Calendar

IRTFDonate – use this code and Equal Exchange donates 10% of your purchase to IRTF

We’re excited to announce that Equal Exchange will be donating a portion of their sales to IRTF when you shop their online store. 

To shop Equal Exchange click here. Find organic and fairly traded coffees, teas, chocolate, cocoa, nuts, dried fruits, and even olive oil—all from small farmer co-ops, available by the case for stocking up.

Promo code:  IRTFDonate . Enter this code when you check out and Equal Exchange will donate 10% of your purchase back to IRTF!

Equal Exchange was founded as a solidarity organization in 1986 to support small farmers in Nicaragua by importing their coffee despite the US embargo.  Forty years later, this worker-owned co-op continues to prove that a more democratic food system is possible.

To shop Equal Exchange click here

We invite you to join us on February 10 for an upcoming Field Notes conversation, An Update on the Authoritarian Playbook, in conversation with Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She has spent years studying how authoritarian leaders consolidate power, and how those patterns repeat across countries and generations. Together with Cristosal Executive Director Noah Bullock, the conversation will look at how today’s authoritarian playbook is taking shape, drawing on Central America and global examples.

to register click here

Hello Ohio College and University Peace & Conflict Studies Programs/Centers and related programs:

Thanks to our host JCU, we will be able to bring together Ohio College and University Departments and Centers that focus on peace, justice, and conflict transformation for the 2026 Annual OPCSN Conference!  This conference asks participants to focus on how we strengthen democracy through civic engagement as a form of peacebuilding by addressing the following questions:

• How can we build bridges through participation in local governance and local nonprofits/non-governmental organizations, engaging our diverse multicultural, economic, faith-based, and social interests with understanding and civility?
• How can we envision more just, inclusive, and diverse communities?
• Civic engagement and peacebuilding may also include how we prepare our students and communities to engage in dialogue across differences, build media literacy, enhance understanding, and support a healthy democracy.  

Agenda

9:30 AM - 10:30 AM

Coffee/tea/welcome and display tables w/student posters related work and/or the various universities programs

Question:

• Do you represent a college or university that has a peace or conflict studies related program or center?  Display tables during this time are offered at no charge for you.  Please contact us at the email noted below to reserve your spot!
• Do you or your students have work you want to share about enhancing democracy through peacebuilding?  Please email us at the contact email below so we can reserve a table for you/your students!

10:30 - 11:40AM

Welcome & Opening Panel: Strengthening Democracy through Civic Engagement & Peacebuilding  

Panelists: John Carroll University (Center for Service Learning & Social Action), Ohio State University (Divided Community Project), + Examples from the field!

11:45 - 1:15PM

Working Lunch - Guests will be invited to sit at tables based on their interest

+
 

OPCSN Members Networking Luncheon

1:15PM - 4:30PM

Workshops - We are inviting all of Ohio's colleges and universities (and their partner organizations) to either be on a panel, present a 1.5 hour session on their work, or a 3 hour skill building session.  

Who:  

• Anyone is welcome.
• Presentations focused on the work of Ohio Colleges/Universities - faculty, staff, admin and students & Community organizations doing this work in Ohio on a related topic

Cost (includes attendance, light breakfast and lunch)

• $35 Attendees not associated with an Ohio College/University that wish to attend 
• $25 per person (Ohio College/Universities w/peace/conflict studies programs - faculty/staff/admin.)
• $10 for each Ohio college student

Conference Registration Link - https://givepul.se/37ri1k  
 

Questions?  Email Jen at OPCSN at Ohiopcsn@gmail.com

OPCSN Website -   https://ohiopeaceandconflict.org/ 

Learn how to spot ICE vehicles, what to take notes on as an observer, and how to report a sighting.

Learn how to protect immigrants from ICE through strategies that include observing, documenting, and providing aid. You'll learn legal options, how to be safe, and how to be part of a community-wide defense network. 

Organizer: Cleveland Heights 4 Immigrant Rights. Contact: ClvHts4ImmigrantRights@gmail.com

to register click here

source: Detention Watch Network

Register for this webinar here: https://detentionwatchnetwork.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/detentionwatchnetwork/event.jsp?event=525&

ICE and other federal agencies continue to escalate violence against communities across the country under Trump's second presidency with immigration agencies killing at least seven people in our communities, including Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Their deaths adds to the growing and deadly toll of federal immigration enforcement, with at least 6 deaths in ICE detention in January 2026 and 31 deaths in ICE custody in 2025, an all-time high.

hen Trump was inaugurated there were 39,703 people were already held in immigrant detention; more than double the number detained when Biden took office in 2021, that number has since surged to over 73,000 people detained, surpassing the previous record of 55,000 people detained during Trump’s first administration. Trump continues to push an aggressive expansion of immigrant detention, including proposals to use warehouses. Yet across the country, people are organizing to stop detention expansion and to protect themselves, their immigrant family members, neighbors, and friends who are at risk. Join us in this resistance! 

source: World Beyond War https://worldbeyondwar.org/ 

We call on individuals and organizations around the world to join the Global Days of Action to #CloseBases on February 21-23, 2026, by organizing events at military base sites or other locations near you.

