​My name is Nanik. I was born on 26 November, 1972. I’m married to Petrus, and we have two sons, Wiwit and Tito. I work as a teacher at Joglo Preschool from Monday to Friday from 6:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., preparing, interacting with children, and meeting with the teachers and parents. From 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. I teach English lessons for elementary and junior high school students. Since August 2013, we have developed an alternative approach to education based on the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). I attended my first AVP workshop in 2008 when Petrus brought AVP back with him from Aceh. Increasingly I feel called to take initiative in peace building and introduce AVP workshops to my relatives, friends, students and their parents, because it brings us out of the habitual violence in our life and teaches us peace, which we need in our homes, schools and communities. In 2011, Petrus and I built Peace Place to develop the spirit of peace with the hope that many people could learn how to get out of the habitual violence present in daily life. Meeting with people, sharing with foreigners from Friends Peace Teams, healing from trauma, standing up for social justice, and offering education focused on meaning, all strengthen my life to actually live peacefully. Peace really needs to be strived for and can be realized everywhere.

My name is Petrus. I was born on April 6, 1968. I live with my wife, Nanik, and my two children, Wiwit and Tito, at Peace Place in Pati, Central Java, Indonesia. I work as an organizer and facilitator of Peace Place and as senior staff of SHEEP Indonesia, the Society for Health, Education, Environment and Peace, a foundation formed for social and community activism. In February 2005, SHEEP assigned me to Aceh for five years. We faced enormous problems as a result of both the tsunami and the armed conflict between the Free Aceh Movement and the Republic of Indonesia. In August 2005, I was introduced to my own conscience at an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshop in Aceh. I began to facilitate AVP workshops in East Aceh, Sigli and North Sumatra. I felt that learning to listen to conscience was needed by all people, not just the Acehnese who experienced war first-hand, but the Javanese who experienced colonization and social and religious violence. In 2008, I brought AVP home to Java to discern our conscience and practice nonviolence in my daily life with my family. The AVP workshops made us more self-confident, open and self-reflective, as well as taught us to release trauma and to comprehend the meaning in our lives.

Nanik and Petrus both felt that this conscience movement was very good to develop in their area, so they established Peace Place with the support of Friends Peace Teams in Asia West Pacific in April 2011. Organizing activities at Peace Place based on conscience gives them lots of energy to persist in developing discernment and activities. They perpetually reflect, exchange feedback and strive to meet the challenges of life as peacefully as possible, beginning with themselves and their family. At this time, as they are still learning how to do this, they face many challenges, especially as adults with young children and in organizing based on discernment. Their family is still learning to have the courage to make decisions and choices that they believe in. They believe this will bring meaning to their family and to the environment around us, which is confirmed and acknowledged by many people who participate in our programs and workshops.