Story

Katie Gingerich

She/her

The Ripple Effect Education

Canada

Katie Gingerich said peace does not have a universal definition – beyond the mere absence of violence, it’s also a space in which people can thrive and justice is exercised equally and fairly. Katie’s goal, through her organisation’s activities, is to engage youth ‘to explore deeper systems, […] different patterns and ways that we can build up different practices that can advance positive peace’. As Mennonites are traditionally pacifists, her Mennonite upbringing sparked her interest and propensity towards the concept of peace. However, in today’s complex world, things are not as easy as simply not committing violence. Katie said she would have liked to acquire peacebuilding skills earlier in her life in order to give a different perspective on how conflicts materialise and grow and to engage in conversations and to feel more empowered. She said that is why she founded The Ripple Effect Education – working with youths in the broadest sense of the term, but also with those closely related to them – such as teachers and parents – is the first drop of a ripple that will influence them for the rest of their lives. 

Profile

Katie Gingerich is the founder of The Ripple Effect Education, an organisation working to educate youth and others in peacebuilding. She studied peace and conflict at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She worked through internships and summer jobs at children’s summer camps where she spent time in nature, doing arts and crafts and team-building activities. She said that one year, the summer camp she applied to was organised around the themes of peace and peacemaking. She said she saw this as the perfect chance to integrate her studies into what she loved, finding the space and opportunity to let peacebuilding practices seep into the everyday activities of a regular North American summer camp. Katie began working with children through games and simulations, until these activities took on a life of their own and became a full-time project for classrooms and community groups. She saw how educating young people in peacebuilding could make a difference in their lives, and how beautiful things happen when youth feel empowered and listened to. 

Katie said, of course, not everything has been easy. The organisation started small in a far-from-perfect system. It took time for The Ripple Effect Education to adjust its programmes and align them with their values, seek support from existing institutions, and establish themselves in mechanisms that are full of flaws. Katie said nevertheless, ‘we are not just going to not do anything because the system isn't perfect’. Understanding the faults of the systems Katie and her team operate in was their first step, no matter how disillusioning. 

She said, the way her organisation tries to tackle these limitations is by looking at everything through a critical lens and balancing the different inputs they integrate into their programmes. They wanted to make sure that they don’t simply ‘follow a doctrine’, but that they encourage youths to make their own conclusions. Funding was also an issue, especially in the beginning – it took time to persuade sponsors to understand the seriousness and importance of peacebuilding work. She said this was especially difficult as a young woman, in a world where so many things demand money and attention. Katie and her team invested a lot into their research base in an effort to show investors, through using their own marketing language, that The Ripple Effect Education’s work does bear fruit.The initiative proved effective, although it is always an ongoing challenge.

Communication is another important strategy when trying to set up a support system. She said sitting down with potential collaborators, finding out what you can do for each other, and looking for a middle ground between goals and expectations is ‘kind of a cycle’. These challenges are never solved once and for all. It is all worth it, though. Like the first drop in a pond, engaging in peacebuilding changed Katie on every level – it made her a more compassionate leader and a more critical follower, and it gave her a sense of community she had not felt before. Katie hopes to bring this ripple effect into other young people’s lives.