Local Women’s Voices for Peace: Sharing Stories and Strategies by Coady Institute, StFX University

LOCAL WOMEN’S

VOICES FOR PEACE Sharing Stories and Strategies

Coady Institute St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, NS, Canada

ISBN 978-0-9918812-9-1 © Coady Institute and Authors, 2026. Give Women Their Human Rights © Amb Lovelyn P Eyo, 2020 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/ All or parts of this publication may be copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes without requesting written permission, provided the author(s) and the Coady Institute are explicitly acknowledged as the source of the material. Any work adapted from this material must also be made available to others under identical terms. The works arising from the conference were carried out with the financial support of the Peacock Family Foundation and a longstanding anonymous donor champion to Coady's International Centre for Women's Leadership. The views expressed herein are those of the authors. Coady Institute St. Francis Xavier University PO Box 5000 Antigonish, NS Canada B2G 2W5

Phone: (902) 867-3960 Phone: 1-866-820-7835 (within Canada) Fax: (902) 867-3907 Web: coady.stfx.ca Email: coady@stfx.ca

Acknowledgements: This collection was compiled and edited by Catherine Irving. Transcription and copy-editing support provided by Cathy Sears, with layout by Sue Hawkes.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace: Sharing Stories and Strategies

Coady Institute St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, NS, Canada

Contents Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................................................... ii Editor’s note ....................................................................................................................................................... iii Give women their human rights Amb Lovelyn P Eyo .............................................................................................................................................. iv A crazy idea or awesome idea? Reflections on the Local Women’s Voices for Peace E-Conference Robin Neustaeter .................................................................................................................................................... 1 In search of people-centered visions of peace and security: A feminist analysis of women’s ‘everyday’ peacebuilding in Northern Uganda Anna Kubai ........................................................................................................................................................... 9 When we rise together, we shine Salome Nduta....................................................................................................................................................... 29 Blending citizen-led community-driven research and practice to build a women, peace and security agenda in Cameroon Patience N. Agwenjang ......................................................................................................................................... 30 Reflections on practice: Blending women, peace, and security and ABCD in Cameroon Glenys Regina Mafor, Jacinta Foncha, Omer Songwe, Patience Agwenjang, Rabi Boti, with Robin Neustaeter ...... 34 Focus on education in supporting WPS Gloria Manzoti, Gladys Farfán, Dina Hussein, Samantha Sauni, Mousumi Halder, Muzna Dureid ................. 46 Strengthening local structures & practices: Stories from Nigeria and Kenya Eleanor Nwadinobi, Loise Wanjiru Ndegwa, Salome Nduta, Abiodun (Abi) Essiet ........................................... 62 REFLECT in Peace Education: Educating hearts and minds Jacinthe Rihan ...................................................................................................................................................... 71 How to share your story effectively: A panel discussion Dorothy Goredema, Aparna Lall, Sherna Alexander Benjamin, Biju Kandel, Catherine Irving ............................ 83

Abbreviations ABCD

Asset-based community development

BCLCDR4WPS Blending Citizen-Led Community-Driven Research and Practice to Build a Women, Peace and Security Agenda CCDB

Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh

CDA

Community Development Associations

CEDAW

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

CFLI

Canada Fund for Local Initiatives

CSO

Civil society organization

GBV

Gender based violence

IDPs

Internally Displaced Peoples

LWVP

Local Women’s Voices for Peace E-conference

NWI

Nobel Women’s Initiative

OLOGS

Our Lady of Good Success School, Cameroon

PAID-WA

Pan African Institute for Development - West Africa

RAGJ

Research and Advocacy for Gender Justice Cameroon

REFLECT

Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques

SGBV

Sexualized gender-based violence

WILPF

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

WPS

Women, peace and security

UNDP

United Nations Development Program

UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

UNHCR

UN Refugee Agency

UNICEF

United Nations Children’s Fund

UNSCR 1325

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325

USAID

United States Agency for International Development

YOP

Youth Outreach Programme, Bamenda, Cameroon

Editor’s note The seed of the idea for this collection germinated as part of the planning for an online conference, Local Women’s Voices for Peace, hosted by Coady Institute in 2020. In the introductory chapter, Robin Neustaeter shares her recollections of the journey we took to bring together many amazing activists, practitioners and scholars committed to peacebuilding. In keeping with the conference theme of local women’s voices, we wanted to gather some of the stories, both from the conference itself, as well as voices from beyond the event—recognizing the underrepresentation in publications of the first-hand experiences of people who are active in community organizing. This collection is the result of that endeavour. Indeed, challenges in documenting local voices persist, through the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the ongoing challenges of violent conflict, climate emergencies, and the local everyday domestic struggles women practitioners carry, whether these be multiple workloads, family illnesses, and personal grief. We are grateful to the contributors of this collection to bring the voices of peace practitioners to light. For further inspiration, the final chapter of this collection shares insights on ways to continue this essential documentation work for those of you who may be inspired to document women’s peace activism in your region.

iii

Give women their human rights Women are gifted beings Never less of a human being Woman + man = Human race Why her presence do you try to erase? Humanity is the balance of the equation Not the imbalance of violence and discrimination Woman’s right and man’s right Make the human right Female = Male hails equality Her voice his voice Is voice of the people Why her speech do you stifle O hearts full of evil rifles Shooting trampling upon her right The breath of freedom right The air of freedom is for all To breathe, to work and to live for Against violence, gender bias or inequality is her fight For want of pointing out these wrongs and ills to light Bitter hate, hushhh goes the misogynists Oppressing to bear the cycle of inequality Killing the truth of her speech dignity and integrity They threaten, want her a slave to keep Then rape her voice silenced deep She is no toy She is no doll She is no animal you can gore Treat all “her” with respect She is Powerful in every aspect Powerful as mother earth Peace is to respect her She respects you Mutuality in one piece Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Freedom of speech Is solely HUMAN RIGHT Not singly man’s right The world needs peace The world needs equality To maintain a balanced sphere strengthened Women are the voices of equality The voice of peace The perfecting voice of humanity The voice for oneness or unity Give WOMEN their rights You surely would put the world right Let’s breathe This freedom truth For ALL Amb Lovelyn P Eyo (Nigeria)

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

A crazy idea or awesome idea? Reflections on the Local Women’s Voices for Peace E-Conference Robin Neustaeter1 Once upon a time, in the land of Antigonish, Nova Scotia Canada, there was talk of women, peace and leadership in the halls of Coady Institute. Oh, there was often talk about women’s leadership, security, peace, education, change, patriarchy, and so forth as these are ever-relevant and important topics in our communities and societies. The specific talks I am remembering and writing about now mused about organizing an event focused on women, peacebuilding, and leadership for women and their communities, in their communities, around the globe. This was a ‘some-day idea’ - one of many. As changemakers we understand the significance of ‘some-day ideas’. When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit, here in Antigonish (like millions of others around the world) we were moving into the first of several lockdowns and shifting to working from home. Eileen Alma (then Director of the International Centre for Women’s Leadership at Coady Institute) and I moved our women, peacebuilding, leadership, and community ‘some-day’ idea to a ‘pandemic-day’ idea. I have a vivid memory of this conversation, standing just inside her third-floor corner office, talking about this emerging pandemic reality and questioning how it will impact women and their work for peace in their communities. So often, women are the main caregivers and peacemakers—moving in visible, invisible, and hidden spaces, within families, communities, organizations, and societies. Also, 2020 was the 20th anniversary of United Nations Security Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. This anniversary could be a moment of reckoning, an opportunity to reflect upon and talk about what has happened and is happening to advance the women, peace and security agenda. This reflection on my experience coordinating the Local Women’s Voices for Peace e-conference (LWV4P e-conference) will share a brief introduction to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security that framed the original idea for the event and then focus on two considerations: ‘flipping the script’ and learning peacebuilding. A positionality statement will introduce the author. This will be followed by discussions identified above. Readers are invited to take what resonates with them. The reflection on practice builds from my memories, e-conference meeting notes, documentation, and videos of the sessions available on Coady Institute’s YouTube channel. The reflections shared in this writing are mine alone.

1 Department of Adult Education, St. Francis Xavier University

A crazy idea or awesome idea?

