The Foundations of Peacebuilding

This is a self-guided virtual eCourse, accessible on desktop or on your mobile phone via the Teachable app.

Once enrolled, you'll have the opportunity to join one optional live cohort experience each year, connecting with peacebuilders from our global community to share experiences and deepen your learning.

You'll have lifetime access to all course materials and updates.

Take a sneak peek inside our Foundations Version 2.0 course.

On Wednesday, June 17, we're hosting a free 75-minute walkthrough of the updates we have done on the course since last year, integration of new tools, and (importantly!) how the course can transform your peacebuilding efforts.

CLICK HERE to register for this free webinar to learn more about the course.

If any of this resonates, this course was built for you.

You're frustrated by the peacebuilding system. You can see that conventional approaches used in the peacebuilding sector aren't addressing key causes of conflict, and you're blocked by barriers within the systems you work in that prevent you from addressing them, or even talking about them. You're looking for new frameworks and approaches that open up creative possibilities for transforming the causes of conflict, whether you're working within conventional systems or finding ways around them.

You seek creative approaches to build peace. You keep seeing the same kinds of interventions: dialogue workshops, community mediation, social cohesion projects. You know there are more creative and effective ways to address the conflicts you're working on, but the organizations and donors you work with constantly default to the same project types and ways of working.

You want your work to make a real difference. You have real knowledge and experience, whether from formal training or from living and working in conflict-affected contexts. You got into this work, or you're trying to get into it, because you care deeply about a social issue connected to peace and conflict. But somewhere along the way you realized that the approaches available to you aren't actually addressing it in a meaningful way, and you're searching for more effective ways to actually make a difference.

You're ready to explore new career and life trajectories for building peace. The peacebuilding sector is shrinking. Traditional peacebuilding jobs are fewer and harder to get, especially for new graduates and early-career professionals. Even for experienced practitioners, the career options within conventional systems feel limited and repetitive. But the reality is that people build peace in far more ways than most training programs, university degrees, or job boards will ever show you, and there are career and life trajectories for building peace that most people in the field have never considered.

What Makes Everyday Peacebuilding Different

Not Your Standard Peacebuilding Training

Our 3 Core Approaches

Our courses are grounded in three core approaches that inform everything we do. We apply them to help you develop a rich understanding of the causes and dynamics of modern conflict in a way that peacebuilding training operating within traditional systems is restricted from doing by the political interests of donor countries.

Demilitarist: We name militarism as a root cause of war and conflict. This includes military spending, weapons manufacturers, the arms trade, domestic militarization, and militarized cultures that produce and sustain violence. Our courses equip you to see these dynamics as they manifest in your society and empower you with creative ways to transform them.

Decolonial: We recognize how the lasting effects of colonization and neocolonial systems contribute to modern conflict dynamics, and how the structures that produce conventional peacebuilding efforts often reproduce these power dynamics rather than transforming them. Our courses help you identify and address these patterns. We do our best to center local, community, and indigenous knowledge over Western institutional frameworks.

Intersectional: We recognize that peace and justice are intertwined, and that for peacebuilding to be effective it must engage in transforming overlapping systems of oppression (race, class, gender, sexuality, ability) as interconnected drivers of conflict. Our courses draw linkages between social justice issues and the dynamics of peace, war, and militarism, strengthening the ability of peacebuilders to address social justice issues and social justice activists to build peace.

These aren't abstract values. They're diagnostic tools woven into every course, changing what you see when you analyze conflict and how you formulate solutions.

What you'll walk away with:

An understanding of the peacebuilding sector and the ecosystems where people build peace. You'll gain a clear understanding of how the peacebuilding sector works, from international peace architecture to local peace systems and grassroots movements, including the ecosystems and dynamics amongst peace actors that shape diverse peace efforts. You'll learn how to navigate these systems, leverage linkages across peacebuilding ecosystems, and build peace both inside and outside of them.

An introduction to the frontiers of peacebuilding. An exploration of the key movements and frontiers shaping the future of peacebuilding, including PeaceTech, Peace Economics, Environmental Peacebuilding, and Peace Science, among others. You'll see where the field is headed, where there is space for innovation, and where the opportunities to expand the boundaries of peacebuilding lie.

Your peacebuilding superpower. Through EP's Peacebuilder Typology, you'll identify your top 3 peacebuilder types and discover what we like to call your peacebuilding superpower, the combination of your unique skills and abilities that informs how you can make the greatest impact for peace.

A Personal Peacebuilding Roadmap. By the end of the course, you'll produce a concrete document mapping your peacebuilding journey: your peacebuilder superpower profile, the organizations, networks, and resources connected to your top peacebuilder types, practical ways to integrate new approaches into your current work or pursue new paths, and a plan for the coming months and year. This is not a theoretical exercise. It's a usable document you'll return to and a guide for your peacebuilding journey.

Who this course is for:

Peacebuilding, humanitarian, and development professionals who can see the limitations of conventional approaches to building peace and want original frameworks, tools, and a broader understanding of what peacebuilding can be to help you find creative ways to build peace in your work.

Professionals in related fields (social justice, human rights, education, governance, environmental work) who want to integrate peacebuilding into your work with confidence and with creative approaches that go far beyond what standard trainings may offer.

Graduate students and recent graduates in peace studies or related fields who want to bridge the gap between academic theory and practical application, discover a wide array of career paths your program never mentioned, and stand out in a competitive and shrinking job market.

Anyone entering the peacebuilding field or getting started in peace work who wants a comprehensive foundation in peacebuilding built on original research and practical tools, without needing a graduate degree or years of institutional experience to get started.

Experienced practitioners looking for fresh perspectives. If you've worked in peacebuilding for years but feel constrained by the limitations of conventional systems, this course offers new frameworks, new approaches, and an expanded view of what's possible for your career and your impact.

