United States
The need for protection in the United States
Communities across the United States are facing significant restrictions on civic space, militarized approaches to public safety, increasing identity-based violence, violent racist rhetoric from political leadership, and record levels of detention. Simultaneously, funding cuts for violence prevention programs, public health, and social services at state and federal levels are constraining the resources available to communities to keep themselves safe. See more about protection needs in the U.S. here.
NP’s work in the United States
Over the last five years, Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) has worked alongside local communities in the U.S. to keep people safe. Responsive to community needs, this work has spanned organizing safety teams at protests, training local groups in nonviolent responses to conflict, and accompanying people at risk of violence—such as hate crimes or state violence.
Our team strengthens safety before, during, and after crisis. Our work includes:
- Providing protective presence and accompaniment: With support from NP staff, our partners provide direct, unarmed protective presence in high-risk settings. This presence reduces isolation, deters escalation, documents abuses, and strengthens community confidence. These locations include courthouses and immigration check-ins, community patrols responding to enforcement activity, public events where harassment or intimidation may occur, and service sites such as food pantries and legal clinics serving vulnerable populations.
- Building long-term protection ecosystems tailored to the violent threats faced by each community: We work with groups to deliver practice-based safety trainings focused on immigration enforcement and civic action scenarios. Through scenario-based support and applied exercises, organizations move from uncertainty to preparedness — replacing chaos with coordination. Beyond trainings, we convene and connect organizations, strengthening coordination between legal advocates, direct service providers, neighborhood defense groups, labor unions, faith institutions, and grassroots organizers. We provide resources on wellbeing and care for frontline human rights defenders, so they can sustain their work of protection and peace for the long-term.
- Protecting civic space and elections: As we approach high-risk election cycles and increased protest activity, NP equips organizers and coalitions with the tools to de-escalate confrontation and to protect civic participation and reduce harm in volatile environments: risk assessment and scenario planning; safety team coordination; de-escalation skills; upstander intervention tools; and street medicine fundamentals.
The future of NP's work in the United States
As NP continues to expand our reach and impact, we aim to advance scalable models that help communities sustain safety and ensure that civic space is expansive, accessible and safe, especially people historically pushed to the margins.
We work towards a future where safety no longer comes down the barrel of a gun, rather it is cultivated and strengthened through profound connection, generative conflict, and expansive community building. Toward a future where communities are safer and able to respond to risk, where community safety ecosystems are coordinated and resilient, and where civic spaces are expansive and less polarized.
Read More
→ Our strategy
→ U.S. blogs
→ U.S. press clips
→ U.S. publications
→ U.S. statements & letters
Total population: 342.6 million
Communities across the United States are facing extreme restrictions on civic space, militarized approaches to public safety,
increasing identity-based violence, violent racist rhetoric from political leadership, and record levels of detention.
GPI Ranking of Peaceful Countries: #128 out of 163
NP began programming in the U.S. in 2020.
“Every day I was really afraid to come to work. But now I have practiced how it would feel in my body if ICE were to show up in real life. Now I know exactly what to do.”
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