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Illustration from the Internationally Acclaimed, Award Winning Book Operation Warhawks - How Young People Become Warriors

About us: The History of the Atrium Society

The Importance of understanding what prevents peace

"The most vital and urgent challenge facing humankind is to understand what prevents peace, which is to understand and resolve conflict in relationship. For millennia we have accepted conflict and the violence it creates as an inevitable part of the human condition. We must challenge this conditioned attitude. We must educate ourselves about the source, nature, and structure of conflict, to recognize how we have sustained it through conditioned thinking and action. It is now time in the evolution of the human race to address this concern with our full attention and capabilities."
- Dr. Terrence and Jean Webster-Doyle Atrium Society Youth Peace Literacy

The Atrium Society gives it's Youth Peace Literacy Award to those individuals and organizations that have demonstrated an understanding of the primary cause of conflict and have done outstanding work to promote this fundamental insight in the education of young people worldwide.

The Atrium Society is a nonprofit, nonsectarian and nonpolitical organization committed to peace education for children around the world. Founded in 1984, the Atrium Society focuses on the primary factors that lead to conflict – psychological conditioned thinking and action. Our minds are conditioned by origin of birth, education and experiences. The Atrium Society works to bring this issue of psychological conditioning, and the worldwide conflict it creates, to the forefront of our awareness.
  • The Atrium Society was founded in 1984 by Jean Webster-Doyle, Peace Educator, in Ojai, California, USA. The intent of the Atrium Society is to provide education and materials about the divisive nature of psychological conditioned thinking that is at the root of individual, social, and global conflict. In 1984, Dr. Webster-Doyle became Director of the Atrium Society. With Dr. Webster-Doyle’s educational direction the Atrium Society ran a pilot middle/high school from 1985-1989 in Ojai, California to investigate ways to implement curricula on psychological conditioning to educate young people about the roots of conflict. From 1990 until present the Atrium Society has devoted its energies to creating and promoting the Education for Peace Program that is designed and written by Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle. The Education for Peace program liberates young people from the conditioned, divisive thinking at the root of bullying, racism, and war. Dr Webster- Doyle also designed the innovative Martial Arts for Peace program to bring forth a martial art that helped young people to learn the skills to avoid, resolve and manage conflict intelligently. The Martial Arts for Peace program includes a special focus on developing mental and physical confidence so that children do not react in a fight or flight manner to bullying.
  • In 1991 The Atrium Society organized the Children’s Disarmament Day in Middlebury and Burlington Vermont. Over a thousand people attended and the Governor of Vermont, then Dr. Howard Dean established a peace education day due to this event.
  • From 1991-1996 the Atrium Society presented its work at three International peace conferences in Paris, Montreal, and in Vermont.
  • The Atrium Society developed and published a total of fifty-four books, curricula and workbooks written by Dr. Webster-Doyle. The Education for Peace books have won praise from educators, counselors, parents and others who work or live with young people as practical tools for helping children deal with bullying, racism and to understand the psychological roots of conflict and violence.
  • The Atrium Society, through its International Youth Peace Literacy Project, has donated thousands of books to children in disadvantaged areas in the USA and globally to help them gain the skills to deal with conflict peacefully. Dr. Webster-Doyle and Mrs. Webster-Doyle have traveled throughout the USA and Canada and have also visited Europe, Russia, Mexico and the Caribbean to give seminars and train teachers.
  • In 2002 The Atrium Society started a special project to work with Youth At Risk Centers in Canada and the USA. The Atrium Society in 2004 has helped to initiate programs in Australia, England, and Iran.  In 2004 the Atrium Society certified Mr. Marvin Davis of Liberia as trained in Youth Peace Literacy for West Africa to represent and teach the programs there. The Atrium Society’s Education for Peace books have received many awards and acclaims.
  • The Atrium Society today is an internationally known Peace Education organization whose work is archived at the University of Connecticut, Swarthmore College and the University of Southern Mississippi in the USA. The work is also on permanent display in the International Museum of Peace and Solidarity in Samarkind, Uzbekistan, the Commonwealth of Independent States and at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Hiroshima Japan. The Education for Peace books are loved and honored by thousands of children and youth throughout the world who deeply appreciate being given the skills to understand and resolve conflict peacefully.