It was founded by Dominique Pire, a Belgian Dominican who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958.
"Islands of Peace" is the name given to a charity project founded in 1962, three years after a field experiment showed the efficacy of Dominique Pire's project: consideration of an interaction between peace and development, a strategy based upon "self help", the willing co-operation of the population, and an experiment-based approach with thorough technical and methodological support.
The societal integration of Islands of Peace was first possible thanks to wide support for Dominique Pire's socio-economic (Service d'Entraide Familiale, Aide aux Personnes Déplacées, Iles de Paix) and educational initiatives (Université de Paix), in Europe and some countries of the Third World.
The approach of Islands of Peace can be explained by the well-known sentence: Agir sans savoir est une imprudence, savoir sans agir est une lâcheté, which literally means: To act without knowledge is imprudent and to know and do nothing is cowardice.
Islands of Peace wish to give the possibility to all people, from North as well as South, to be active in and responsible for the improvement of living conditions, depending on their own circumstances and capabilities.