Students 4 Peace: Impact Through Social Entrepreneurship

Students 4 Peace not only parallels the necessary mindset of an entrepreneur, but more generally that of an individual who understands a key element necessary to make an impact. The non-profit Boston based organization's mission is certainly noteworthy and should be applauded as they aim to "improve our society and world by working together and reaching a cleaner, safer and more accepting global community." Students 4 Peace aims to accomplish this by building a network of like-minded campus organizations across the country to unify and leverage efforts through cultural and social events, website and newsroom in order to promote peace, co-existence, environment and health issues and activism.

"There are many students and groups at work on the campus level. As a network organization we seek to unite these individual student groups and create a community on the regional scale. Through the network and e-calendar, students learn about the other events and activists in the area. This will enable various organizations to invite each other and work together to create larger, more effective events that will consequently reach more students and make better use of resources."

Although the word "Peace" has political connotations, Yoni Vendriger, the Founder of S4P, stresses that the organization will focus on people-to-people interactions. Apart from this, news coverage of other positive initiatives and events will play a crucial role. This is important because mainstream media primarily focuses on negative news, and in order for these programs to gain more momentum, these influencers need a louder voice – and S4P aims to facilitate these conversations and news coverage. Since much of the world's discourse comes from a misunderstanding of different beliefs and cultures, S4P simultaneously values and strives to augment collaboration in order to influence a greater understanding of people around the world.

"Our main thrust is to bring diverse students together in an interpersonal and non-confrontational way. With cultural, regional events, we seek to bring together students who might otherwise encounter each other only in political settings or not at all. The students who participate in the events come from different backgrounds, some of which have traditionally been in political conflict with one another. We believe that by experiencing other people's cultures and by communicating in a non-threatening atmosphere, we can eventually achieve co-existence and ultimately, peace."

S4P has already partnered with several organizations such as the Society of Arab Students at Harvard and the Palestinian Israeli Peace Alliance from Boston University. This is a great movement that we look forward to following. If you would like to get involved, feel free to visit their and donate to their initiative to keep them going.