Who am I? Before going further, I will introduce myself. My name is Robin Neustaeter, my parents are John and Judi Neustaeter, and my ancestors immigrated to Canada from what is now known as Ukraine between 1880 and 1910, settling in an agricultural area of southern Manitoba, Canada. Currently, I live in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nova Scotia is located within Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The titles of these treaties continue to strike me for their name contrasts with actual experiences of the relationships between nations and the violence inherent in colonization. Recognizing my ancestors, the history and colonization, layered with my experiences, is a way for me to identify the roles of relationships between individuals, peoples, and lands over time and their significance for present and future generations. It also informs an intention for change and building peace and friendship. In my family, the women have always been active in the community. This tradition of communityinvolvement, neighbourliness, and collective self-help was brought to Canada via migration, and resonates with the community care work of the Indigenous and Metis women in their communities on their prairies (Neustaeter, 2016). Growing up, this ‘women’s work’ was ordinary, expected, and significant to community life and well-being. Travelling and working in other countries, I noticed this phenomenon of women’s community work everywhere I went. Its reality is so familiar and yet unique in every place. Women’s stories of community carework led me to study and focus my research on women’s peacebuilding (Neustaeter, 2016, 2020). Working and teaching at Coady Institute and connecting with women learners from around the world validated my observations of women’s work for and in their communities and its role in peacebuilding. It is not often that I take time to reflect on a particular activity or initiative. I suppose like many who are busy doing—particularly doing gender justice, peacebuilding and social change—we fear that if we pause, the movement for necessary change will stop, an opportunity will be missed or things will go backwards. This can feel threatening to life as we know it – now and in the future. So, imagine my discomfort in this strange place called reflection-on-practice (Bolton & Delderfield, 2018). Reflection-on-practice is a retrospective examination of practice with the intention of critical examination to deepen understanding of self and practice (and in this case community) to build an intentional practice. As an adult educator and researcher, reflective practice is a mantra that I often give students, participants, and practitioners. However, like many, I see how I am caught in the talk and the doing of other things and not always taking my own advice. Also, like many, I do reflect – in my head and heart, yet these reflections seldom transfer to a document – paper or electronic.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Reflecting on my experience coordinating the Local Women’s Voices for Peace E-conference (LWVP) in 2020, I note that not only did it change me, I learned a lot, and am still learning from this experience. To examine this further, let’s dive into what was the LWVP E-conference. A short introduction to UNSCR 1325 The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 was adopted on October 31, 2000, after decades of advocacy, activism and education on the significance of women in conflict resolution and prevention work, peacebuilding, and security processes and the gendered realities of violence, insecurity, peace and security at all levels, from the community to the institutional to the global (Davies & True, 2019). This resolution is significant as it represents the first time at the international level of the UN that women’s experiences in violence, conflict, and insecurity are recognized as significant and that women’s work in this area is relevant and important for addressing harm and building sustainable peace (Davies & True, 2019). The four pillars of 1325 are Conflict Prevention, Participation, Protection, and Relief and Recovery. The full text of the resolution can be found here: https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n00/720/18/pdf/n0072018.pdf How the conference idea began (sort of) To describe the Local Women’s Voices for Peace E-conference as a four-day, public, virtual (online) event that happened from September 21-24, 2020, renders invisible the hours of work of the organizing team that made it happen. As noted above, the idea of an e-conference was planted in March 2020, and it germinated for weeks as we figured out our new pandemic reality. At our first brainstorming session on May 6, four guiding principles for the e-conference were collaboratively developed, and are summarized here: •

Start with the experiences of participants, including graduates/partners.

•

Coady’s role as convener intends to facilitate the exchange of experience and co-exploration in multiple, diverse ways (not just academic)

•

ABCD-like approach in terms of co-design, mix of graduate/partner-driven (drawing upon active graduate network).

•

Start with local community leadership, expand to national/regional/global policymaking and country report cards.

These four principles highlight key elements of the Coady Institute. In Coady courses and projects, we have witnessed the complex and significant work participants are doing in their communities and countries—activities that are often not well known outside their immediate spheres. While women are active contributors to peace processes locally and internationally, visibility of women’s relational, political and creative community peace practices remain low (Anderlini, 2007). LWVP strove to offer spaces for grassroots women to share their experiences for collective analysis and action A crazy idea or awesome idea?