Military bases, especially foreign ones — current and sought — generate wars. The United States has used its bases in Latin America and the Caribbean to attack Venezuela, while threatening to take over Greenland to build more bases there. Iran is bordered by seven nations with U.S. bases. The nations to the south and east of China are packed with U.S. bases, as is Europe, as is Israel. Africa has foreign bases from several empires. Russia is making more use of its bases in Belarus.

On February 23, 1903, the United States took over Guantanamo from Cuba. It has never restored it. People across Latin America have used this date to organize events opposing bases, militarism, and the Monroe Doctrine. We made it a global day of action for the first time in 2025. We’re expanding our second annual collection of events to include the February 21-22 weekend.

What you can do: Use our resources to easily plan a local educational or activist event of any kind: a panel, a protest, an art display, a banner-drop, a sit-in, a press conference, a film screening, a rally, a march.

1. Bases often perpetuate colonialism, removing Indigenous people from their lands. From Panama to Guam to Puerto Rico to Okinawa to dozens of other locations across the world, militaries have taken valuable land from local populations, often pushing out Indigenous people in the process, without their consent and without reparations. For example, the entire population of the Chagos Islands was forcibly removed from the island of Diego Garcia by the UK so that it could be leased to the U.S. for an airbase.
2. Bases cost an exorbitant amount of $$. The cost of U.S. foreign military bases alone is estimated at $80 billion a year, money that could be better spent on healthcare, education, renewable energy, and so much more.
3. Bases exacerbate environmental damage and the climate crisis. Military emissions are exempted from climate agreements, like the Kyoto Protocol. The construction of bases has caused irreparable ecological damage, such as the destruction of coral reefs and the environment for endangered species in Henoko, Okinawa. Furthermore, it is well documented at hundreds of sites around the world that military bases leach toxic so-called “forever chemicals” (PFAS/PFOS) into local water supplies, which has had devastating health consequences for nearby communities.
4. Bases can have violent and harmful impacts on local communities.
   Militaries have a notorious legacy of sexual violence, including kidnapping, rape, and murders of women and girls in nearby communities. Yet troops stationed at foreign bases are often afforded impunity for their crimes due to Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the so-called “host” country. Bases can also bring a rise in property taxes and inflation in areas surrounding them which has been known to push locals out.
5. Bases heighten tensions and provoke war-making. The presence of hundreds of thousands of troops, massive arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe facilitates war-making and promotes an arms race. Additionally, bases make locations into targets for attack. And foreign bases implicate countries in the crimes of foreign militaries.

to register click here

The Resistance Fair is a gathering of groups working every day to bring our values to life— protecting targeted communities, our environment, and our democracy. It’s now more important than ever to protect the people and institutions that actually make this country great!

WHEN:  Saturday, February 21 

WHERE:  Cleveland Heights-University Heights High School Cafeteria 13263 Cedar Rd. Enter through Door 1 off the parking lot on the east side of the school. This can be accessed from Cedar Road or Washington Boulevard.

SPECIAL FEATURES at this year’s Resistance Fair:

Food: Heights High Vocal Music and Swim Cadets will have baked goods and coffee for sale.

Books: Hexagon Books and Mac’s Backs will provide books for sale relevant to our theme.

Kids: Lake Erie Ink will host family-friendly activities.

Action: Opportunities to take action will be provided including a postcard table to write your U.S. legislators. Postcards will be delivered in person.

Info about all host groups – websites, mission statements, volunteer opportunities – will be available to all attendees via a QR code and posted on the wall.

PARKING:  The school is hosting several basketball games that day, so if parking is not available in the lot or near the school, you might park on Lee Road in the city garage, behind the Cedar Lee Theater or other nearby lots.   We will have some volunteers there to help you unload your supplies.

SECURITY:  In addition to the school’s security guards, we will have two metal detectors at Door 1. We recommend, if possible, that people not bring bags that must be run through the machines.

CHECK-IN PROCESS: To speed up getting attendees into the School as quickly as possible, we will have an expedited check-in for those who pre-register at www.clevelandheightsdems.com/resistance-fair-2026. Please encourage everyone to pre-register!

TABLES: Organizations that have pre-registered have assigned table numbers, in roughly alphabetical order by group names. The list of organizations and their table #s will be in the printed program every attendee will receive and will also be posted on the wall. The tables are 6 ft by 2 ft, so please plan accordingly. We will have at least 1 chair at each table, more if the school has enough. You are welcome to bring an additional chair if you wish.

Join NEO Workercenter on March 20th

"We’d love for you to be there so that you can get to know a bit about us and learn about our work! Join us at The Elliot, to enjoy a variety show featuring local talent, a silent auction and drinks available for purchase. Please note -- a meal will not be provided at the event."

to register click here

JOIN US AT THE FREE STAMP ON MARCH 28TH FOR THE THIRD TIME TO MAKE SURE THAT FASCISTS KNOW THEIR PLACE.

On March 28 we'll take to the streets, ready to bring millions of new allies along with us to declare, in one voice: NO thugs terrorizing our neighborhoods. NO troop deployments in our streets. NO imperial wars of conquest. NO KINGS.

Our movement is only getting bigger and stronger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan—it’s the foundation our nation was built upon. Born in the streets, carried by millions in chants and on posters, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together.

The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings, and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty. Grow our movement and join us.

https://www.mobilize.us/opalmissionvote/event/893355/