Global Peace Tiles Project

Country: United States

Organization: Global Peace Tiles Project

2) Focus of activity: Community Involvement

3) Start Year: 2005

4) Positioning in the mosaic of solutions: Main barrier addressed: Group-based inequities Main principle addressed: Humanize the other

5) Description of initiative: Peace Tiles projects seek to initiate meaningful, lasting relationships between individuals and communities through the visual arts. Peace Tiles projects currently promote three kinds of activities:

• Individual creativity: Peace Tiles "kits" can be ordered by individuals and groups from our website or reproduced locally. - Group creativity: Through workshops, participants create individual works of art that give expression -- a "visual voice" -- to their experience with an issue. These tiles are used for inter and intra group conversation pieces.
• Sharing creativity. Through coordinated mural exhibitions and individual "swaps" carried out online, these tiles can be joined with others to create small or large-scale installations that inspire and connect.

Peace Tiles workshops -- which can last four hours to four days -- are the heart of the international effort. The Peace Tiles project encourages workshop convenors to think about three kinds of outcomes from a workshop:

• Sensitization and awareness raising. The workshop is a forum that used creativity as a vehicle to expose one group to the struggles of another.
• Self-advocacy and public awareness. The workshops are intended to enable a group to give "visual voice" to their struggles and to use their products ("tiles") to champions their needs by installing the murals in public spaces.
• Therapeutic and self-expression. Provide a safe space for people to simple exorcise their emotional response to either personal experiences -- sometimes trauma -- or their response to the experiences of others. Tiles may be kept or used in murals or for conversation pieces, depending on the wished of the participant.

What is a Peace Tile? A Peace Tile is an 8-inch by 8-inch wood tile onto which a collage is composed. "Tilers" are encouraged to use personal items such as letters, photos, or any other intimate item in combination with wet and dry media to produce deeply personal yet vibrant works of art from the heart.

6) Description of innovation: The Peace Tiles project is unique for several reasons:

• First, we encourage groups to jump in wherever they are at. This means that individuals can create tiles for fun, while still being exposed to the Peace Tiles message, values and process. It also means that groups can use the process in any way they would like: to create tiles their members will keep, tiles to produce a mural for a local school (for example), or share their tiles online and through tile "swaps."

Examples of ways different groups have used the Peace Tiles process include:

• In South Africa, to open dialogue between adolescents around sexual and reproductive health.
• In Kenya, Tanzania and Mocambique as the basis for a theater piece and set decorations.
• In Maine as a way to engage elementary school children in creating a mural for a pediatric AIDS ward at a hospital in South Africa. • In Uganda, children at a "night commuter center" in the town of Gulu created and sent tiles to children displaced by the conflict in Darfur as a gesture of solidarity.
• High school students in Salt Spring, British Columbia produced tiles that they have sent to a sister school in Lesotho as a way to strengthen their bond.

Another exciting and novel feature of Peace Tiles is that is is a highly tactile, social process with a strong online component. One of the things tile makers find most exciting about the process is that they can teach a dynamic form of art (collage) and then use the latest in internet technologies to document their tile, share it with others, and even arrange swaps with other tile-makers online.

Finally, the Peace Tiles project is looking at ways to create revenue streams for tile makers. This means that the images of tiles -- many of them extraordinarily striking and powerful works -- can be used to produce gift items like cards, mugs, calendars and other items that can be sold online through sites like cafepress.com

7) Delivery model: There are several ways we reach out target populations. Most importantly, the Peace Tiles relies on heavy social networking. The project is connected to several lists through which we are able to identify groups.

We also rely heavily on the passion of members in our network who tell others about their experience and to recommend it them, if not work directly with new groups.

One Kenyan who has become quite a Peace Tiles champion in East Africa reports that he has done a total of 32 "shows" (theater performances) on the Peace Tiles, with 25 in Kenya, 4 in Uganda, and 3 in Tanzania (to some rural centres). A total of 3,467 tiles have been made in the process by youths, and even parents and teachers. He was invited to Uganda for a youth conference, to perform the Peace Tiles play he created in 2005, for World AIDS Day 2006.

Another way that we reach our target audience is by running "at cost" workshops as a resource to conferences on related topics. For example, in July we brought the Peace Tiles process to the National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation, which uses many conflict resolution practices to solve local issues. In May the Peace Tiles project was presented to the Global Health Council during its annual meeting in Washington, where public health professionals were able to learn through experience ways the process can be used to promote HIV/AIDS education.

A third way we reach our target audience is through our website, which is a great resource for people to both become familiar with the project and to learn how to host their own Peace Tiles workshop. In the run-up to World AIDS Day this year, the Peace Tiles project offered free "beta kits" to all members. As a result, more that two dozen kits have been mailed around the world with the intent of inspiring others to use the process to engage young people in their communities.

Finally through direct outreach - local workshops - the project is able to engage a growing number of young Vermonters.

