Kahanee’s Peace Conference 2025 will be the first immersive event of its kind.
Bringing together peace practitioners, journalists, artists, musicians, community leaders, community members, grandmothers and grandfathers to share, celebrate, and amplify community-led peace processes to inspire a realization that peace is possible.
Bringing together cultures, lived experiences, ways of knowing, being, and expressing like no other.
Connect & Engagement Network and collaborate with national and international peace builders, thought-leaders, community leaders, grandmothers, and grandfathers who are making peace happen every day in their communities across the globe.
Share & Wonder Share your journey, your expertise, your stories, and your energy with your peers to foster awe, curiosity, reciprocity and relationality, weaving together your lived experiences to support the fabric of peace.
Hear & Reflect Listen to inspiring stories from the hearts of conflicts globally and locally to reflect on what tools, mechanisms, approaches, gifts, skills, and experiences we can leverage to make peace possible in ourselves and in our communities.
Build & Grow Take the opportunity to grow your skills, your understanding and your network of people: people you can work with, people you can call on for support, people you can engage with, be inspired by and inspire to advance peace together; one connection at a time.
Why This? Why Now?
We are seeing an increasingly polarized world around us. Escalating conflicts, unaddressed historical trauma, an eroding sense of identity and belonging in an ever-changing global landscape and eroding mental wellbeing and resilience post-pandemic has left communities wrestling with conflict at much deeper levels. As positive peacebuilders, we believe the world needs conflict transformation approaches that can self-empower people, that can remind people of their resilience, of the tools they already have, of practices and rituals that perhaps lie in their ancestral backgrounds, approaches they can leverage, enhance, and implement for themselves and their communities. As peacebuilders, we want to foster a sense of possibility. The Peace Conference 2025 aims to do just that.
Our Program
Kahanee's Peace Conference 2025 will be held in various formats to amplify an immersive experience at Winnipeg's RBC Convention Centre.
Important Dates
Sept 10 - Oct 31 2024 -Early Bird Registration March 31, 2025 - Registration Closes
Conference Dates April 7-8, 2025 - Pre-Conference Workshops April 9-10, 2025 - Conference & Program April 10, 2025 - World Market Experience, Evening
Our keynote speakers will be curated specifically to anchor all participants in the power of story, creative expression, and community-led efforts to nurture the possibility of peace, dipping into the various forms peacebuilding can take, including reconciliation as peacebuilding.
Immersive Theatre
Featuring a multi-generational family, our immersive theatre will showcase a five-part play that demonstrates the power of dialogue in navigating polarized conversations on a micro-scale, leaving participants with practical tools to bring back to their communities, workplaces, and families.
Workshops
Our workshops bring peace practitioners to coach participants in trauma-informed peacebuilding, storytelling, and inter-community cohesion through transformative dialogue.
Story Nooks
Our story nooks will create a beautiful, immersive setting for participants to story-listen from elders, grandmothers and grandfathers from different cultural backgrounds, stories of community-based approaches to conflict transformation, stories that inspire, and stories that foster a sense of hope and possibility.
Expression
Creative expression will be interwoven throughout the conference with poetry, music, immersive collaborative art, and dances that inspire creative expression as a real place of possibility to bring communities together for conflict transformation.
World Market Experience
The World Market Experience will be a sensory-rich journey through the sights, sounds, scents, and flavors of diverse cultures from around the globe. Inspired by bustling vendor markets worldwide, this experience will feature a variety of stalls, each offering unique cultural experiences—whether it's savoring traditional foods, exploring artisanal crafts, or engaging with local traditions through music and dance.
“Playing Stories of My Enemy” - A Forum Theater Workshop
Bonface Beti
08:00
Registration + Refreshments
09:00
Opening Ceremony
10:30
Break
11:00
Keynote Address - Kiran Singh Sirah
12:00
Lunch
2:00
Breakout Session 1 - Power of Matriarchy: Stories of Women in Peacebuilding
2:00
Breakout Session 2 - Elders Nook
2:00
Breakout Session 3 - Myths and Folklore in Storytelling and Peacebuilding
08:00
Registration + Refreshments
9:30
Keynote Address - Michael Redhead Champagne
11:00
A Play About Dialogue - Immersive Theatre Experience
12:00
Lunch
2:00
Breakout Session 1 - Media, Information, & Technology in Peacebuilding
2:00
Breakout Session 2 - Food and Peacebuilding
2:00
Breakout Session 3 - Memorialization & Story in Peacebuilding
6:30
Global Street Market Experience
Our Keynote Speakers
Kiran Singh Sirah
Kiran Singh Sirah is an award-winning Storyteller, Folklorist, Arts & Culture Creative Thought Leader, Artist, and Past President of the International Storytelling Center. For more than two decades, Kiran has established award-winning arts, cultural and human rights initiatives in numerous countries. These programs have received recognition from UNESCO, The White House, The United Nations, and the European Commission. He has spoken at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, American Public Health Association, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, The Pentagon, The US State Department, and numerous World Peace, Arts, and Culture assemblies.
In 2015, he was invited to the White House in support of storytelling efforts for national grassroots peacebuilding efforts. An advisory member to UNESCO Scotland and a Rotary World Peace Fellow, he has developed articles, toolkits, and talks on interdisciplinary storytelling and creative approaches to relationship building in communities around the globe. Kiran passionately believes in the power of human creativity, arts, storytelling, and the notion of a truly global multicultural society.
Michael Redhead Champagne is working towards a revolution that dismantles harmful systems and builds up new ones based on justice, equity, and love. A community leader from Winnipeg's North End with family roots in Shamattawa First Nation, Michael is host, helper, published author, on-screen personality and sought after public speaker. Michael happily shares his words, wisdom, and welcoming energy across Canada and around the world. Michael believes Indigenous knowledge will save the world and this can be seen in his commitment to Ininew concepts such as wahkotowin, mino bimadisiwin & sakihitowin. He is actively working on reclaiming his Ininew language and has started a language nest at the St John's Public Library.
You can find him speaking out about poverty, politics and reconciliation on podcasts, video projects and in the news. Featured on multiple TEDx Talks, APTN’s Michif Country & First Contact, Michael is also developing a number of storytelling and multimedia projects. He loves family friendly jokes, Tetris, Stevie Wonder music and celebrating the success of others. Michael's first children’s book, We Need Everyone, from HighWater Press is now available everywhere books are sold.
Anti-Racist Education Professional Learning Initiative Coordinator
Bonface Beti
African Artist, Storyteller and Multidisciplinary Practitioner
Somia Sadiq
Founder of Kahanee, Peacebuilder and Planner
Iman Kassam
Broadcast Journalist
Zoya Miari
Peace Ambassador and Storyteller
Prahba Sankaranarayan
President and CEO of Mediators Beyond Borders International
Joseph Chaeban
Dairy Scientist and Partner at Chaeban Ice Cream
Amna Burki
CEO of StoriesMatter, Storyteller
Kenton Lobe
International Development & Environmental Studies Teacher
Stay tuned for more updates on our program of visionary voices!
Partnering With Us
Aligning your brand with Kahanee will amplify your business’ commitment to fostering peace, tolerance, acceptance, and celebration of diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and creative and innovative approaches to building peace ground up in our communities, societies, and beyond.
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