Madonna Wojtaszek-Healy, member of Illinois for a World BEYOND War steering committee, participates in the Joliet celebration of International Peace Day 2024.
By Madonna Wojtaszek-Healy, Illinois for a World BEYOND War, October 12, 2024
On September 21, 2024, several members of Illinois for a World BEYOND War celebrated the International Day of Peace with a peace celebration and peace walk in Joliet. The event was hosted by the Non-Violent Cities Project-Joliet in partnership with Joliet Township Government’s Community Violence Intervention.
Doug Kasper, the chairman of the Non-Violent Cities Project-Joliet, and Karen Johnson, another NVC-Joliet board member, who both have been active in IWBW, were instrumental in getting the mayor and city council of the City of Joliet to sign the Non-Violent Cities charter on September 17.
The peace celebration was an opportunity to invite the community to gather at a local high school, where speeches by several local politicians, Doug Kasper and keynote speaker Ernest Crim III, addressed the need for people to come together with nonviolent solutions to the problems plaguing the community and the nation. Various local peace organizations set up information tables during the event, and the day culminated in a march around the school campus in downtown Joliet.
