What We Do
We support the mandate and objectives of Project Ploughshares by:- Holding educational meetings, normally on the second Wednesday night of each month.
- Maintaining an office and resource centre staffed by our Program Director.
- Publishing a monthly newsletter.
- Sponsoring workshops and special events on peace and nonviolence.
- Providing schools, churches, and groups with resources, leaders, and resource persons on such topics as:
- conflict resolution for children/adults
- alternatives to war
- peace and violence in our culture
- disarmament of nuclear weapons
- control of small arms
Project Ploughshares Calgary has since 1982 supported the mandate and objectives of Project Ploughshares. Some of these efforts include:
- Raising awareness about the testing of the cruise missile in Alberta.
- Working with other Calgary-based groups to have Calgary declared s a nuclear-weapon-free zone in 1987.
- Protesting Canadian participation in the US Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as Star Wars).
- Providing educational sessions on the concept of Common Security, which stressed in the nuclear age nations cannot achieve security at each other's expense.
- Supporting the World Court Project, a world-side campaign that resulted in the historic opinion from the International Court of Justice in 1996 that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal.
- Supporting the campaign to ban landmines, which led to the Mine Ban Treaty signed in 1997 in Ottawa.
- Proving Calgary schools with workshops and Remembrance Day speakers.
- Marking September 21 the United Nations International Day of Peace.
- Supporting educational events for student through Educators for the Environment, Peace and Social Justice and Youth Action for Peace.
- Supporting the Control Arms Campaign, that calls for a global, legally binding agreement to control the irresponsible transfers of conventional weapons and munitions.
- Having the Mayor of Calgary join Mayors for Peace in 2005, an initiative of the Mayor of Hiroshima to offer cities a way to work together to press for nuclear abolition.
- Carrying out an anti-bullying project in schools in 1998 and 1999 using actors and skits in which students could help transform bullying situations - followed by Puppets for Peace project from 2001 to 2009 that used four interactive plays on bullying and empowerment, reaching over 40,000 students and teachers.
- Working with the Calgary Community Peace Pole Committee from 200-2009 to install a peace pole in a public space in Calgary.