By Matthew Albracht, Executive Vice President, The Peace Alliance

Published March 12, 2014 in The Huffington Post.

The news headlines tell us everyday that we live in a violent world. From global violence in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now the build up in Ukraine, to urban and domestic violence — and school shootings that are growing so frequent they don’t always even make the top headline anymore — there are indeed countless tragic examples.

The prevailing notion and dominant cultural story is that violence is inevitable and there is really nothing significant we can do about it. Luckily, this is a false assumption. Many new methodologies are emerging, at almost every level of society, which are proving to be highly effective ways to address conflict before it erupts into violence — or to turn it around more quickly when violence is already ensuing. Conflict may be inevitable, but violence does not have to be.

The heroic work in the growing field of peacebuilding offers a prescription for our times. Peacebuilding addresses issues of disharmony, violence, crime, and war by identifying their underlying causes and implementing nonviolent solutions that build an infrastructure for sustainable peace.

Peacebuilding is our evolutionary course forward.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post.