COPA Coordinating Council

COPA: OUR STRUCTURE

In correlation with the COPA Velvet Mesquite logo, we are cultivating the soil with inner peace and personal responsibility and stimulating growth by researching other such cities and implementing peace-centered systems that, when appropriate, include requesting and encouraging City Council assistance in creating a Peace Center and a citywide Peace Council. COPA envisions this work organically spreading throughout the region, state, nation, and planet.

The COPA Coordinating Council meets twice a month September-May and monthly during the summer. Facilitator and notetaker functions rotate among council members. Decisions are made by consensus. All council members work on one or more of the following teams. New individuals interested in serving on the coordinating council must first actively work on a team for a minimum of three months.

When appropriate, each team promotes education, projects, events, legislation, and alliance and coalition building in relationship to their specific team focus.

Personal Peace -- Engaging with groups and individuals to nurture sustainable peace within ourselves and our lives that ripples out into our community, our nation, and our planet.
City of Peace Campaign -- Working with peace groups, individuals, businesses, and city institutions to establish a Peace Center and Peace Council and other projects that identify Tucson as a City of Peace.
Youth Projects -- Using the creative arts to involve and inspire young people to actively participate in building a culture of peace in their personal lives and school communities.
Promotion/Media -- Working with all levels of media to help promote events and projects which personify peace-building.
Website and Data Base -- Compiling and effectively storing resources and information concerning peace groups, individuals, activities, and educational perspectives.
Asset Mapping -- Generating dialogue and information exchange among peace-oriented individuals and groups through a formal interviewing process that identifies community-building assets, skills, talents, and capacities for COPA's website and data base project.

GLOBAL EMERGENCE

COPA's perspective of global emergence of the Culture of Peace is depicted in the Culture of Peace Alliance graphic below.

In our work to transform in consciousness and lifestyle from a Culture of War to a Culture of Peace, we envision a culture of peace alliance, not just as an organization, but also as a movement simultaneously expanding in multiple arenas. The model we are working with in Tucson has the culture of peace alliance concept at center-point, around which action focus circles revolve.

Starting with taking personal responsibility for inner and outer peace, we practice cooperatively working together in the COPA coordinating council. Though our primary council focus is on establishing Tucson as a City of Peace, we are attentive to and work with other peace-building individuals and organizations in the Southern Arizona region and at the Arizona state, national, and global levels that we may do all in our power to help actualize a Planet of Peace for generations to come.