We have all watched events unfold with the Arab Spring. From Tunisia to Yemen, people started their protests without violence in a new age of mobilizing support through the internet. International Alert is an organisation that I am honoured to know from its start 25 years ago. Based on the belief that humanity’s problem is not conflict but violent conflict, Alert works to understand and resolve differences before people turn to the gun – and to help put things back together if violence nonetheless breaks out.
Some of you may be new supporters to International Alert and some of you may have been helping us on this journey for a while. But one thing that unites all peace supporters is that we believe there is an alternative to violent conflict. We know that in the 21st century innocent people – casualties are too often mothers and the children – should not pay with their lives for fights that are not theirs.
We want this year to celebrate the most peaceful season of hope and prosperity ever. To send a message to all those people who are rebuilding their lives after months or even years of violence that we support their right to a better future. A secure one with opportunities for all and persecution of none.
International Alert will be working in the Middle East next year because after the regime fall, the real work begins. Building institutions – government, justice, security, business – that represent all groups, including those from the past. They will still be working in Rwanda, helping people work together 17 years after the genocide and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where people still suffer at the hands of marauding militia including the Lord’s Resistance Army. They will be working to restore the prospect of peace in the Philippines and Nepal and from Tajikistan to Armenia where business people are investing in a peace for all. Alert now works in over 25 countries and could help in more.
But they need more people and more resources. Please help them if you can this year. They make a huge difference to people’s lives. Join them in offering people a better start in 2012 and building a world where everyone has the right to live in peace.
God bless you,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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It has been a quarter of a century of massive global change. When Alert was founded in 1986, the Berlin Wall still stood, Nelson Mandela was a prisoner in apartheid South Africa, and China was far from an economic superpower. Today there are fewer wars and much more is known about how to build peace - Alert is a part of that progress. It’s not usually headline-making work, not even in the 25 countries and territories where we are working, but it is effective.
A country is at peace if its people can manage their differences over important issues safely –without them escalating into violence. Peacebuilding is about people and societies learning to manage conflicts peacefully. Alert is there to help them do this.
This year we celebrate 25 years of peacebuilding. Please think of International Alert this holiday season and help us make this the most peaceful time ever.
Desmond Tutu is one of International Alert's first Patrons. Find out more about our Patrons [5].