As part of a busy year with more than 50 separate events, the NAPF Peace Leadership Program in 2014 expanded globally, across the country, and into the American heartland, with special keynotes, trainings, and lectures that brought new inspiration to high school and college students, veterans, activists, college professors, and concerned citizens.
Winter and spring 2014 saw NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell sharing peace leadership training among First Nation members in Nova Scotia, Canada and war-weary survivors in Gulu in northern Uganda.
In June he delivered the keynote address on “Why World Peace Is Possible” at OLMUN 2014 to 700 students from many European countries at the annual Model United Nations in Oldenburg, Germany. OLMUN 2014 was one of the largest Model United Nations held in Europe.
In the fall the Dayton International Peace Museum in Ohio sponsored Paul Chappell to deliver a week’s worth of lectures in central, southern, and northwest Ohio. He spoke at universities, high schools, and churches, and to the museum’s docents and donors.
His 2014 keynotes included the 29th Annual Maryland United for Peace and Justice Conference, the annual conference for the Peace and Justice Studies Association in San Diego, and the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers Annual Celebration at the St. Paul Landmark Center. Paul Chappell also lectured as part of the Culture of Peace Distinguished Speaker Series at the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist Centers in both New York City and Washington, D.C. He also gave the Public Forum lecture at the University of New England Center for Global Humanities; which in the past had hosted Noam Chomsky, Bill McKibben, and NAPF Advisory Council Member Helen Caldicott, M.D.
In the U.S., peace leadership trainings and workshops were held with graduate students in San Diego, high schools students in Santa Barbara, and community and activist groups in Washington, D.C.; Bridgton, Maine; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Minneapolis, Minnesota; and with the docents at the Dayton International Peace Museum.
Plans are underway for an even busier 2015. This growing schedule already includes the University of California/Irvine Center for Citizen Peacebuilding Conference, a 4 day Peace Leadership training on the graduate level at the University of San Diego, School of Leadership and Education Sciences, and the 36th Annual Convocation for Peace and Justice in Baltimore, Maryland. Other events will include the Clifford and Virginia Durr Memorial Lecture at Auburn University, in Montgomery, Alabama, the Kent State University 45th Commemorative Anniversary in Kent, Ohio, and keynote speaker at the Presbyterian Fellowship Convocation of Peacemakers in Stony Point, New York.
For 2015 the Dayton International Peace Museum is planning for two separate weeks of events. Museum co-founder Christine Dull said, “Paul Chappell is a prophet for our times. Would that all thoughtful young people could experience his wisdom, whether from his interactive talks or his beautifully expressed books. Through his fine mind and great heart, Paul shows us that peacemaking requires as much discipline as war, but the motivation is the opposite. It comes from the recognition that we are all one human family.”