Mission Statement

The Portland Peace Team was officially founded in 2012 as a member team of the Shanti Sena Network of US & Canadian peace teams. Its mission has been to serve as peacekeepers for nonviolent social movements, campaigns, and events. We are nonpartisan, nonviolent, and nonprofit. We do not operate in the streets unless invited by the organizers of an event and we only act with the moral authority granted to us by those organizers. They ask us to remind all participants of their stated nonviolent code of conduct. We've done this in service to many nonviolent groups, campaigns, and movements since 2012. We never tell people what to do; we ask them to respect the hard work of the event organizers and the code of conduct mandated by those organizers. We do not carry any weapons beyond the moral force of nonviolence, and we do not partner with anyone or any group which is armed with any other weapons. At times a group will ask us to liaise with police, with media, both, or neither. We only do such services when we are invited and we have the capacity to do so. At times the organizers have decided some of their participants will offer nonviolent resistance; other times organizers have asked that no participants violate any laws. We support the organizers' decisions as we remind people of them. When we are wearing our blue vests we are committed to absolute nonviolence, even if attacked. That code of conduct is our signature and has never been violated. We've served peace groups, BIPOC groups, climate chaos resistance groups, justice groups, and more.