(Dominelli, 2019). Focusing a conference on the knowledge and experiences of women working in communities around the world, could draw upon the knowledge of our graduates, their networks, and broader communities of women activists. This leads to the second guiding principle convening. The Coady convenes; it brings people together, in classrooms (physical and virtual), projects, and communities. When people from the community or/and world come together, we start with who is in the room and what they bring with them: their knowledge, skills, expertise, questions, concerns, values, and hopes. This is always a beautiful diversity that leads to much learning. Coady’s approach has grown and evolved from the work of the St. Francis Xavier Extension Department over the past century with people in communities throughout Atlantic Canada—a process that became known as the Antigonish Movement. This oft-cited phrase reflects the firm belief in valuing people’s capacity to work collectively for social change: “They will use what they have to secure what they have not” (Coady, 1939, p. 163). Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), an approach that Coady currently integrates, also starts with the assets and strengths people and communities bring with them for development (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993). For this event, the question became - how do we apply an ABCD approach to event planning, specifically a virtual global event, during a global pandemic? Finally, if we want to advocate for change, or support advocacy for change, and the focus is on women in their communities, change needs to start with local leadership. Looking back at these guiding principles and what happened, I can see that what was created and happened took on a reality of its own. The four principles informed the LWV4P concept note written in early July 2020, which reads: The year 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security calling for the recognition of gendered experiences of women and girls in war, peace, and reconstruction and action for change. This resolution marked years of cumulative advocating by women’s groups and allies for recognition of the gendered nature of war, crisis, and conflict, and called for the meaningful inclusion of women in action and decision-making when it comes to war, security and peacebuilding at all levels. In recognition of this significant and critical moment, Coady Institute will co-host an e-conference together with graduates and partners, particularly those working in peace and security contexts. This will be an opportunity for women leaders working in their communities to examine implementation of the resolution and the impacts on the lives of women and girls in their communities around the world. Coady’s interest in hosting such an event is to ensure a community-driven focus to discussions and analysis of these issues, as well as consider collective experiences and directions for moving forward.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

With the concept note in hand, we reached out for help. A global e-conference could not be organized by people in one country; the team needed to be global. Soon, 16 women graduates of Coady from 16 countries joined the team. The organizing team at Coady included people from the International Centre for Women’s Leadership, Marketing and Communications, and the Marie Michael Library. An organizational partner on this event was the Nobel Women’s Initiative (NWI) that provided input on ideas, connections, networking, and promotion amongst their graduates. It was the NWI that suggested the title: Local Women’s Voices for Peace. None of us on the planning team had previous experience organizing a large virtual event; none of us had significant experience in organizing virtually. In many ways, this made us ace pilots flying by the seat of our pants. We did have extensive and diverse relevant knowledge and skills amongst the Coady staff and graduate network: coordinating and organizing events, media and communications, website building and support, and working with diverse groups of people. We also had contacts and networks of women and organizations active in community peacebuilding, and perhaps most importantly passion and commitment for the ideals of the event. We were able to transfer many of our organizing, communicating, networking and critical thinking skills into this project. With ten weeks to pull off this event, the organizing team met weekly, in addition, sub-groups (two to three people) met to organize regional and thematic events as assigned. This meant that team members would be involved, as they were capable, in at least one regional and one thematic session. Team members were responsible for organizing the session for their region. Recognizing the networks they brought to the table, team members recommended and organized women speakers for the regional and thematic sessions. Some brought Coady graduates or local partners into the organizing of and facilitating the regional sessions. This approach recognized and validated the leadership and expertise of all team members and distributed responsibility. As the organizing of the event moved forward, it became clear that by drawing from the expertise of the team—who were themselves drawing from the expertise of their own networks/teams in their communities—and our own in-house knowledge and skills as educators, organizers, writers, technicians, all the while supporting one another and centering women’s lives and stories – we were practicing a form of asset-based feminist event planning! Flipping the script Calling the event Local Women’s Voices for Peace, was intentional and political. Coady Institute’s graduates and work continue to focus on actors in their communities who work with other actors in communities. Recognizing the expertise of women around the globe doing peacework in their communities, we intended to create virtual spaces where women who may typically not have the opportunity to do so could speak on a regional or global platform/stage. Therefore, instead of A crazy idea or awesome idea?

