Staff

Parent Peacemakers

The Parent Peacemakers are a group of mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers who work in the McKim Center-Baltimore Wisdom Project Partnership as neighborhood peacemakers, receiving monthly stipends when they reach milestones and benchmarks for peacemaking and wellness in the community. Their identities are protected under HIPAA, FERPA, and MPIPA law. The select parents in the video at the bottom of this web page gave us permission to share themselves on our website. While undergoing ongoing training in conflict management, restorative justice, de-escalation, trauma-informed care, and peer/community counseling, the Parent Peacemakers pass on healing practices within their homes and in their neighborhoods in safe, collegial, and impactful ways. 

Youth Peacemakers (formerly called The Journeymakers)

The Youth Peacemakers are a group of youth leaders between the ages of 14 and 18 who work in the McKim Center-Baltimore Wisdom Project Partnership to uplift peace education, receiving monthly stipends when they reach milestones and benchmarks for peacemaking and wellness in the community. Their identities are protected under HIPAA, FERPA, and MPIPA law. The youth in the photo here gave us permission to share themselves on our website. They receive pre-career/pre-college mentoring as well as ongoing training in conflict management, restorative justice practices, de-escalation, and peer/community counseling. They spread the good news of peacemaking within their homes and in their neighborhoods in safe, collegial, and impactful ways. 

The History of the Journeymakers

In 1988, the late, great Dr. James P. Zais aka Ernest Johnson, an out-of-school-time program specialist with the Greater Washington, DC Urban League, asked Miss tree turtle (now the CEO of the Baltimore Wisdom Project) if she would teach a few workshops on peace practice and restorative justice to local high school students who were, as Mr. Johnson described them, "real troublemakers." 

Miss turtle responded that sometimes our preventions and interventions begin with changing the language that we use to identify the people that we serve. She suggested to Mr. Johnson that, instead of calling the youth "troublemakers" that they be called journeymakers in recognition of their progress and achievements through the challenges in their lives. On that day the Journeymakers™ project was born.

Since then there have been numerous iterations of the Journeymakers in various guises at different schools, community centers, and community colleges for over 30 years. Regardless of where the Journeymakers work or what the group is called, the mission behind their work has always remained the same: to give marginalized youth who are often viewed as "broken" or sometimes viewed as "troublemakers" (and who may face contact with the criminal justice system, high rates of suspension, expulsion, and over-correction; or constant belittling) opportunities to do the following:

• Elevate peacemaking practice.
• Bond, heal, cultivate empathy.
• Learn the life science behind wellness and peace.
• Make, see, and be enriched by art.
• Embrace restorative justice.
• Make amends in the face of mistakes.
• Be valued as whole, productive people.

Most recently, in 2020 and 2021, the Journeymakers program co-led by Ms. Christina Marsh, was in residence at Towson High School in Baltimore County.