Chi Peace staff celebrate AFSC Chicago’s 90th anniversary.
Celebrating a year of creative and impactful work with youth and partners
We faced some big challenges this year—in Chicago, across the U.S., and as a global community working for peace and justice. Yet by working together, we’ve been able to build peace and create change.
Stay tuned for more about our current work with partners to shift unused money from the Chicago Police Department to fund more robust mental health care in Chicago. We will share more in January!
With their enthusiasm, creativity and spirit, young people give me great hope. I’m so glad to share a few highlights of Chi Peace work from 2025. Please be in touch if you have any questions. And please support our work – we can’t do it without you. Thanks for reading.
Chi Peace hosts event looking at non-military alternatives for students
In September, Chi Peace partnered with About Face, Black Alliance for Peace, and Lucy Parson's Lab to create an Anti-JROTC Back to School event. The purpose of the event was to educate community members (students, educators, and parents) about their right to refuse enrollment in JROTC at their schools. It was timely, given Project 2025's push for BIPOC people to join the military and police forces.
The event consisted of a teach-in on the history of recruitment in Chicago schools, and breakout groups to discuss what resistance of JROTC can look like. Overall, it illustrated the type of collaborative, creative work that we get to do as a program. Participants left with Chicago Public School JROTC opt-out forms and more information on how to inform community members on their rights around military recruitment.
Chicago youth look at peacebuilding, prepare for second year of YAP
This summer, two young people with AFSC wanted to facilitate a summer camp called 3P (the People’s Peace Project) with other young people. They engaged in conversations around what peace and Peacebuilding means and what it looks like in Chicago. They explored community organizations within the city working to bring peace and talked about war, militarism and the police as peace disrupters. Here are some of their reflections.
The second year of Chi Peace’s Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) is here! This year’s theme is “People and Planet Against Militarism.” AFSC is eager to host another cohort of BIPOC high school students from Chicago who, over the course of seven months, want to learn how militarism and environmental racism affect communities in Chicago.
Billboards call for community mental health care rather than police
This billboard was the result of a collaboration with Treatment not Trauma- a campaign dedicated to developing a more robust public mental health care system in Chicago. TNT's main goals are to reopen all of the shuttered mental health centers in Chicago and to establish a 24-hour mental health crisis response team that would dispatch and EMT and social worker on sight of a crisis, rather than an armed police officer. This was one of two billboards that went up in strategic wards in the city to inform community members of what TNT is and why we need it.
Recently, the Treatment not Trauma coalition has merged with the Public Health and Safety (PHS) campaign. PHS is a collection of civil society organizations in Chicago that are dedicated to advocating that the city supports the basic needs of every Chicagoan – creating the ties between our investments in public infrastructure, public safety, and public health to ensure we’re building a safe, healthy, and thriving Chicago.
Sarah Jane Rhee
Five years after Floyd’s murder, the struggle for community safety continues
May 25 marked the fifth anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. His murder—and those of many others at the hands of police—sparked racial justice protests across the country. It also led to calls for meaningful change in police accountability.
But today, that promise remains unfulfilled. Despite these setbacks, AFSC continues to support communities working for real community safety beyond policing and prisons. Read more from asia smith of Chicago Peacebuilding and Adalberto Rios of LA Roots for Peace.
Chicago youth choose mental health training as one focus of work
In April, the Chi Peace Program’s Youth Action Program (YAP) organized a skill share to help people learn how to respond to mental health crises. The event was held in Uptown, which has some of the highest numbers of mental health crises calls in Chicago. The skill share equipped community members with practical skills and knowledge to address emergencies. We keep us safe!
YAP creates a New Approach series
For their final project in 2025, Chi Peace’s Youth Action Program participants created New Approach. This was a series of city-wide pop-up third spaces for teens across the city on Friday nights. They focused on mental health and wellness, conversations on abolition, and related activities like journaling and talking openly with friends.
Our creation of third spaces brought in community partners who were also interested in countering shrinking civil space in Chicago. We made sure to outline in our promotional materials of New Approach the reason why third-spaces are a critical part of our struggle against policing and militarism in our city.