Kali Akuno to Receive Gandhi Peace Award at New Haven's Q-House

On Saturday May 13 Kali Akuno, cofounder of Cooperation Jackson, will be given the Gandhi Peace Award in a ceremony at the Q-House in New Haven (197 Dixwell Avenue) at 2 p.m. The Gandhi Peace Award has been presented since 1960 by the Connecticut-based organization Promoting Enduring Peace (PEP). Cooperation Jackson was created in Jackson, Mississippi in 2013 to foster a solidarity economy in Jackson anchored by a network of cooperatives and workerowned, democratically self-managed enterprises.

Michael Mills' "Rhythm's from the Heart" will provide music. There will be no admission fee to the ceremony and there will be free refreshments. Register at PEPeace.org to attend or to view online.

Laura Schleifer Program and Development Officer of the Promoting Enduring Peace said. “Kali Akuno of his fellow members of Cooperation Jackson are creating a model for how we might be able to transform our communities on the local level and then linking them together to create a new system that both provides for human and ecological needs, and also recognizes the interdependence between the two.”

Stanley Heller, PEP Administrator said, “We also admire Akuno’s writings, how he developed ideas on worker self-management and strategy on how to move the cooperative movement forward. He wrote ‘Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black SelfDetermination in Jackson, Mississippi’ in 2017 and this month released a book he co-edited ‘Jackson Rising Redux’. We also admire his bold ideas on the climate crisis and his call for ecosocialism”.

The Gandhi Peace Award has been given since 1960 by the Connecticut-based organization Promoting Enduring Peace. The peace and environmental organization was founded in 1952. Recent laureates of the award are: Syrian-American Dr. Zaher Sahloul, Syrian rescue worker Mayson Al-Misri, musician and activist Jackson Browne, Ralph Nader, Omar Barghouti and Tom Goldtooth and Kathy Kelly. Well-known laureates in the past include Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Ellsberg, Dorothy Day and Eleanor Roosevelt.