What we do
The Europe Peace Foundation (EPF) is an international non-profit organization focused on addressing the health and peace of populations affected by natural disasters and violent conflicts.
The Europe Peace Foundation (EPF) is an international non-profit organization focused on addressing the health and peace of populations affected by natural disasters and violent conflicts.
The EPF delivers professional and material resources for alleviating humanitarian crises, restoring health services and fostering lasting peace agreements in areas recovering from natural disasters and political turmoil. Currently, we focus primarily in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The EPF closely follows the events in the affected areas. By this way, we understand their needs and we are dedicated to expanding access to health care and specialists, distributing medicines and medical supplies, promoting health education on treatable illnesses, administering vaccination campaigns and blood drives, and providing post-trauma psychological services.
In our commitment to peace, the EPF encourages the exercise of human and civil rights by actively participating in peace efforts and holding parties accountable to agreements. The EPF spreads the vision of dialogue and mutual respect as the necessary channel for conflict-resolution and alternative to violence. We collaborate with information and specialized council for the consolidation and enactment of peace agreements.
The Europe Peace Foundation strives to spread a vision of peace focused on universal human rights. The EPF mobilizes resources to strengthen dialogue and mediation between parties, provides education and strategies to individuals and groups on conflict-resolution and peace management, and promotes stability and development to ensure conflict is resolved through feasible alternatives. The EPF collaborates with local organizations and activists by supporting them with tools to prevent and intervene in violent conflicts, instructing relevant parties with mediation techniques, professional negotiation and effective practices to strengthen participatory democracy and civil rights.
Dialogue and Mediation
The EPF encourages open dialogue with all members of a community as a necessary step for addressing conflict through non-violence and fostering peaceful coexistence. Our professional staff and partners work with participatory methods focused on eliciting transparency and accuracy in different perspectives and grievances and mediating through negotiation and law. Europe Peace Foundation works with different levels of conflict and actors yet always maintains a focus on universal human rights and equality.
The EFP is committed to empowering civil society and activists with advocacy tools and serving as an interface for dialogue involving local organizations and governments or corporations. Dialogue that examines differences, exchanges information and looks for alternatives can have a significant effect on the impact of mediation and agreements.
Conflict-Resolution and Peace Management
The Europe Peace Foundation advises parties on cooperative strategies to resolve conflict and enhance the role and responsibility of civil society in transiting away from conflict towards peace. The EPF facilitates to each and all parties involved in conflict and dispute the use of mediation tools, training and consultation services designed to expand negotiations geared towards conciliation and cooperation. Through assistance and training to individuals and groups, mediated communication can result in agreed-upon steps to immediately reduce violence while steadily advancing civil society bonds and strengthening of the rule of law. The EFP assists individuals and groups in their training to carry out a transparent and open mediation process, reach consensus when possible, and define measures of accountability to set change in motion. At the same time, EFP works with international observers and governments to regulate disputes and provide professional services and counsel to grass roots organizations fighting for the defense of human rights and to secure that the proposed outcomes of mediated conflict-resolution are inclusive and democratic.
Stability and Development
Once agreements have been reached in efforts to resolve conflicts, a phase of accountability and monitoring by third parties is necessary to ensure parties subscribe to and uphold their commitments. The EPF can monitor post-conflict steps and accords by securing legal accountability and, when necessary, the presence of on the ground observers and peace-keeping missions. Continued monitoring and follow-ups pressure parties to adhere to negotiations and consequences. Through advocacy and diplomatic channels, the EPF continues its appeal to governments and organizations to commit to the eradication of human rights violations and other abuses.
Development and investment that directly improves the lives of people and strengthen public services that benefit all members of a community can create lasting bonds amongst previously hostile groups and create alternatives to unequal distribution of resources and violence.
Election Monitoring
As a neutral third-party and non-partisan mediator, the Europe Peace Foundation is well positioned to monitor electoral processes, including the dissemination of information to all sectors of society and geographical extension, setting up of voting stations accessible to all voters, monitoring voting process and vote counts, and confirming results based on the accuracy and transparency of all steps involved.
The Europe Peace Foundation (EPF) is committed to providing medicines, medical equipment and the services of professional medical staff to people recovering from violent conflict and natural disasters. In a crisis situation, health services become the most urgent need, a need that local governments and communities rarely have the capacity to meet.
The EPF stands by the principle of access to health services as a fundamental right for all people. Thus, we call on governments, organizations and companies to facilitate the delivery of low-cost medicines and supplies to those most in need. Certainly health is the underlying basis of a peaceful and productive society. Without health services and medicines, communities cannot prosper nor recover from conflict or disasters.
Often times, rural communities throughout the developing world suffer from the absolute lack of proper health care and medical facilities. This essential lack forces people living in those marginalized areas to venture to cities in search of medical attention. This implies for them a great financial cost, difficulty in following up on medical treatments and, frequently, a general risk to their health. However, in times of crises, this lack of medical attention is aggravated, increasing the possibility of outbreaks of contagious diseases and the risk of death in treatable diseases. Statistically, women and children are the most vulnerable to treatable and preventable illnesses, as well as malnutrition and trauma. In the EPF we are committed to providing basic health care to the people most in need.
The hidden damages of a violent conflict are the psychological scars that many victims endure and battle with for the rest of their lives. For this reason, it is a priority that as part of the reinstating of the health system after an armed conflict, the psychological needs of victims must be also taken into consideration. In this way, we can help them to regain a feeling of security and trust and become active members of society and its reconstruction process.
Children with prolonged exposure to violence need the support of trained professionals to provide an alternative vision of a future, a future of peace and prosperity. At the same time, severe traumas and post-traumatic stress disorder, if not treated, can prevent people from living ordinary lives. In the EPF we place at the service of these communities psychologists specialized in post-trauma recovery; furthermore, we seek to provide workshops and train teachers and community leaders in psychological and social services, as well as provide materials to parents and children and create networks of support and trust.