to Live Gospel Nonviolence by Juliet Onufrak
 
 “Many of us feel desensitized and disconnected from one another. We experience this feeling in political polarization, depression, and an epidemic of domestic and youth violence.”
 
Center of Concern (Center) is a non-profit organization that researches, educates, and advocates from Catholic social tradition to create a world where economic, political, and cultural systems promote sustainable flourishing of the global community. The Center executes their mission by engaging with influential people and organizations that promote a similar mission of building a global and sustainable community. In April 2018, Education for Justice (EFJ), a project of the Center, asked LFFP’s Co-Directors MJ and Jerry Park to write an article for EFJ detailing their own mission, and how they advocate for peace and teach communities and individuals new practices and skills in order to promote peace at individual, community, and global levels.
 
The Center recognized that LFFP’s mission and vision are effective, scalable, and sustainable as means of creating global social justice. MJ and Jerry’s article captures the founding of their life work as well as the many successes they have had over the years. Various case studies are detailed in the article that provide evidence of the psychological and spiritual changes that MJ and Jerry’s work creates in individuals. The article also thoroughly reviews the structure of MJ and Jerry’s process of teaching peace, and provides the reader with some of MJ and Jerry’s tools of nonviolence, including: “The Wellness Wheel”, “The Peace Circle”, “The Body, Heart, Mind Practice”, “The Stop, Think, Act Practice,” “The Peace Table,” and finally the “The Restorative Circle.”
 
MJ and Jerry’s practices have been present in our society for 35 years. In 2018, violence has become normalized within our everyday lives. 78% of children from low income families in Washington, D.C., are exposed to violence before the age of 4. The desensitization and depression that has become a reality for so much of our country is because we have all been neglecting to take care of one another. As MJ and Jerry’s article highlights, the only way to fix the anxieties and pain that we all feel is to come together as a community and help one another learn the skills necessary to find individual and global peace.
 
To read MJ and Jerry’s article, please go to the Education for Justice website by clicking here: ​https://educationforjustice.org/resources/learning-live-gospel-nonviolence.