About Our Program
The AFSC National Youth & Militarism Program has been active since 1986 in movements to reduce the impacts of war and military institutions on young people's lives. We aim to halt the growing influence of the military in U.S. schools and to help students and educators work for peace and better education in their communities. We also support those who refuse to participate in militarism and work to expand every person's right to walk away from war and violence.
Together with staff from our nine regional AFSC offices, we lead trainings and workshops, conduct research, distribute literature, and support grassroots educational and advocacy efforts.
Our understanding is that young people have always been at the heart of significant movements for change in the United States and we believe that young people will be equally important in any successful efforts to reshape U.S. foreign policy and military policy and create a culture of peace. We work to educate young people about the myths and realities of war and military recruitment.
We also place the issue of conscientious objection to war at the heart of our program — both for civilians impacted by draft registration, militarism and the war economy and for those serving in the military who come to object to their participation in war.
Our work around conscientious objection has always extended itself into the areas of support and advocacy for soldiers seeking to obtain Conscientious Objector status while in the U.S. military. We have also taken pains to develop relationships with international advocacy and support organizations who work to defend the rights of groups and individuals to resist militarism on the grounds of opposing war morally, ethically and/or spiritually. We aim at eventually achieving worldwide recognition of the universal right to conscientiously object to war and militarism.
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