MasterPeace Clubs
Local changemakers from around the world
At any given day of the year, feel free to check the world map of MasterPeace: chances are that you will spot a group of inspiring and enthusiastic changemakers close by who are working on creating peace one step at a time within their own community. Don’t hesitate to reach out to the Club leaders directly (find them among OUR TEAM) to see how you can join their creative peace-building activities. Couldn’t find a Club in your vicinity? We are constantly on the lookout for like-minded individuals and organisations, so go ahead and fill in the APPLICATION FORM – and you might be contacted to join our family soon enough!
WHAT ARE MASTERPEACE CLUBS?
MasterPeace Clubs are on-the-ground arms of MasterPeace, empowering and mobilizing more and more individuals around the world to become actively involved in peace-building and conflict prevention. Whether you’re an aspiring changemaker or already running a well-established organisation, we are all here to connect, learn and create peace together by creating concepts, campaigns and funding. Together.
The model of a MasterPeace Club is adaptable and flexible. On the one hand, a Club can be started from scratch by a small group of people: these can be social entrepreneurs, young changemakers, university students, or just a group of friends seeking to become a sustainable force for peace. When it’s hard to kick things off from the ground, MasterPeace comes in with fresh ideas, operational support and as a medium for making the voices & stories heard at a global scale.
On the other hand, MasterPeace is also open to already established local organisations, who may have an extensive track record of building peace at the grassroots level, but resonate with our innovative, creative and holistic approach towards this goal. We always leave it up to the organisation to decide what is the most relevant and appropriate way to join as a MasterPeace Club: usually, it means adapting a subset of their existing activities to the message, vision and branding of MasterPeace. And joining our global campaigns of course, such as the International Day of Peace.
CLUBS PHILOSOPHY & ACTIVITIES
A MasterPeace Club serves as a platform to foster a diverse set of activities towards building peace and togetherness within the local community. These activities come from the kind of engagement that is driven by the heart, passion, dreams, and dedication towards creating a better world. MasterPeace believes in the power of actions, no matter how big or small, and offers freedom for each active group of changemakers to create the projects, programs or actions that they truly believe can create deep and sustainable change. Our peace-builders don’t join to be part of an organization, they join to co-create.
You might be wondering what exactly are the types of activities that our Clubs carry out. Well, these can be a peace walk on the streets or an international conference on peace-building, and anything in between (the best way to get an overview is to read the STORIES page). The activities are very diverse by definition, because that’s exactly what we encourage: the Clubs have the opportunity to organize anything that is creative, positive and most relevant on the local level. This creativity in music, art and play (“soft power”) always remain the underlying elements, as we feel that this can truly inspire, connect and grow every person in their self-confidence, self-awareness, talents and abilities.
However, even among the most diverse set of activities, certain patterns and logic emerge. After years of exploring, we see that our Club’s projects can be aligned with the three main steps towards creating peace:
1) ENGAGE; we use the power of arts, music, sport and play to inspire, mobilise, grow self-esteem, help in reconcilistaion and healing with oneself and ‘the other’
2) CONNECT; we facilitate dialogue which means be open to ‘the other’ and to include all stakeholders in the local ecosystem, including the public and private sector
3) EMPOWER; we create perspective for youth on a local and regional level through leadership trainings, capacity-building programmes and starting up social enterprises.
In addition, the Clubs’ projects are also aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with a main focus on SDG4 (Quality Education), SDG5 (Gender Equality), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG13 (Climate Action) and SDG16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Please refer to our ABOUT page to read more about the reasoning behind these themes.
Why join MasterPeace?
MasterPeace believes that by donating your talents for a social cause, you can truly grow to the next level personally as well professionally. By joining MasterPeace, you will gain new insights on leadership, learn how to create local impact, and receive capacity-building tools that you can then implement within your team or community straight away. Remember that a true leader does not create followers, but creates more leaders!
Becoming a part of an international, innovative and inspiring grassroots movement is a truly empowering experience. You will meet changemakers from other parts of the world, who are defying all odds and working towards peace in their locality, continuously and wholeheartedly. Whether you’re the Club leader, storyteller, partnerships manager or just an active member, the journey that you’ll embark on through MasterPeace (sometimes for several years) will bring you to completely unexpected destinations.
What does it take to bring your MasterPeace Club to the next level? We are here to find out, together. MasterPeace core team is constantly busy with supporting all the Clubs on their daily inquiries, providing the teams with creative ideas and tools to execute their activities. For instance – by filling in the MasterPeace Roadmap, the Clubs set their objectives for the upcoming year, while the biannual MEAL form gives an opportunity to celebrate the successes and reflect on the shortcomings. All this has the goal of growing stronger and gain more impact, step by step.
In addition, the core team works towards building up a network of “talentbankers”, who are experts in internal and external communications, project management, ICT, design and more. These individuals can coach MasterPeace Clubs in fulfilling their peace-building dreams and objectives. At all times, the core team and talentbankers will only come in to be present and listen, rather than preach or teach: only the changemakers themselves can understand the local context to the deepest level. But sometimes, there can be real added value in reflecting and brainstorming, together.
Finally, the ultimate goal for MasterPeace Clubs is to become financially self-sustainable. With this in mind, we particularly support developing for-profit projects that enable the Clubs to achieve profitable returns while providing solutions to social problems. As explained in our mission and values, we believe that the lack of local perspective is a main source of the extremism and polarization within the modern world. By the facilitation of start-ups and social enterprises, we hope to offer new employment perspectives for the youth, and thus prevent people from choosing for extreme alternatives.
MasterPeace is a global family of changemakers with a similar mindset of creativity, positivity and impartiality, who are working towards the same goal of building sustainable peace among their local communities. Every new Club that comes in brings along new connections, knowledge and experience on how to best achieve this goal. As the core team, we are capitalizing on that by “connecting positive dots” around the world, and encouraging peer-to-peer coaching between Clubs whose solutions to local challenges might have regional or international relevance. The network of MasterPeace is fast-paced and agile: we’re constantly designing new concepts and co-creating for grants based on this “glocal” perspective.
Digital connections are great, but nothing replaces networks that are built through face-to-face and heart-to-heart connections. Every year, Club leaders have the opportunity to travel, meet and get inspired by MasterPeacers from around the world during the MasterPeace Global Bootcamp. They are also invited to regional MasterPeace events such as the Asian Youth Summit or African Youth Leadership Summit – find Stories about these events here. Finally, the network is not only internal, but external too: MasterPeacers continuously work to build up relationships with various partners from the private sector, local governments, other civil society actors and local/regional/global media. We are stronger if our energies and minds are put together.
Joining the MasterPeace network of peace-builders is for free, but not a free ride. Each MasterPeace Club signs an official MasterPeace Clubs licence, which entails committing to at least four MasterPeace projects a year, reporting on these projects, regular communication with the core team and financial self-sustainability (we’re never “giving a man a fish”). All Clubs also join our international campaign for the International Day of Peace on the 21st of September.
In exchange, you get inspiration, empowerment and plenty of fun during your MasterPeace journey!
"This is a life-changing experience."