Agape Foundation Peace Prize Ceremony

The Agape Foundation Fund for Nonviolent Change honors two leading peacemakers at its third annual Peace Prize ceremony on September 20th, the eve of the UN-declared International Day Of Peace, at 7 p.m., Gallery One, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco.

The Enduring Visionary Prize, formerly the Long Haul Prize, honors a Northern California individual or organization that has made a sustained effort to create peace in their community, nationally, or internationally. The 2007 winner is Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (HOMEY), which works with youth on both sides of the Mission’s gang conflict to mend the rift and reduce violence.

The Rising Peacemaker Prize, the winner of which to be announced at the ceremony, recognizes a new Northern California peacemaker that has made a critical difference towards progressive change within the last five years. Nominees include Pablo Paredes, a court-martialed war resistor who now helps young people reject military recruitment; Roni Krouzman, founder of Next Generation, which inspires children as young as elementary school to work against the root causes of war; and Beth Waitkus, founder of the Insight Garden Program at San Quentin, providing life skills and an understanding of community ecology to inmates at San Quentin Prison.