Peace Action is the nation’s largest grassroots peace organization with nearly 40 state affiliates, over 100 local chapters, 31 Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) chapters, over 100,000 dues-paying members and official NGO status with the United Nations. For over 50 years, Peace Action has organized to eliminate the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, strengthen human rights and democracy by halting the arms trade, increase international cooperation and cut wasteful Pentagon spending.
A Scoville Fellow working with Peace Action will have the unique experience of transforming policy knowledge into grassroots activism and grassroots activism into political change. Peace Action plays a lead role in facilitating collaborative partnerships between our allies on Capitol Hill, our colleagues in the peace and security policy community, and our network of grassroots peace activists across the country. As a fellow at Peace Action, you will have opportunities to forge relationships with allied organizations in the Washington area, while translating the latest congressional strategies and policy developments to our activists in the field for their grassroots outreach, education and advocacy on issues related to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, promoting diplomacy in Iran and to solve the Syrian civil war, nuclear disarmament, reducing the Pentagon budget and supporting human rights and international cooperation. Peace Action is the only organization working on these issues that uses all the tools in the social change tool box: From working with Senators, Representatives and senior congressional staff to civil disobedience, and from grassroots organizing and coalition building to electoral strategies. A fellow will get to see all these tools and learn how to use them strategically to affect policy change.
Peace Action’s national office has a staff of sixteen persons and is located just a block from the Silver Spring metro stop in downtown Silver Spring, MD and 25 minutes from the Capitol. Several Peace Action grassroots affiliates are in the area and travel to conferences or events within the U.S. is likely. Though rare, past Scoville Fellows travelled internationally.