Nonviolent Owensboro sprung up after the 2016 election when Mary Danhauer and Peggy Wilson were seeing a large amount of violence occurring throughout the nation and also in Owensboro.
While trying to counteract the violence they were seeing, they found out about the Nonviolent Cities Project which focuses on educating and learning ways to be nonviolent in several ways. The organization talks about all kinds of violence, which Danhauer describes as everything that “takes away people’s rights.”
“[Nonviolent Cities Project is] working to make nonviolence more mainstream in the United States,” Danhauer said.
The Owensboro chapter has partnered with The Poor People’s Campaign in the past, and one key initiative they want to work on is gun violence.
Danhauer said on Aug. 28, Nonviolent Owensboro has an event geared toward talking about gun violence in video games and how to protect young children from the impact it has on them.
The event will be a book study on Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill by Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano. Danhauer said the book dives into what can happen if a person were to play a violent game and what that does to the thought process. They also plan to discuss how parents can talk to their children about video games.
“We spent a lot of time initially educating ourselves on what violence is and what nonviolence is, and looking at the violence inside each person, inside ourselves, and then also looking at the violence that’s going on among people in groups, in the city and the nation,” Danhauer said.
Since joining the organization, Danhauer said she has been able to learn about the violence she has within herself and how to fight it “in my own heart.” She said one way she realized is the language she uses. One instance she found was using the words “bullet points” to describe topics that people speak on and how to convey her thoughts in a less violent way.
Nonviolent Owensboro plans to continue using this idea to raise the idea of non-violence in language and also thought processes. Other events they plan to hold are a Nonviolent Direct Action week starting on Sept. 11 with events spread over several days ending on Sept. 21, which is the International Day of Peace.
