Peace Child International

Founded in 1982, PCI is one of the largest networks of youth-led organisations in consultative status with the United Nations, uniting 1,500+ affiliate groups and networks in over 180 countries. PCI’s mission is to empower young people through non-formal learning to address the world’s most pressing challenges – currently youth unemployment and sustainability. It operates from a residential centre near Cambridge in the UK with an international staff of 10 young people + 3 older staff.
PCI’s regular activities promote non-formal experiential education projects like
- “Be the Change Ambassadors” – promoting sustainable lifestyles;
- “Create the Change” programme which teaches communication and employability skills to disadvantaged young people through innovative improvisational and Forum Theatre activities.
PCI provides job creation trainings around the world in our ‘Be The Change Academy’ (BTCA) – where disadvantaged youth are helped into green jobs through business skills training. It also manages the EU Youth Job Creation Network and its European ‘Enterprise YOU!’ youth entrepreneurship training programme. Using co-management techniques, PCI has developed excellent systems for enabling highly successful events. The organisation is perhaps best known for its European and World Youth Congress series. It has organised six World Youth Congresses involving 500 to 1,000 delegates from 150 countries. It has also organized over 30 regional conferences on youth concerns. PCI has recently completed a series of Youth Prepcoms for the Rio+20 Summit – which reached over 15,000 youth and brought 1,000 youth delegates to the UN Heads of State Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012. PCI’s Founders recently received a Common Ground award in Washington DC at a ceremony attended by Hilary Clinton for PCI’s work with youth around the world.