Founded in 2003, Empower Peace is a Boston-based 501(c)3 international nonprofit dedicated to bridging cultural and communication divides between young people worldwide. Empower Peace uses the latest in interactive technologies and intensive leadership training to break down misconceptions and build meaningful relationships and skills. Through a global network of students, teachers and schools, Empower Peace is providing the next generation with the opportunities and tools needed to advance mutual respect, understanding and peace.
Since 2003, Empower Peace has connected over 70,000 young people in 64 countries around the world through our programs. Additionally, Empower Peace programming has been broadcast via television and radio broadcasts to a footprint of over 600 million people in more than 100 countries through our global television and radio broadcast partners. Our international media partners have included: BCC Radio; Al Arabiya Television; Al Hurrah Television, Future TV and Geo TV in Pakistan.
Empower Peace’s Women2Women International Leadership Program remains our “crown jewel.” Each Summer, over a period of seven days, Women2Women conducts an international leadership program in Boston, Massachusetts, bringing together over 100 emerging young women leaders, ages 15-19, from throughout the United States and the world for an intensive weeklong international leadership training program.
Working with educational partners such as Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government-Women in Public Policy Program; Harvard Law School-The Program on Negotiation; The Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard; The Fletcher School of Diplomacy and Law at Tufts University and Northeastern University’s Middle East Center for Peace, Culture and Development a life-changing educational experience is created. The Women2Women conference unites these emerging leaders with the issues they share as young women and enables them to take action in their own communities. At the same time, Women2Women builds much needed bridges of trust and understanding between disparate and misunderstood cultures.
The Women2Women program now boasts an international alumnus of over 1,000 promising young women from the United States and 63 countries on five continents, working together to create positive change. The 2016 W2W America conference had a record 110 delegates.
TEAM HARMONY: Working with the Anti-Defamation League of New England, our team created a racial harmony program entitled, Team Harmony. The reach of this program was phenomenal. Prior to its’ creation, ADL programs had a presence in just over 40 schools, at Team Harmony’s conclusion, the ADL reach had expanded to over 700 schools around New England. Highlight video
STAND UP: Empower Peace has also been very successful in organizing similar programs to address the issue of school-based bullying. STAND UP to Bullying Rallies have been conducted over the past few years that have resulted in thousands of students developing actions plans to address bullying in their schools. Highlight video
W2W BELGIUM: The Women2Women leadership program brought together over sixty (63) emerging female leaders, ages 17 to 20 years, from across Belgium, representing all aspects of Belgian society. The program recruited the participation of young leaders from marginalized communities in Belgium (Muslim and Jewish), as well as representation from the country’s French and Flemish constituencies. The program provided the young leaders with a first-rate, life changing educational and motivational experience. At the conference students learned about such important subject matter as: Finding the Leader in You; The Art of Negotiation; Entrepreneurial Thought for Social Action; How to Use Social Media for Social Good; Getting Your Message Out in the Media; The Art of Public Speaking; Women in Government (conducted at the European Union Parliament); and they participated in an interfaith discussion with representatives of the Muslim, Jewish and Catholic religions. Women2Women served to identify, recruit, train and network 63 diverse leaders committed to bringing about positive change through implementation of their action plans while enabling the US Embassy to strengthen its’ ties to virtually all aspects of Belgian civic society. Highlight video
W2W AMERICA: This ten-day program brings together over 100 emerging female leaders from around the world. Content wise, similar to its’ sister program in Belgium, W2W-America has been in existence for 11 years having had 1,005 leaders from 63 countries graduate. Highlight video: Day 1: U.S. Congressman Joe Kennedy at Harvard University
Mr. Rendon is the Founder of Empower Peace and Senior Partner of The Rendon Group, a Boston/Washington DC-based communications firm that specializes in public affairs campaigns.
Empower Peace was founded on the premise that young people, through communication and the promotion of cultural understanding, could help pave the way for peace. Mr. Rendon holds strong to the belief that our future generation has the ability to create change and that they hold the key to breaking down the cultural barriers that threaten to divide the Western, Muslim and Arab worlds.
Throughout his career, Mr. Rendon has taken great pride in creating and developing innovative community-based initiatives and social campaigns. Working with community leaders and activists,Mr. Rendon helped create and organize the world’s largest school-based racial harmony campaign. For seven years “TEAM HARMONY” brought together over 15,000 middle and high school students from throughout New England to discuss the issues of hatred and prejudice and to develop programs to promote diversity and harmony in schools and communities region wide. Team Harmony’s keynote speakers have included former United States President Bill Clinton, United States Senator, former First Lady and presently candidate for President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, former United States Attorney General Janet Reno, and the Reverend Bernice King (daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Mr. Rendon was also the creator and co-founder of the school-based program, “UNITED WE STAND FOR AMERICA”. This program was developed post 9/11 to provide youth with an opportunity to express their emotions and feelings in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Students throughout Massachusetts were recruited to create individual messages of peace, hope, and patriotism on six-inch tiles of red, white and blue fabric. This fabric was then assembled to create a giant quilt of an American flag (nearly half the size of a football field). Over 700 schools and 50,000 students participated in this program.
Mr. Rendon, working with the Islamic Society of Boston, the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, and the Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes, developed the “OUTNUMBER THE HATE” campaign. This Massachusetts school-based campaign encouraged students to rally against hate, prejudice and intolerance experienced by Muslim and Arabs in the United States post-9/11. In response to the 1,700 hate crimes reported against Muslims and Arabs living in America, Massachusetts’ students responded by creating OVER 1,700 messages of respect, diversity and tolerance.
In addition to over thirty years of experience as a senior communications consultant, Mr. Rendon served previously as a Public Information Officer for the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as a member of United States President Jimmy Carter’s national political staff.
Tricia Raynard has served as Executive Director of Empower Peace since our inception In 2003. Ms. Raynard brings to Empower Peace over twenty years of experience in the field of strategic communications. Ms. Raynard specializes in the design and implementation of public information campaigns and has managed campaigns of all sizes focusing on numerous social issues ranging from environmental protection to public health to women’s rights.
In her role of Executive Director, Ms. Raynard oversees the daily operation of Empower Peace. In this capacity she is responsible for the oversight of program design, program participant recruitment, alumnae communications, strategic communications and budgeting. Ms. Raynard is a key architect of the Empower Peace Women2Women (W2W) program. Ms. Raynard helped create the W2W program curriculum, recruited program presenters and orchestrates the annual ten-day leadership program.
Kari is the Outreach Coordinator for Empower Peace. She has more than seventeen years experience in public relations and event planning and management. She joined The Rendon Group in the winter of 2000. During that time she has worked with a number of clients on their public awareness/public relations initiatives and special events such as: the Department of Environmental Protection, the Ovarian Cancer Awareness Coalition, the Massachusetts State 9-1-1 Department, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, the Massachusetts Highway Safety Division and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
Kari has been a member of the Empower Peace team since it was founded in 2003 and has helped coordinate and plan the Women2Women conferences since 2006. In her role as Outreach coordinator, Kari assists with the application process, confirms all participants and assists with planning the travel of all participants.
Ms. Johnston graduated from Northeastern University in 1997.