highlighting the voices of women known on the global stage, we flipped the script to local women whose stages were in their communities. A global event with local relevance meant having regional sessions scheduled to be convenient to their particular geographic target audience and global sessions that were timed to be somewhat convenient for most people. Working across time zones was a skill the coordinating team who spanned the globe were familiar with. While striving for this, we also recognized the limits of this effort. Barriers to women’s participation included access to the technology, including devices and internet, and time. Many women doing community peacework are in areas with limited internet access and to access the internet they may have to leave their communities which imposes additional burdens of time and energy. Learning peacebuilding Peacebuilding is learning rich. It is an extraordinary opportunity; the challenge of being engaged in nurturing complex and social change for equity and ending violence. Connecting with people in our community for change, learning from and with each other on how to create the change we want to see invites opportunities for deep learning. There is so much to be learned, and sustaining continuous learning requires peacebuilders to remain curious about how it “all really works.” (Lederach, Neufeldt, & Culbertson, 2007, p. 4). Recognizing the learning as my learning opportunity, I asked myself: what did the e-conference experience teach me about peacebuilding? The experience of coordinating this e-conference validated that it takes ‘a village’ to build peace. In this case, the village was a collective of similarly minded women from around the world who held common values and a shared connection or experience. All members of the organizing team had a connection to Coady Institute as graduates or staff, and all had extensive experience working with women in communities. The Coady connection provided the initial introduction and trust from which we were able to build a diverse collaborative team. Seeking out and connecting with likeminded people with shared values can ensure a commitment to a shared goal and actions. This does not mean that people will always agree and have the same ideas. In this situation, it meant that we valued dialogue and discussion to listen to one another, understand and be open to different perspectives, and collaborate to create an event that met the objectives. We stretched together. For all of us, we learned how to organize locally and globally for an online event while also living through the challenges of a global pandemic. The circumstances pushed us to stretch our comfort zones and try new things – often related to technology. Doing this together, recognizing that we were all stretching ourselves in different ways provided support and encouragement to push ourselves. At the same time, this collective effort incorporated carework as

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

we checked in with each other and stepped up to help one another when things felt overwhelming. This practice of carework within peacework highlighted the relational reality of building peace within (intrapersonal care) and among practitioners (interpersonal care). Individual and collective self-care was a topic of two e-conference sessions, and was also practiced by the team—we walked our talk. The experience taught me that it is okay not to be and do everything. I am one person with expertise and skills in specific areas and by collaborating with women across sectors of practice and knowledge, our varied expertise and skills will complement each other to create a stronger whole. To do this, I must recognize and trust the strengths that I bring to the table, what I can do and how far I will push myself, and I need to trust the collective capacity of the group. One person cannot do everything – this is a recipe for crash and burn. Rather for engagement, sustainability, and enjoyment (delight), peacebuilding needs to be a considered collective collaboration. Finally, the e-conference confirmed the importance of creating and hosting spaces for women to share their experiences in their voices, in particular women who typically are not invited to the table or into spaces to speak and be heard. Flipping the script was also a way to flip the power by amplifying the expertise and experiences of women who may not have opportunities to speak on global platforms such as an e-conference or have their voices recorded and online. Too often, still, women’s presence in decision-making spaces is limited and their voices and expertise are not heard or considered in decisions impacting the lives of their well-being, families, communities, and societies. Women’s presence in official records may be muted. Despite these realities, it is possible to create spaces for women, actually, it is necessary. Closing memory At the end of each August moving into September, I often pause and remember the experience and the members of the organizing committee and the energy we created and the stories. After all this time, the experience remains a highlight of my work with the Coady Institute. No doubt, the learning will continue as I reflect on the experiences and see how it pops up in my everyday work and practice as an educator and researcher.

A crazy idea or awesome idea?

