Welcome

PeaceDiviners™ International Inc. is a social enterprise with two primary goals:

a)  To raise awareness in the privileged world of serious global problems

b)  To provide funds to worthy social entrepreneurs who are working to solve them

We develop awareness-raising products for kids and young people (and their teachers and parents!) to support committed people all over the world who have devoted their lives to helping the poor and marginalized..

First Whoooshhh!! Kids’ Book Launched
A story about fair trade

Ten-year-old Bobby's mouth is watering to take a big bite of his Whoooshhh! chocolate bar. But before he gets there, the chocolate bar starts to speak to him! Stop! Don't Eat Me, written by Naomi Poole and illustrated by Dave Parker, is the first of a series of fun children's books that use magic and simple messages to convey global issues. This inaugural book in the series teaches kids (and their parents and teachers!) about fair trade chocolate in a delightful story that takes the wide-eyed Bobby via 'chocolate time travel' to a chocolate factory, an ancient Aztec country, a field in South America where a little girl shares a meager meal after spending 13 hours working, and a fair trade shop in England. Bobby learns about his own individual consumer power to make a difference.

The Whoooshhh! series is designed to plant seeds of awareness early in the fertile soil of young, privileged minds; i.e. in children who are more likely to mature into lives that are positioned to effect change. Although the issues are difficult for little people, magic makes them easy and each book shows how one person, even a child, can make a difference.

Other stories in the series will explore subjects such as water; silk; garbage; toys; cotton, radio; paper; cut flowers; guns; bananas, fishing, cotton, sanitation, and housing. Each story uses the same model: an inanimate object commonly found in middle class Western homes comes alive and magically interacts with a human to teach them about the item’s origins, relationship to poverty, and ultimately what can be done to help. (Seeking illustrators and researchers.)

  Partner Spotlight

The Emperor is Naked

Ryan’s Well Foundation
Builds wells in Africa and raises awareness of water scarcity issues

During a visit to the Johannesburg slum of Diepsloot in early September 2002, young Canadian visionary Ryan Hreljac met people living in urban poverty for the first time. In the van en route to the next event on his busy program during the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Ryan sat silently with his parents, lost in deep thought. His father tapped his arm and asked why he was so quiet. Ryan continued looking out the window at the dismal townships and finally shook his head. “I'm not working hard enough,” he said quietly.

He was 11 years old.

In many ways, Ryan —now barely 13— is like any normal adolescent. He's content with his own company and can sit half a day in a boat on the river waiting for a fish. But he's also a team player: soccer, basketball, and hockey too. In his short public life, which began at age 6 when he worked to achieve his goal and raised $70, which he believed would buy a well in Africa, Ryan has already accomplished more than 20 average middle-aged adults. He has taken the world on his young shoulders and accomplished what he can, believing that “anything is possible if you really want it and you try really hard.” He has raised nearly $1 million to build more than 100 wells in Africa, spoken at more than 100 schools, participated in 7 major international events, in 27 international conferences, and met dozens of powerful and famous personalities in the world, including The Princes of Wales and Orange, Oprah Winfrey, and the Pope where he has delivered his singular message of hope, inspiration, and tenacity.

“My dream,” says the unwavering young man, “is for everyone in Africa to have clean water.”

  Call to Action

What can I do to help?

In spite of six decades and hundreds of billions of dollars invested in “international development,” governments and agencies all over the world have failed to significantly improve the conditions of poor people on our planet. The “trickle down” macroeconomic theory that suggests the poor will eventually benefit from development at the top levels simply does not work.

Even in the US, the richest nation on the planet, the lower 80% of the population has not seen their lives improved even marginally from the economic boom of the latter 20th century.

Ask any slum dweller if their lives have improved in the past 20 years. Urban slums are the same or worse today as they were a quarter century ago. Higher populations, increasing pollution, and new community problems due to dirty drugs and correspondingly increasing crime rates have actually worsened the problems they face.

Hunger, disease, and apathy are as rampant as ever among poor people, especially in cities. Alarming population statistics among the poor indicate that the world can only deteriorate, and more rapidly each year, unless we, the privileged, make a concerted, collaborative effort to help. But where to start?