Our Location

6040 Delong Rd.

Indianapolis, IN 46254

Contact Us

info@peacelearningcenter.org

Mission-1
Peace Learning Center facilitates community learning that acts as a catalyst for peace, equity, and justice.
Our vision is a healed world where strong and caring communities strive together to fully live in peace.
We believe that peace is a practice. Anyone who has participated in our value-defining workshops knows values without action are just words. We work to operationalize our values into measurable, observable, and actionable behaviors.
team

We put equitable practices into action.

Knowing better enables us to do better. Each year, we conduct an Anti-Racism audit that assesses our policies for bias and racism. Our leaders take findings from the audit to guide organization-wide efforts to revise or replace problematic policies. Disrupting bias is more than our 9 to 5. We interrupt bias and racism in all its forms regardless of setting. We call in workshop participants who perpetuate racist beliefs and call out loved ones who let their harmful biases drive their behavior.

It’s not all about us. Whether it’s the content of our workshops, what we share on social media, or how we report back to our funders, we use our platform to amplify and echo other voices in our community. 

We know that being a responsive and restorative organization begins with building strong relationships.

Come as you are. Regardless of the setting, we strive to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for people of all lived experiences, identities, and abilities. In 2024, we are especially committed to busting barriers that limit the accessibility of our program spaces and offices at Eagle Creek Park.

 

Circle-group
peace-2

Connection before instruction. The content of our workshops can be confronting for some participants. We know engaging in learning that challenges established worldviews or beliefs is difficult, so we prioritize connection or inclusive activities in every workshop. Group Agreements, also called Group Norms, are mutually agreed upon before learning sessions.

Facilitating with compassion and intention. We understand that trauma shapes the lives of everyone and impacts how people learn and relate to each other. Our team is trained to be both responsive and restorative so that we can establish safe spaces for our participants to engage in brave conversations.

We welcome accountability and opportunities to learn - even when it's uncomfortable.

Our apologies are promises to do better. What we say is only half as important as what we do. When colleagues, community members, or program partners call us in, we take the necessary steps to repair harm and avoid similar situations in the future.

Looking for opportunities to educate rather than shame. While we don't excuse racism or bias, we honor that everyone is capable of learning (or unlearning), and our approach to calling out problematic language or behavior reflects that. Attack the problem not the person.

There's always more to learn. Our fiercely passionate and knowledgable team challenges the belief that only one expert can be in the room. We learn alongside our participants and each other whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Staff members also commit to attending regular professional development and bringing back their learning to share with others.

Honesty is an act of kindness. Shying away from conflict for the sake of being kind is a non-starter for our team. We believe that true compassion comes from clear and direct communication.

IMG_4998
SEP_0824
SEP_0836

We're here for a good time and a long time.

Individual choices add up to collective change. We aren't strangers to conservation or caretaking. Whether it's maintaining our historic office space, leaving no trace on hikes through Eagle Creek Park, or instructing guests about our recycling policies, we believe that our day-to-day choices can positively impact our planet.

Resources are finite, and we act like it. Our team strives to be good stewards of all of our resources - people power, money, physical goods, time-by making thoughtful purchases, sharing the workload, and having frank discussions about our internal capacity to do our work with fidelity.

Data-driven, human-led. Data on its own can only tell us so much. However, our team is dedicated to continually improving how we collect and interpret data to make better decisions about our programs, budget, and physical consumption. Long-standing partnerships with external experts make our efforts in this area more effective.