References Anderlini, S. N. (2007). Women building peace: What they do, why it matters. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Bolton, G., & Delderfield, R. (2018). Reflective practice: Writing and professional development (5th ed.). Sage. Dominelli, L. (2019). Women and community action: Local and global perspectives. Policy Press. Coady, M. M. (1939). Masters of their own destiny: The story of the Antigonish Movement of adult education through economic cooperation. Harper & Row. https://coady.stfx.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2018/07/Masters-of-their-own-Destiny.pdf Davies, S., & True, J. (Eds.). (2019). The Oxford handbook of women, peace and security. Oxford University Press. Kretzmann, J., & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. ACTA Publications. Lederach, J. P., Neufeldt, R., & Culbertson, H. (2007). Reflective peacebuilding: A planning, monitoring and learning tool kit. The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and Catholic Relief Services Southeast, East Asia Regional Office. https://pulte.nd.edu/assets/172927/reflective_peacebuilding_a_planning_monitoring_and_ learning_toolkit.pdf Neustaeter, R. (2016). ‘Just doing what needs to be done’: Rural women’s peacebuilding on the prairies [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Manitoba. Neustaeter, R. (2020). Peace and quiet or not so quiet: Gender, rurality, and women’s grassroots peacebuilding. In S. Byrne, T. Matyok, & I. Scott (Eds.), Routledge companion to peace and conflict studies (pp. 167-177). Routledge.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security: A feminist analysis of women’s ‘everyday’ peacebuilding in Northern Uganda Anne Kubai2 Abstract In this chapter, I employ a feminist perspective in order to analyse the voices of a specific category of women in peacebuilding in northern Uganda, namely, women who have returned from the ‘bush’ as survivors of abduction and captivity by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). A feminist analysis helps to explain and unpack the specificities and realities of these women’s voices and actions in peacebuilding to highlight a transformative vision of peace and security in conflict affected communities in northern Uganda. I identify innovative and participatory approaches that empower women in crisis to engage in the peace-building efforts. By appropriating the soft power resources at their disposal, women are able to transcend local and cultural limitations, and play key roles in peacebuilding and the restoration of their communities. This chapter is based on data obtained through fieldwork in northern Uganda, complemented with desk research. Peacebuilding generally aims at establishing peace and preventing the recurrence of the past or the emergence of new forms of violence through institutional building, reconciliation, political and social economic transformation mechanisms (Hamber & Kelly, 2005). Thus, peacebuilding is intimately connected with social-economic development, gender equality, reconciliation and social justice (Porter, 2007). Addressing structural and relational causes and consequences of conflicts requires an approach that places a premium on the significance of the participation of the affected populations and communities. This involves the inclusion of men and women from the early stages of the processes to the highest levels of crafting and implementing peace agreements. I am aware at the international level, the agency of women, particularly in the conflict-affected settings, was transformed and broadened through the now well-known peace and security agenda in the UNSCR 1325 of 2000. In this contribution, however, I am highlighting the women’s voices and knowledge in local peacebuilding among the Acholi of northern Uganda, in the aftermath of the horrific war/armed conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which lasted nearly two decades. To adequately analyse the voices and knowledge of women in local peacebuilding, I employ the concept of ‘everyday’ peacebuilding, to interrogate women’s initiatives and activities aimed at 2 School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertön University, Sweden; Institute of Gender Studies

University of South Africa; Aﬀiliated Research Fellow, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

improving the lives of individual women returnees, members of their families and communities after the conflict in northern Uganda. I identify innovative and the ‘unseen’ individual initiatives that empower women in crisis to make their voices heard in the peacebuilding processes. By appropriating the traditional soft power resources at their disposal, women returnees are able to transcend local and cultural limitations, play key roles in the restoration of their families and communities, and thus contribute to peacebuilding. These everyday peacebuilding activities at the individual, family, and community levels have proved to be crucial strategies that women often employ to address the root causes of conflicts and engage in peacebuilding. The conflict in Northern Uganda The conflict that ravaged the Acholi region for nearly two decades has been well documented by peace and conflict researchers, historians, anthropologists, and political scientists (ACCS, 2013; Annan, et.al., 2011; Atkinson, 2009; Behrend, 1999; Joireman, 2018; Omach, 2010; Reinke, 2016). However, a brief overview of the conflict is helpful here for understanding the background to the peacebuilding processes among the communities in northern Uganda. Shortly after the National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/A) came to power in 1986, armed conflict broke out in northern Uganda and soon spread across large parts of the region. Though the root causes of the conflict can be traced to a long-standing political power struggle, the conflict in the Acholi homeland was triggered by gross violations of human rights committed by the NRM/A. Within a short time, violence escalated as the LRA Acholi-based insurgents, targeted both the Acholi civilian population and government forces. Through extensive raids in villages, the LRA abducted and forcefully recruited thousands of children, boys and girls, into their ranks. The children were initiated through brutal rituals and torture and turned into fighters, while those who resisted would be killed, raped and tortured into submission. At the same time, the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) perpetrated gross violations of human rights against the local population. Though the impact of the protracted armed conflict was felt at all levels of the society, women and young girls were particularly affected; they were subjected to enslavement, forced labour, rape and forcefully taken as ‘bush wives’ by LRA fighters. Many girls were forced to bear children when they were underage. In 2002, an Amnesty Commission was created to oversee demobilization and prepare the ground for the peace process. Religion played a central role in the war. Joseph Kony, the LRA commander-in- chief, who had served as an altar boy in his local Catholic Church, mixed a rudimentary understanding of Catholicism with Acholi traditional religious beliefs. With the help of his commanders, Kony used

