The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation

The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation celebrates Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu's legacy of love and unity.

We strive to promote peacemaking activities, reconciliation, conflict resolution, and ethical leadership.

The mission of the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, in collaboration with the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre and Peace Trust, is to support and promote the creation of a culture of peace throughout the world. In the spirit of our founder, Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the South African experience, we are dedicated to advancing reconciliation, peace-building, non-violence, conflict resolution and ethical leadership so that all may live in a more peaceable and sustainable world.

The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation was established by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and incorporated in New York as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation in December 1999. The Honorary Co-Chairs are the Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey.

YPeace: We at the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation recognize that children and youth are the future leaders and peacemakers of the world. They have the capacity to change and improve the world for subsequent generations. In order to be able to bring about positive change and to effectively engender peace, they need to be well-informed and well-equipped to deal with problems that they face on a personal level, as well as more complex global problems. The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation therefore hopes to realize its mission of promoting peace through youth by providing them with resources with which to best become tomorrow’s ethical leaders and peacemakers.

In order to do this we are building YPeace.org (YPeace), an interactive multi-media website. YPeace will be a virtual peace center: multimedia web-based environment and online curriculum aimed initially at a global audience of young people aged 13 through 15, as well as their parents, teachers and community leaders. Learning tools will include games and other interactive tools such as quizzes, polls, and a media gallery where users can upload their own art work, photographs, stories and poems which relate to peace. YPeace will also include traditionally formatted information and resources which will be available for download.

Schools for Peace: This program of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, will be a peace education intervention to deal with violence and bullying in South Africa’s schools, which are often caused persistent racism, sexism and xenophobia. We will train teachers in facilitation and mediation and they will become Ambassadors for Peace within their schools. There will also be a Schools for Peace Curriculum for school children of all ages, which will teach about peaceful ways to resolve conflict and engage students in respectful debate and creative expression.
Each school that is part of Schools for Peace will host a ‘Schools for Peace’ Festival to coincide with the commemoration of Human Rights Day on March 21. To celebrate, students will produce a number of Festival showpieces that are peace-related and that tie into the existing curriculum for History, the Arts, Languages and Life Orientation. The use of multi-media is encouraged.

YPeace: It is hoped that YPeace will educate young people about how to resolve conflict and encourage respect for people from different backgrounds and cultures. It will also show young people how they can have a positive impact on global peace issues, suggesting ways in which they may help and providing the tools to enable them to do this. YPeace is also intended to help young people to achieve personal, or inner peace, thereby addressing some of the problems that young teens face in their lives. Because it is a web-based program, YPeace will reach a wide audience of young people in different countries and in both urban and rural areas.

Schools for Peace: This peace education program will reach 110,000 students in 109 high-risk schools when it is piloted in 2008 and 2009, in the Western Cape Province, the southernmost region of Africa and home of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre. In 2010, we aim to rollout nationally, reaching about 12 million South Africa students. The program will strive to bring about a true culture of peace and human rights in South Africa, enabling the students it reaches to build a better, more tolerant and inclusive South Africa.

Dr. Donna Blackwell is the Executive Director of the New York-based Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation Dr. Blackwell has extensive experience in the business, non-profit and international development sectors. Prior to joining the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation she was the Chief Executive Officer of Human Works, a management consulting firm she founded. Clients included multi-national corporations, such as American Express, Avon Products, Time Warner and First Data Corporation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health and the United Way of New York City were among her non-profit clients. Previously, she was Vice President of Marketing Communication at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Dr. Blackwell serves on the Board of Governors of the Off-The-Record Lecture Series of the Foreign Policy Association, the Board of Directors of the World Foundation of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, and the Board of Directors of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.

She earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

Executive Members:
President - The Very Reverend George Regas, Executive Director of the Regas Institute, Pasadena, CA
Vice President Strategy - Patricia A. McLagan, CEO McLagan International, Inc., Washington DC and Cape Town, South Africa
Secretary - Gloria Hartley, Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY
Treasurer - Barry Smith, MD, Ph.D., Senior VP of the Rogosin Institute and Director of the Dreyfus Health Foundation, New York, NY
Nominations - Meredith Tilp, International Consultant, Santa Fe, NM

Members at large:
Joanne Ciulla, Ph.D., Professor at Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, Richmond, VA
Vanessa Crews, Development Director at the Center for Architecture, New York, NY
Nadine B. Hack, President of beCause Global Consulting, Inc., New York, NY (on a leave of absence)
Ingrid Saunders Jones, Senior Vice President, Corporate External Affairs, The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, GA
Judith A. Mayotte, Ph.D., Visiting Professor from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, based in Cape Town, South Africa
David Pierce, Ph.D., Washington DC
The Very Reverend Robert Taylor, Dean of Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, WA

South Africa, United States

205 East 64th Street
Suite 404
New York, NY 10021
Phone: (212) 750-5504
www.tutufoundation-usa.org
EIN: 13-4092458