While the pundits and academics continue to debate the causes of wars and their relationship to violence and poverty, people on the ground in war-torn areas - women, men and children whose daily lives are turned upside down by these conflicts - are developing various forms of organized resistance to conflict and steps to affirm the possibilities for new lives embedded in a culture of peace. Based on several years of research in the region and most recently in Rwanda and Uganda in September 2000, this document describes some of those initiatives, particularly by women in the Great Lakes region of Africa.