SPA Mission:
To empower students and faculty at all academic levels to be active peacemakers in their homes, schools, communities, nation, and beyond by encouraging engagement with policymakers, media, and community members to build sustainable peace.
Our Approach
Our Approach
- Providing tools to help students and faculty incorporate restorative justice and other peacebuilding* practices into their school systems and broader communities.
- Providing opportunities for students and faculty to mobilize for reductions in incarceration, and support education opportunities for all.
- Providing opportunities to engage in advocacy on important peacebuilding issues.
SPA Background:
Student Peace Alliance is a department within the larger Peace Alliance organization. We formed Student Peace Alliance in 2006 to focus specifically on empowering youth and students to become effective and engaged peacebuilding advocates. Together, the Peace Alliance and Student Peace Alliance have supported various peacebuilding policies and bills aimed at reducing youth incarceration and prioritizing conflict resolution and positive community development. Through our past advocacy efforts, we were instrumental in maintaining funding for international peacebuilding agencies facing budget cuts, such as the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Our focus has evolved over time as the social justice movements in our society have grown and shifted. With the rising tide of conversations and actions on issues like incarceration, police violence, and the prison-industrial-complex, SPA has adapted to meet the demands of student organizing needs in a vital campaign for justice.
What We Do:
Advocacy
Our primary focus is on issues of access to education for people impacted by the justice system. We believe that education is a human right, and that we must remove barriers to education for people who are targeted by our prison system. In doing so, we will improve lives and empower people returning from prison to strengthen themselves, their families, and their communities. This will reduce crime and help to heal individuals and communities impacted by high rates of incarceration. We also work to hold our institutions accountable to the communities in which they are situated by advocating for more just campus policies and practices.
Our primary focus is on issues of access to education for people impacted by the justice system. We believe that education is a human right, and that we must remove barriers to education for people who are targeted by our prison system. In doing so, we will improve lives and empower people returning from prison to strengthen themselves, their families, and their communities. This will reduce crime and help to heal individuals and communities impacted by high rates of incarceration. We also work to hold our institutions accountable to the communities in which they are situated by advocating for more just campus policies and practices.
Campus Organizing
SPA has a national network of chapters on campuses across the country that organize for social justice. We strive to give student chapters powerful resources to help them advocate and organize on campus, and we develop campaigns that center on the voices and needs of directly impacted people. Chapters are free to choose which campaigns they want to participate in, and we work directly with chapter leaders and liaisons to build and strengthen student groups on campus. Students are not only organizing with one another on their campus to educate their peers about specific social, racial and economic justice issues, they are also building relationships with local media and elected officials to push for meaningful legislation.
SPA has a national network of chapters on campuses across the country that organize for social justice. We strive to give student chapters powerful resources to help them advocate and organize on campus, and we develop campaigns that center on the voices and needs of directly impacted people. Chapters are free to choose which campaigns they want to participate in, and we work directly with chapter leaders and liaisons to build and strengthen student groups on campus. Students are not only organizing with one another on their campus to educate their peers about specific social, racial and economic justice issues, they are also building relationships with local media and elected officials to push for meaningful legislation.
Our Successes:
Coalitions and Partnerships:
We participated in a number of collaborative partnerships, events and actions with groups such as the national Abolish the Box coalition, STAND, Prevention and Protection Working Group, Education from the Inside Out Coalition, Coalition for Juvenile Justice, National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition, Summer of Peace & Shift Network, SGI-USA, United Religions Initiative, ACLU, Alliance for Peacebuilding, World Vision, River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Roots Action, Beyond War, BayNVC, Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, National Peace Academy, National Association of Community and Restorative Justice, Peace Ambassador Training, and others.
Clinton Global Initiative University:
Student Peace Alliance was honored to present at the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative University in support of our Peace Jobs initiative. This highly successful opportunity has led to greater awareness of our work and a partnership with the Amani Institute to provide enhanced leadership training to conflict resolution and peace studies students.
Legislation and Advocacy:
We have generated over 75,000 letters and calls to Congress and the President, as well as hundreds of direct meetings in D.C. and around the nation, on key peacebuilding and incarceration prevention legislation. In the process of this advocacy, we have raised greater awareness about community peacebuilding efforts across the country. We had an exciting victory in Colorado, where we helped pass statewide legislation that provides greater access and funding for juvenile restorative justice programs and establishes four pilot demonstration sites around the State. We joined with other groups to help re-authorize and pass the Violence Against Women Act, and also urged the President to focus on negotiation with North Korea, among other key peace issues. Our grassroots efforts have also been recognized as instrumental in helping maintain federal funding for the US Institute of Peace, the Conflict Stabilization Operations Bureau in the State Department, and the Complex Crises Fund at a time when they faced severe budget cuts. These are just some examples of our concrete successes, in addition to all of the movement building, advocacy and awareness-raising that our network has done about peacebuilding practices, tools and legislation.
We participated in a number of collaborative partnerships, events and actions with groups such as the national Abolish the Box coalition, STAND, Prevention and Protection Working Group, Education from the Inside Out Coalition, Coalition for Juvenile Justice, National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition, Summer of Peace & Shift Network, SGI-USA, United Religions Initiative, ACLU, Alliance for Peacebuilding, World Vision, River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Roots Action, Beyond War, BayNVC, Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, National Peace Academy, National Association of Community and Restorative Justice, Peace Ambassador Training, and others.
Clinton Global Initiative University:
Student Peace Alliance was honored to present at the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative University in support of our Peace Jobs initiative. This highly successful opportunity has led to greater awareness of our work and a partnership with the Amani Institute to provide enhanced leadership training to conflict resolution and peace studies students.
Legislation and Advocacy:
We have generated over 75,000 letters and calls to Congress and the President, as well as hundreds of direct meetings in D.C. and around the nation, on key peacebuilding and incarceration prevention legislation. In the process of this advocacy, we have raised greater awareness about community peacebuilding efforts across the country. We had an exciting victory in Colorado, where we helped pass statewide legislation that provides greater access and funding for juvenile restorative justice programs and establishes four pilot demonstration sites around the State. We joined with other groups to help re-authorize and pass the Violence Against Women Act, and also urged the President to focus on negotiation with North Korea, among other key peace issues. Our grassroots efforts have also been recognized as instrumental in helping maintain federal funding for the US Institute of Peace, the Conflict Stabilization Operations Bureau in the State Department, and the Complex Crises Fund at a time when they faced severe budget cuts. These are just some examples of our concrete successes, in addition to all of the movement building, advocacy and awareness-raising that our network has done about peacebuilding practices, tools and legislation.