This workshop focuses on what you can do to reach and educate students at the individual school level. Tactics discussed include leafleting, career fairs, peace clubs, tabling, speakers’ bureaus, peace camps and other ideas.

Leafleting is a time-honored and inexpensive way to spread political, religious and commercial messages. In its traditional form, in which leaflets, fliers or pamphlets are handed to people face-to-face on the street, leafleting is a method of speech protected by the First Amendment.

Pat Alviso / June 2026 / National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

 https://nnomy.org/peaceclubs/

Why Start a Peace Club?

Starting and supporting a peace club in your area can be some of the most rewarding work you will ever experience. You get the opportunity to work with youth and be a part of a change for generations to come. You can make a big difference in your community by helping our youth become aware that there are alternatives to war and violence and that they have the power to make changes for peace. At many high schools, military recruiters roam campuses unchecked, collect phone numbers and bring an alarming amount of information inside schools that glorifies war and promotes military enlistment as just another career choice. This goes on almost daily in high school campuses around the nation with few challenging these messages, even though most veterans do not gain employment related to the training they receive in the military.

Are you troubled by frequent recruiter visits, ASVAB testing or JROTC in your schools? Are you having difficulty gaining equal school access to counter military recruiting? This workshop covers ways that activists have successfully approached these problems at the policy level. It’s been done in some of the largest school districts in the country (e.g., NY City, L.A., Chicago, San Diego), and at the state level in some cases. The policy approach is another powerful tool that can be useful for having an impact beyond individual school visits. The presentation reviews successful methods as well as some of the challenges organizers have encountered.