My name is Danaka, and I am literally so pissed off all the time. Aren’t you? I mean, come on. It’s really hard not to be. I’m 21, there’s a pandemic and the United States has done nothing to take care of people. In the wake of a crisis, our government only inflicts more violence abroad. I’m lucky that over the years I’ve met some people who have helped me turn my anger into constructive action. Being invited into the peace movement was one of the best things to ever happen to me, because while some issues seem hopeless sometimes, there’s always some hell to raise. I find joy in pissing off capitalists that make millions off war and other forms of violence.

We will meet every other week to connect on organizing tools, tactics, and our campaigns to defeat the war machine. We will do our book club once a month and one other community builder whether it be movie nights or reflections once a month. Sign up below and let’s start building with one another. The Peace Collective is for folks ages 29 and under (so if you’re 30 or up, please sign-up to be a Peacemaker!). Want to join me and some other CODEPINK twenty-somethings?

Sign up here!

At our first gathering we will ask things like: What is the Peace Collective? What can we build in a peace collective? How will we piss off the war machine over the next year? We will also talk about the Peace Collective’s book club, discuss community builders we would like to have, and start to get into some of the work of ending war profiteering! 

Sign up for our first Peace Collective event. 

We’re constantly told we don’t have enough to give healthcare to everyone for free, or cancel student debt, or universal housing. At the same time, I’m being told that we have enough to spend $2 billion a day on the Pentagon. That we have enough to be involved in never-ending wars. Or enough to cause unimaginable suffering everywhere. It’s all a lie, though. Capitalism and imperialism and austerity are all hindrances to human happiness and prosperity. That, my friends, is the war economy. That’s why I and all the other twenty-somethings at CODEPINK have launched a peace collective for young people. I just graduated from college and I spent my entire time in school also doing peace organizing, so I know how stressful managing a million projects at once can be. The Peace Collective will be what you want to make of it. We can get in and out of the trenches as we need to together, but ultimately this experience is for the community that we will build. 

Check out our youth manifesto here!

How often do we get to engage in structures outside of capitalism? The peace collective will be everything the war machine hates. We will not be top-down. We will not be isolated from one another. We will be learning together and organizing together. The Peace Collective is engaged with the CODEPINK Divest from the War Machine campaign. We will have the opportunity to support ongoing campaigns to divest from war and you will be given the resources to start a Divest campaign at your university if you think your school might be invested in weapons manufacturers! Through community building and collective learning experiences, you will have all the resources to take action on the issues you care about. The war machine wants us to see our issues as disconnected, but knowing that all struggles are interlinked is the key to changing everything. 

Learn how you can divest your school!