Director, +Peace Narrative & Cultural Strategist, Peace in our Cities Network

Monica Curca serves as the +Peace’s Narrative & Cultural Strategist Director. She is a cultural organizer, peacebuilder, communications strategist, designer, and facilitator, leveraging the power of storytelling and human-centered design to create communities where everyone belongs.

Monica is the founder and director of Activate Labs, a non-profit organization dedicated to building a global creative force for peace and justice. Now based in Washington, DC, Monica’s passion is activating and resourcing leaders and communities to co-create transformative change. Along with the Activate Labs team, Monica has developed the “Peace Design Process” which has trained thousands of participants to lead as peace designers. Through her work at Activate Labs Monica has also pioneered “Peace Activations” which are experiential and art-based public spaces that engage and activate the public towards collective action for peace and justice. Often Peace Activations are linked to social justice and peacebuilding campaigns. Monica is a communications expert and thus has designed, launched, and managed hundreds of campaigns over the last 10 years advocating for immigrant rights, ending mass incarceration, police accountability, a living wage, transparent governance, etc.

Monica brings passion, experience, and skill to her work and has not only fought but also won key policy and narrative change victories. However, Monica knows that the way to change policy or narrative begins with creating a culture peace and thus she foremost sees herself as a cultural peace organizer. Monica is the winner of the 2019 Human Rights Educator O’Brien Award, Seeds of Peace 2019 “Gather Fellow” and was a finalist for the Peace Direct: Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders.

She holds two master’s degrees from the Heller School for Social Policy in Management at Brandeis University, in Sustainable International Development and Conflict and Coexistence. While originally from Romania, Monica currently lives with her family in Takoma Park, Maryland.