SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This week marks the start of the 9th annual A Season for Nonviolence, a national 64-day educational, media and grassroots campaign dedicated to demonstrating that nonviolence is a powerful way to heal, transform and empower people's lives and communities. Inspired by the 50th and 30th memorial anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this international project has inspired hundreds of events and activities focused on alternatives to violence in more than 400 cities in 46 states and 10 countries.

Launching on the January 30th memorial anniversary of Gandhi, the Season draws to a close each year on April 4th, the memorial anniversary of King. Since its start in 1998, the Season's signature event takes place each year at the United Nations, with a large audience of New York City school children, teachers and administrators. More than 50 percent of U.S. governors and countless mayors have issued official proclamations for the 64-day period, and at least 350 major community and activist organizations, colleges and universities, public and private schools, churches, businesses and government agencies have elected themselves as official co-sponsors of the initiative, hosting a variety of events to support the campaign's objectives.

"We look at this project as a 'collaboratory' in concerned citizen action," said Dr. Barbara Fields, co-founder of the project and executive director of the Association for Global New Thought, an inclusive, inter-cultural, inter-faith organization that supports concerned citizens in becoming ethically motivated community leaders.

"We provide the framework, leadership and resources so that local organizations can create programs that cross the boundaries that normally divide a community. While the Season has encouraged measurable strides in communities that lack better methods for problem solving, the more critical benefit has been the demonstration by ordinary citizens that they can be a powerful and unified voice for nonviolent social change by collaborating with one another."

Co-founded by the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, the King family and the Association for Global New Thought, the project aims to focus educational and media attention on the philosophy of attaining peace through nonviolent action as demonstrated by Gandhi and King.

For more information, please visit ww.agnt.org.

Copyright Business Wire 2006

AGNT-Association for Global New Thought

AGNT-Association for Global New Thought

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