Posts by Josh Gryniewicz

Commentary Role of NGOs as global change agents

CeaseFire was recently named in the Global Journal’s inaugural ‘Top 100 Best NGOs’ list last week. Josh Gryniewicz, Communications Director for CeaseFire, explains how the Global Journal put the list together, and the work CeaseFire is doing to earn it’s place as the top-rated conflict resolution organisation. Read more >>>

Commentary How much is peace worth?

There is a neglected garden overgrown and in disarray. The flowers— vibrant, multi-colored, beautiful— are smothered by refuse and weeds. The detritus must be cleared away to allow new growth. This metaphor came up in a debate a couple years back on whether Chicago should further invest in CeaseFire’s violence prevention approach or an economic revitalization schema. Read more >>>

From the field CeaseFire: An interrupter in Bermuda

When Ricardo “Cobe” Williams, a CeaseFire Violence Interrupter and National Training Specialist, headed to Bermuda last month to help promote the award-winning documentary The Interrupters, it was actually for a much needed vacation. Yet, when National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief requested a meeting with the Interrupter, Cobe seized the opportunity to educate the officials there on the public health alternative to violence prevention. Read more >>>

Commentary CeaseFire in Kenya

Kenya’s slums are some of the largest in the world and are a breeding ground for disease, crime and violence. Creating options, sharing experiences and building strategy for dealing with organised crime, violence and militia growth in Kenya were the running themes for a week-long programme convened by the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa and the United Nations Development Programme. Presenting at the programme was Brent Decker, Coordinator of International Programmes at CeaseFire, who looked at how to apply a model developed for gang-involved young people in Chicago to inter-tribal and militia violence. Read more >>>

Commentary The Chaos Theory navigates the London riots

From the calm tone in Pam Hothi’s voice you would have no idea that she was sitting among a raging inferno. The heat coming off the trio of burning buildings was nearly overwhelming, but regardless she kept composure. Pam’s slight figure and slender frame is contrast to an eye-of-the-storm disposition befitting an action hero, but the career youth worker, who now serves as Head of Violence Interruption for The Chaos Theory (CT), a UK-based CeaseFire replication, was polished in her professionalism amidst the London mayhem of 09 August. Read more >>>

Commentary Violence spreads like a disease

More than a metaphor, this understanding is fundamental to CeaseFire, an innovative international violence prevention program that uses disease control methods to disrupt urban violence. Violence as a disease is also a central theme of ‘The Interrupters’ an award-winning documentary, which premiered earlier this year at Sundance and was released theatrically last month. Read more >>>

Commentary CeaseFire in Iraq – the social innovation kind

As a respected Shī‘ah anniversary date approached, representing a divergence in religious thinking with the Sunni, tensions in Basrah, Iraq were high. A date reserved for reverence historically triggered violent clashes. Anticipating the conflicts the Basrah Anti-Violence Campaign (BAVC), a replication of the CeaseFire violence prevention health model, went into action. Using social marketing and public health communication strategies, BAVC launched targeted messaging around the anniversary to interrupt the potential for violence. BAVC conflict mediators visited mosques, clerics and tribal leaders to defuse simmering tensions before they erupted. Read more >>>