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MOTHERS FOR PEACE is an organization of Peace Circles.

A PEACE CIRCLE is the basic structure of the MOTHERS FOR PEACE and YOUTH FOR PEACE.  It is a place for sharing talents, blessings and works so that our communities may be places of healing and peace.

Each Peace Circle has 12-25 members.

A Peace Circle may be formed by

• integrating the Peace Circle into an existing organization; or
• organizing entirely new groups

You may join either the M4P peace circles (women only) or the Y4P peace circles (young men and women up to 35 years old).

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How to organize your own peace circle

1. Tell your women friends or colleagues about Mothers for Peace.

2. Discuss with your women friends and colleagues how you can help make peace or advocate for peace in Mindanao.

3. Plan your activities.

4. Meet regularly.

5. Inform us about what you’re doing.  We’d like to hear from you.

6. Subscribe to our mailing list. Send a blank email to mothersforpeace-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Conduct of Regular Meetings

Below are suggestions on how to go about your regular meetings.

1. Begin and end with a ritual. Each peace circle may create its own ritual depending on the nature of the group. Rituals may include prayers, reading of passages from the Bible or Kor’an, silence, singing, candles, meditation, or sharing of self symbols.

2. Everyone recites the Mothers for Peace Credo.

3. Everyone sings “Kababaihan Makapangyarihan.”

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4. Everyone picks a “virtue” from the pack of virtuescope cards* and reads it out loud. When everybody has read her personal “virtue,” one member chooses the group “virtue.” This is the virtue that all members of the group will work on for the week.

5. Games: Play alternative board and card games provided for in the Peace Circle kit, or play your own ice-breakers.

6. Storytelling and Reflection: read stories on peace and healing or share your own stories. Everyone offers her reflection on the reading which will reinforce the 10 principles.

7. Skills building/strengthening. Learn or practise a Thirdsider, Peacemaking, or Self-Management skill.

8. Updating and Planning: discuss concerns and issues for action.

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Trainings

Members of each Peace Circle shall undergo training in order to develop their capacities for the following:

1. Personal Peace
2. Framework for Positive Peace (Conflict Analysis)
3. Being a “Thirdsider”
4. Creativity as a Method for Attaining Peace

Identifying Activities

There are at least eight activities that every Peace Circle is expected to celebrate and undertake.

These are:

1. Bantay Peace Agreements, Bantay Peace Dividends (as often as necessary)
2. International Women’s Day (March 8 )
3. Fast for Peace and/or Duyog Ramadhan
4. Campaign on Million Thoughts and Acts of Peace (TAPs)
5. Wear Blue for Peace (International Day of Peace, Sept. 21)
6. Mindanao Week of Peace (Last week of November to first week of Dec.)
7. Clear the Clutter (Rummage Sale) - Major Fundraiser in December

* The virtuescope is a set of virtues cards developed by the Brahma Kumaris.  Whatever virtue is picked by an individual or for the group is believed to represent the virtue that is operative in the individual or the group whether it is already imbibed (affirming) or still has to be worked on.  The virtuescope tells the fortune or destiny of an individual based on forces (virtues and powers) within the self.