MAIN Programs of Wisdom Projects

The Youth Peacemakers Program is an intensive violence prevention, job-readiness, and pre-college/trade school preparatory program that empowers high school aged youth aged 14-18 and young adults age 19-24 in East Baltimore to implement peacemaking broadly and deeply into their lives. Most enrollees in this program work (for $15 per hour) within our STEM & Healing Arts Peacemaking After-School Program at the McKim Center while receiving immersive job-readiness training, and engaging in peer support groups. They learn de-escalation through mindfulness, conflict resolution, trauma-informed care, restorative justice, and Social and Emotional Learning. Their work in the after-school program involves assisting with mentoring younger children, setting-up, cleaning-up, and supporting meal preparation and meal service. They also engage in regular healing circles like mediations and Amnesty Days. Enrollees learn the value of responsible employment as they become ambassadors for peacemaking. This program aims for participants to achieve milestones of peace, safety, and wellness; to gain workforce training and life-skills to move out of their impoverished neighborhoods; to attend trade schools to gain intensive specialized training for gainful employment or to go to college; and to build a better life for themselves and their families away from the violence and crime within which they are exposed in their current zip codes. Our Youth Peacemakers program is gender-inclusive, enrolling girls, boys, nonbinary individuals, and young adults of self-identified diverse genders. Presently, our LGBTQ+ Youth Peacemakers are called StarBrights.

The Parent Peacemakers Program is an intensive violence prevention collective of trained Community Health Workers who are parents, grandparents, or legal guardians of youth enrolled in our programming. With ongoing training and peer support, the parents build campaigns to cultivate peace broadly and deeply in their lives. They spread nonviolent messaging within their homes, within the schools of their children, their neighborhoods, and the streets, on social media and by word-of-mouth. Enrollees attend regular healing circles emphasizing peer support and receive training in de-escalation, mindfulness, conflict resolution, trauma-informed care, restorative justice, and Social and Emotional Learning. The parents receive stipends when reaching milestones for peacemaking. They also receive healthy food support, and limited wrap-around services like funds for transportation, phone support, and help with funding medical emergencies not covered by health insurance. They also receive many referrals to agencies that help them with life's challenges. They co-lead regular mediations and Amnesty Days. Several work part-time within Wisdom Projects to help govern our other programs. One Parent Peacemaker, Sharon Williams, sits on the Board of Directors and is a Senior Program Specialist. The Parent Peacemakers partner with Wisdom Projects to guide its mission and work. Click here and become a recurring monthly supporter on Patreon and unlock further information about our specific programming for parents to end domestic violence.

The STEM & Healing Arts Peacemaking Program joins with the Athletics Program at the McKim Center to form a comprehensive out-of-school-time holistic educational program for youth aged 5 through 14. Running from 3 pm to 8 pm 4-days-a-week, Mondays through Thursdays, STEM & Healing Arts is a standardized program emphasizing structured learning. The program offers STEM education, visual arts/art therapy, the Planet Protectors Laboratory, the Literacy for Peace and Justice Hub, and peacemaking. We are innovating by integrating science, art education, and language arts with healing and peacemaking. Select Fridays are reserved for field trips. This program also features a Healthy Foodways Initiative, serving one high-protein, homemade low-sodium, low-sugar meal with fresh veggies, fruit, and filtered water to combat food insecurity. Our elementary learners (aged 5-10) are called Peace Cubs. Our middle school aged learners (11-14) are called Peace Buds.

Each summer, in partnership with the McKim Center, the Baltimore Wisdom Project holds a 5-week summer day camp for the Peace Cubs and Peace Buds (youth aged 5 through 14) in July from 10 am to 3 pm, five days a week.(Mondays through Fridays) featuring STEM lessons, athletics, and intensive training in peace education through conflict resolution, de-escalation through mindfulness, restorative justice, and Social and Emotional Learning.

The Planet Protectors Laboratories include three hands-on projects that uplift peace and wellness for the community.

A. The Planet Protectors Laboratory for youth aged 6-18 focuses on peacemaking for environmental justice through hands-on experimentation. Click here for an overview of this program.

B. The Poetry for Peace Literacy Project in which youth aged 11-18 read, write, and analyze poems and related traditions about peace to integrate wellness, literacy, creativity, and criticism within our STEM and Healing Arts out-of-school-time program.

C. The Parents For Peace Book Club in which parents in Wisdom Projects' programming gather to read and discuss books and articles that delve into issues of peace, nonviolence, and justice.

Conflict resolution through restorative justice is the programmatic glue that makes all of our programs impactful and effective, including the following projects on a weekly basis: 

• Mediations within healing circles.
• Amnesty Day Thursdays, a regular healing circle focusing on apology, making amends, forgiveness, and affirmation, emphasizing a core principle that there can be no true forgiveness and apology without accountability, amends, reparation and/or restitution.  
• Amnesty Day Truth and Reconciliations: Extended (sometimes weeks or months-long mediations) on select days-of-the-week involving groups of community members or families enduring seemingly intractable, long-term disputes.