8) Key operational partnerships: Key partners of the Peace Tiles projects are largely in the NGO community. Those groups we have worked most closely with over the last year and half include:

• NextAid (www.nextaid.org)
• SOLID (www.solidsaltspring.com)
• Life in Africa Foundation (www.lifeinafrica.com)
• Visual Voices (www.visualvoices.org)
• Arts for Global Development (www.art4development.net)
• Networked Enterprise Development (Ned) (www.ned.com)

Each of these partner organizations is essential to spreading the word about Peace Tiles activities and opportunities among their own networks. Many of these groups also sponsor, convene, or in some way support Peace Tiles workshops on a regular basis. During targeted efforts - for example, World AIDS Day -many of these partners add special links and announcement to the front pages of their websites. Groups like Ned help to get Peace Tiles kits into the hands of young people who couldn't otherwise afford them by sponsoring kits at www.peacetiles.net.

The Peace Tiles has also created many "short term" or "one off" partnerships with related groups, to both add value to their programs and to increase the visibility and use of the Peace Tiles process. These groups include:

• National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (www.thataway.org)
• The Global Health Council (www.globalhealth.org)
• Members of the Omidyar Network online community (www.omidyar.net/group)
• AmericaSpeaks (www.americaspeaks.org)

These partners are central to the success of Peace Tiles.

9) Financial model: Individual and institutional donations are the greatest part of Peace Tiles revenues. Using tools like DropCash and Paypal, individuals are able to make modest, sometimes significant, contributions toward the effort. Total contributions to date have been around $20,000.

• Peace Tile Kit sales are a projected area of revenue, in which any profit is used to offset costs for participants with fewer means to purchase a kit.
• Fee for service is third area of revenue that yields surplus supplies that can be directed to communities with little financial means to participate.
• Finally, sales of Peace Tiles items such as postcards and mugs are used to support the project, with a share of the resources generated through sales going directly to communities in which the tiles were produced.

• Costs as percentage of income: 5%
• Financing: At the present time, the Peace Tiles project is financed in three primary ways: - First is through individual contributions - Second is through grants - Third is through the financial resources of Peace Tiles founder.

In the long-term, the Peace Tiles project aims to ensure financial sustainability in three ways:

• Incorporate into a 501(c)(3) to qualify for arts and arts education grants
• Expand our retail sales to generate a larger revenue stream. Sale items include the popular Peace Tiles "kits" as well as products made through the reproduction of Peace Tiles images.
• Third is to increase the level of fee-for-service work at conferences and other venues where the process is valued for is capacity to provide a creative outlet for participants.

10) Effectiveness:

• Project outcomes: There are several ways to measure effectiveness, though we haven't gotten this kind of evaluation nailed down yet. Two primary sources of evidence around our effectiveness are: - Education: More than 4,000 children in over 15 countries have been exposed to HIV/AIDS awareness-raising and education messages through Peace Tiles workshops. It is unclear how many young people have been exposed to "peer-to-peer" awareness efforts through exhibitions and online communication. - Youth have been able to advocate for their needs through international awareness-raising exhibitions that have been held at many places around the world, including major shows at the Global Fund in Geneva, the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, the Armory Center for the Arts in Los Angeles, and in Dakar, Senegal.
• Number of clients in past year: In 2005, Peace Tiles made small grants ($200-$1,000) to six participating communities to help lower the barriers to entry. Funds were used to purchase art supplies, cover shipping costs, etc. At the same time, three artists were sent to India and Thailand to provide hands on instruction at 8 workshops for young people directly affected by and at risk for HIV/AIDS. These workshops engaged more than 700 young people in workshops. In 2006, more than a dozen Peace Tiles "kits" containing supplies for up to 8 tiles were sent out to communities in the US, Africa, and Central America. These kits have been used to engage more than 100 young people in tile-making workshops and to produce local murals. Dozens of groups have downloaded "how to" information and carried out their own activities.

11) Scaling up strategy

• Stage of the initiative: Start Up stage.
• Expansion plan: The expansion plan for the Peace Tiles project includes the following key activities:

• Nurture key tile-making "nodes" within the network by providing in-kind support, training, documentation, and limited cash grants. This will be done to amplify and spotlight their existing efforts.
• Dedicate resources to increasing the production of Peace Tiles kits, including a) decentralizing production to regional sites to reduce shipping costs and b) experimenting with ways to lower the cost of production for US-made tile kits.
• Improve our current website to make it more web2.0 ready, which means linking with more partners (or creating pages for those without websites), registering with visibility-boosting sites like Technorati, and creating visibility within social networks like myspace.com.
• Dedicate more time to training and skills-building workshops across the country and the world.

12) Origin of the initiative: I have been a collage and multimedia artist for a long time, with a particular interest in using these media as tools for learning both in and out of the classroom. In 2005 I was experimenting with new techniques of applying paint and paper to wood surfaces inspired by the Washington Color School artist Sam Gilliam. One day, my daughter and I were working together in our basement, she was applying paints in wild and wonderful ways and I was tearing up the paper, applying it to wood, sealing it, and she would then add more layers of paint, crayon, etc. We had so much fun together I wanted to share the experience with others. Because of my familiarity with HIV/AIDS for many reasons, I decided that I would try and use Peace Tiles as a way to contribute to the campaign against the AIDS pandemic. Since then I've had requests to support people around other issues in their communities.