Course Outline

This course includes 5 modules with 28 video lessons, a downloadable workbook with practical activities, and everything you need to expand your understanding of all the many ways you can build peace, discover your peacebuilding superpower, and create a roadmap to guide you on your peacebuilding journey.

NOTE: The curriculum shown below reflects updates we are making for our 2026 course re-launch. Enroll today to get access to the 2025 version, and we will be updating the course materials, one module per week over six weeks, beginning June 17.

Welcome and Introduction to this Course: A short welcome and orientation video, plus all your course downloads in one place.

Module 1. Expanding How We Build Peace: Open up your understanding of what peacebuilding is and what it can be. Trace the histories of peace activism, systems and thought that shape how people build peace today, anchor your practice by identifying the social issue you care most about, and explore how war abolition, decolonization and intersectionality can be part of your peace efforts.

• Lesson 1: How Peace Histories Inform Peace Practice
• Lesson 2: Peacebuilding as Societal Transformation
• Lesson 3: Peacebuilding and War Abolition
• Lesson 4: Peacebuilding and Decolonization
• Lesson 5: Intersectional Peacebuilding

Module 2. Understanding Peacebuilding Ecosystems: Explore all the spaces and places where people around the world build peace, from grassroots activism and community peacebuilding to governance structures and international peacebuilding systems. Explore approaches for building peace within and outside of traditional systems, and consider ways to overcome structural barriers in peacebuilding systems.

• Lesson 1: Navigating Peacebuilding Systems
• Lesson 2: Recognizing a Diversity of Spaces Where People Build Peace
• Lesson 3: Jobs in Peace, Peace in Jobs, and Informal Approaches
• Lesson 4: Building Peace and Making Change Within Systems
• Lesson 5: Building Peace Outside of Traditional Systems

Module 3. Hundreds of Ways to Build Peace: Explore our Peacebuilder Typology and discover hundreds of ways to build peace across 24 distinct peacebuilder types. Begin with our two-stage self-assessment to identify your top 3 types, then dive into the lessons covering the types you most identify with. The 24 types are organized into 9 categories, with one category per lesson. Each lesson covers what people in those types do, the range of work within each type, real-world examples, peace heroes who embody the work, and how the work shows up across different contexts.

• Lesson 1: Activism and Advocacy (4 types)
• Lesson 2: Working with Systems (3 types)
• Lesson 3: Building a Culture of Peace (4 types)
• Lesson 4: Connecting and Mobilizing (3 types)
• Lesson 5: Social Cohesion and Conflict Resolution (2 types)
• Lesson 6: Healing and Recovery (2 types)
• Lesson 7: Protection and Prevention (2 types)
• Lesson 8: Knowledge Creation and Peacebuilding Innovation (2 types)
• Lesson 9: Economics and the Environment (2 types)

Module 4. Discovering Your Peacebuilding Superpower: Reflect on how you can use the unique combination of your top 3 peacebuilder types to make change on the social issue you care about most. When you figure that out, you have discovered your peacebuilding superpower. Draw inspiration from peace heroes who embody those types. Find ways to connect to the organizations, networks, and resources aligned with your top types. Then explore how you can leverage your peacebuilding superpower within and across the peacebuilding ecosystems relevant to your peace efforts, and potentially contribute to advancing the field of peacebuilding.

• Lesson 1: Your Peacebuilding Superpower
• Lesson 2: Identifying Your Peace Heroes
• Lesson 3: Getting Connected: Networks, Organizations, and Resources
• Lesson 4: Mapping Your Engagement Across Peacebuilding Ecosystems
• Lesson 5: Contributing to the Advancement of Peacebuilding Practice

Module 5. Your Peacebuilding Journey: See peacebuilding as a lifelong journey. Reflect on where you are in your peacebuilding journey. Work out a trajectory to guide you on your journey, identify your next steps and develop practices that help you overcome the challenges you will face and sustain you for the long haul. Consolidate everything you have discovered throughout the course into your final Personal Peacebuilding Roadmap, a concrete document you can use to guide the road ahead.

• Lesson 1: Your Journey as a Peacebuilder
• Lesson 2: Next Steps on Your Peacebuilding Journey
• Lesson 3: Sustaining Yourself for the Long Haul
• Lesson 4: Your Personal Peacebuilding Roadmap
  

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Payment Options

Enroll for $350 USD using the enrollment button above.

For organizations: Looking to enroll staff members as part of professional development? Email Taylor for organizational pricing and group enrollment options: taylor@everydaypeacebuilding.com

Want to use your organization's professional development budget? Forward this page to your supervisor. Many organizations recognize our courses as professional development that directly improves effectiveness of peace initiatives. At $350, this is a fraction of the cost of comparable professional training.

Alternative payment methods available: If you need to pay via bank transfer, Wise, mobile money, M-Pesa, or in local currencies, email our community manager Mustapha at mustapha@everydaypeacebuilding.com who can help find a solution that works for you.

Our Scholarship Program

Everyday Peacebuilding is a community of peacebuilders from all walks of life in over 100 countries. We believe peacebuilding education should be accessible to everyone, regardless of financial circumstances.

Diverse participation strengthens our community and enriches the learning experience for everyone. When peacebuilders from different contexts, backgrounds, and experiences learn together, we all benefit.

Partial (25%, 50%, 75%) and full (100%) scholarships are available based on financial need. Applications are open year-round and reviewed monthly by Mustapha, our community manager. Decisions are communicated via email, typically after the first week of each month.

Questions?

Course questions: taylor@everydaypeacebuilding.com

Scholarship and alternative payment questions: mustapha@everydaypeacebuilding.com