People Building Peace 2.0 is a collection of 25 stories of peace, with personal experiences about peace initiatives. These are easy to read stories from the ground, brought to you by the Peace Portal.

To spread the word of the Peace Portal among the peacebuilding community, we organised a writing contest in July and August 2011 - the Stories of Peace Challenge. The goal was to gather personal stories from all over the world about peace initiatives from people working on peacebuilding and conflict prevention. Out of over 80 entries submitted, almost 60 were approved for entry into the contest and published on the Peace Portal (you can read them all by clicking here). On September 21st 2011, the International Day of Peace, 25 winners were selected by a jury of peacebuilding experts. 

The winning stories were published  in our book, People Building Peace 2.0. The book marks the third in GPPAC's People Building Peace series, a collection of case studies and stories on civil society-led peacebuilding initiatives. 

This book represents a unique insight into the peacebuilding world and we are happy that our challenge gave voices to many, everyday life stories of peace that otherwise will not easily find a place in a publication, but that were brought together on the Peace Portal.

The book contains not only the 25 winning Stories of Peace, but also offers an interesting overview on the evolving role of social media in the field of conflict prevention. In the first section of People Building Peace 2.0, GPPAC's Programme Manager of Preventive Action and Human Security William Tsuma reflects on the role of information in crowd sourcing for conflict prevention, while Vladimir Bratic (Assistant Professor in Media and Communication at Hollins University) provides an overview of the evolving role of media (from traditional, to ‘new' media) in peacebuilding. The book closes with a reflection from the jury and from GPPAC Executive Director, Peter van Tuijl.

The author of the best story, Francois Lenfant, received the first copy of the book at the Peace Portal Launch, which took place in The Hague (NL) on January 26th 2012.

To see some pictures from the event and to watch the recorded live stream, visit this page.

For 2012, the Peace Portal has initiated an online fundraising campaign to build on its achievements of 2011 and to remain free and open for all. 

Help the Peace Portal expand its possibilities and remain free and open.

All donations are greatly appreciated. By making a single donation of 25 euros or more, you will receive a copy of People Building Peace 2.0 for free!

This special campaign is open until the end of April 2012, and is limited to 250 copies of the book. After you have successfully completed the donation process, we will send you a confirmation email and ask for your shipping address.

You can immediately donate by using the link on this page.

For more information information about our 2012 fundraising campaign, please visit this page.

Thank you for your support,

the Peace Portal Team