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The Outer Voices Project

For centuries, women have developed the tools of non-violence. Their expertise in peacemaking has always been the seedbed for conflict resolution within families, communities and nations.

Now more than ever women are speaking out and taking leadership in turning the tide of violent conflict. And now more than ever women around the globe are pioneering new and effective models for grassroots, non-violent activism.

Many unique approaches to non-violence are found among women in the traditional cultures of the Pacific Islands and the Asian Pacific Rim—cultures in which notions of economic and cultural sustainability are inherent.
However these women are largely unknown in Western circles. Not only are they unable to solicit international support for their own work, but they are unable to share their ideas and models for change with other activists around the world.

Outer Voices is working to change this. It’s time to learn from each other’s example by listening to each other.

Outer Voices is a six-part multi-media project devoted to sharing the stories, strategies, and tools of women peace activists from the traditional cultures of the Pacific Islands and the Asian Pacific Rim. Through collaboration with six women peace activists and their organizations, we are creating a series of six hour long radio broadcasts for airing on public radio, to help bring international attention and support to their work.

Through listening to Outer Voices broadcasts and using a range of supplementary resources on our website (e.g., supplementary texts, audio downloads, links to project-related activist organizations), activists in the U.S. will discover new and effective organizing approaches, connections to others working for peace and social justice, and other tools.

Listeners will also come away from Outer Voices with new perspectives on how activism as practiced in traditional cultures (i.e., interwoven into the fabric of family, community, commerce, spirituality, and cultural practice) can have powerful collective results in confronting the ills of “modern” society, and contribute to more fulfilling lives for activists as individuals.

“ Women around the globe are organizing in new ways. These gender activists are on the Internet, in the streets, packed into rooms forming more groups, and pushing resolutions through the United Nations….The organizing is part of a culture war to end the love of military glory, power, dominance and hierarchy often taught as part of male traditions.”

— Marlene Nadle, journalist and New School for Social Research scholar
(from “Women Will Have to Save the World,” posted on Alternet.org September 11, 2003)

"For millennia women have dedicated themselves almost exclusively to the task of nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old, striving for the conditions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all."
—Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (from keynote address to NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, 1995)