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TOGETHER WE CAN REDUCE
HOMICIDES IN DC BY AT LEAST 60%
A 60% reduction in homicides would
save hundreds of lives.
So let's get to work.
Peace For DC is committed to ending gun violence in DC and building a peaceful city for all through proven public safety solutions including community violence intervention, healing trauma, transforming the lives of our most vulnerable, systems change, and coordinated strategies.
Our Programs
Direct Interventions for Rapid Results
Driving Progress and Peace
TRAINING
The DC Peace Academy provides advanced, hands-on classes for the professional and personal development of DC’s violence intervention professionals. This is the only program in DC of this kind and a model that is being replicated across the country. The classroom provides DC’s Peacemakers, who are coming from different neighborhoods across the city and who work for numerous organizations comprising DC’s Public Safety Ecosystem spanning government, community and hospitals, an opportunity to build collaborations that will lead to stronger outcomes.
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Student Testimonial:
"Peace Academy is the glue of this violence intervention work."
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CIVIC COALITION
Reducing gun violence and building thriving communities requires coordinated efforts and adherence to a strategic plan. Civic Coalitions in other cities have proven to be more agile and innovative than government, being the catalyst for violence reduction and bringing together the public safety ecosystem in a data-driven and community-led manner. Peace For DC is leading efforts to convene stakeholders from the philanthropy and business communities, among others, to accelerate the District's progress towards building peace.
TRAUMA CARE
Cognitive Behavioral Interventions (CBIs) are integral to all of Peace For DC's programming. CBIs have been proven as the gold standard for healing trauma and an essential element to reduce gun violence in cities across the country. Peace For DC is scaling resources and cognitive behavioral interventions such as Roca’s Rewire CBT to address trauma, PTSD, hypervigilance of people impacted by gun violence.
CBIs are at the heart of all our work at Peace For DC. We teach Roca's Rewire Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT) to individuals and groups in community, and as part of the DC Peace Academy and our HEAL DC program.
STOP THE BLEED
Stop The Bleed has been a basic component of Peace For DC’s work since Day One. Just as you would use CPR if someone had a heart attack or the Heimlich maneuver if someone was choking, Stop The Bleed is a first aid method that includes using gauze and tourniquets if someone is at risk of bleeding out from a gunshot or stab wound. DC’s Community Violence Intervention professionals learn these skills at the DC Peace Academy, and then they are able to help should they be the first on the scene before emergency medical services arrive. We are so thankful for our partnerships with medical professionals at Howard University Hospital and MedStar Washington Hospital Center, who lead these classes and share their knowledge.
TRANSFORMATION
HEAL DC stands for Healthy Empowered Achieving Leaders for DC. Through this program, Peace for DC is working in collaboration with community-based partners directly serving individuals at highest risk of being involved in gun violence within communities that have the highest rates of community gun violence. We are providing individualized, long-term, wrap-around services, including behavioral health, life coaching, case management, and onboarding to educational and career pathways. Individuals enrolled in HEAL DC can finally break free from the cycle of trauma and violence, and start to live healthy, happy lives.
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ADVOCACY
&
SYSTEM CHANGE
Peace For DC believes in centering the voices of those who have been impacted by gun violence and those who are working on the frontlines to interrupt and prevent violence. We work to teach advocacy and public speaking skills at the DC Peace Academy and seek out opportunities for our Academy alumni to use these skills to advocate for themselves and their peers and to help shape the system. We are proud of Academy graduates who have proactively taken on public speaking and advocacy opportunities in 2024. We look forward to working more in 2025 with these Peacemakers to shape the narrative and reimagine public safety.
LATEST NEWS
FOLLOW PEACE FOR DC ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
THERE IS NO RACIAL OR ECONOMIC JUSTICE WITHOUT
TACKLING GUN VIOLENCE
While gun violence continues to spread throughout the District, it most deeply impacts our Black and Brown communities. These same communities have been locked out of opportunity as they endure structural and systemic marginalization, trauma, and poverty. DC cannot increase economic mobility, close the wealth gap, or achieve equity in education without meeting the basic need for personal safety and freedom from violence.
Compared to all states, DC has the highest homicide rate in 2021 in the US – with 226 deaths and 1330 gunshot wounds treated at emergency departments in 2021. Each fatal shooting costs DC more than $1.53 million in direct costs. Gun violence cost DC taxpayers $1 billion in 2021.
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But gun violence is not an intractable problem. 70% of DC's gun violence is driven by approximately 500 identifiable individuals. Most of this violence is cyclical and retaliatory: therefore, it is predictable and preventable. By working together to scale proven solutions, we can save lives right now.
OUR STORY
TURNING ADVOCACY INTO ACTION, PAIN INTO PURPOSE
Founded by gun violence survivors and community activists, Peace For DC is dedicated to amplifying and accelerating evidence-based community-led efforts to stop shootings and homicide and heal trauma in Washington, DC.
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Peace For DC is committed to building up philanthropic investment in community violence intervention, in order to provide sustainable funding, and capacity and skill-building resources, to the small Black-led organizations providing this life-saving intervention work in the DC neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence.
