Our Values
We exist to end war.
We exist to end war.
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Our peacemaking is more than providing emergency aid or helping refugees start new businesses. At the center of everything we do—every food delivery, every family we serve—is the pursuit of peace between communities at odds.
We’re not just aid workers. We are peacemakers. Every meal, every liter of water, every new job is a chance to demonstrate a different kind of love. A love big enough to unmake violence.
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We don’t wait for people to flee conflict, walking miles to the confines of a refugee camp or shelters. What about those too sick or frail to flee? What about those who don’t want to give up their sovereignty and subject their families to perpetual displacement?
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The aid industry has no shortage of subject matter experts and technocratic problem solvers who can jump from one crisis to the next. We are different. We don’t just see problems that require a uniform response. We see friends.
So we don’t come in with solutions; we come in with questions. We come to listen to the people we serve. Subject matter expertise can be learned. Loving and listening to the people we’re here to help is a posture that has to be lived.
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Traditional approaches to aid often weaken local economies. They fail to leave behind local institutions that can offer sustainable solutions, long after all the big aid organizations have packed up and moved on to the next crisis.
We’re different. We invest in small, local communities who know the people, places, needs, and solutions best. We stay and help them grow their capacity—so that when we do leave, we leave behind institutions that are equipped to continue serving their communities.
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Many groups force you to leave some part of yourself at the door, in the name of tolerance or shared identity. But it’s only by being together, knowing each other as we fully are, that we can rise above our most divisive, polarizing tendencies.
We bring our whole selves to the table—our faith, our politics, our identities. But most of all, we share the table with each other. We value openness and honor for one another.
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Emergency aid is often separated from longer-term considerations such as economic impact, politics, and reconciliation between communities in conflict. We believe that every emergency aid decision can be a long-term development and reconciliation decision.
Instead of merely talking about peacemaking, we aim to build teams of all ethnicities and faiths to do emergency relief and long-term development together.