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

rituals to initiate forcefully recruited children, women, and men into his ranks. After going through these violent and spiritual initiation rites, recruits were afraid to abandon the armed group—even when they had chances to escape especially during counter-insurgency attacks by the Uganda government army—for fear of spiritual repercussions. Upon return to their home communities, survivors often underwent traditional Acholi cleansing rituals performed by clan elders to release the survivors from the fear of vengeful spirits. These rituals helped some survivors to cope with the psychological harm and anxiety. However, this was not always possible for survivors whose families were strong adherents to various Christian denominations, whose teachings forbid members from engaging in such traditional spiritual practices, which are considered unchristian and even satanic. Instead, healing prayers and ceremonies were conducted. However, since the method of initiation into the LRA was deeply psychologically spiritual, some survivors felt that only similar traditional spiritual cleansing rituals could truly heal them from the internalized anxiety and fear. Thus, they were left at a crossroad between wellbeing and psychological woundedness due to the different ways in which Christianity and Acholi traditional religions were perceived as vehicles for healing. Framing the study I employ a feminist lens to analyse the voices of a specific category of women in peacebuilding in northern Uganda, namely, the women survivors who have returned from the ‘bush’ after years of abduction and captivity by the LRA. They are members of local communities who do not hold public or political positions, but who continue tirelessly to ensure the survival of their families, and to create harmony in fractured communities. These women embody a transformative vision of peace and security in conflict affected communities of northern Uganda. A qualitative approach was employed to allow the participants and this researcher to focus on personal experiences and subjective viewpoints. Eight key in-depth individual interviews were conducted with women survivors of LRA abduction and captivity. Open-ended interview guides were used to allow the women to explain and describe their participation in local peacebuilding in their own words. The interview technique allows scope for the women to describe their experiences of everyday peacebuilding, and the situation that they describe as “absence of war” and “absence of peace” at the same time. Commentary from the relevant literature introduces concepts to frame the analysis. The testimony of the women is presented under four key themes: their understanding of everyday peace; a “relational ethic” (Isike & Uzodike, 2011, p. 52) for peacebuilding; empowering participatory approaches, and; “moral capital” (p. 38) in conflict prevention. The women’s names have been changed to protect their identity. In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

Women’s transformative visions and actions of everyday peace and security I examine women’s voices in peacebuilding in northern Uganda from the perspective that women in the pre-colonial African contexts were seen and treated as “historical and political actors” as mothers, wives and human members of the societies in their own right (Atanga, et al., 2013), and as spiritual beings (Amadiume, 1987). They confidently straddled social political spaces as women, maneuvering the patriarchal structures to make their voices heard. The relationship between men and women was one of mutual interdependence—none could exist without the other. Isike (2017) examines the potential of soft power and feminist ethics as resources of peacebuilding in Africa: “African women engaged in peacebuilding through positive childcare, responsible mothering, and nurturing of children in ways that prepared and socialized them toward peaceful co-existence” (p. 353). Thus, this analysis of women’s knowledge and voices in peacebuilding in northern Uganda is informed by the understanding that women in Africa use their attributes of womanhood, motherhood, and “their intrinsic cultural and ideological worth of humility, forbearance, compassion, peacefulness and guidance of family virtues for the benefit of their communities (UNESCO, 2003, in Shulika, 2016, p. 12). Though the practices of peacebuilding have always been integral to political and cultural institutions of societies and communities globally, it was not until 1992, when the United Nations General Assembly brought it to the international agenda in its report titled An Agenda for Peace. The report states that “peacebuilding as the construction of a new environment should be viewed as the counterpart of preventive diplomacy, which seeks to avoid the breakdown of peaceful conditions”; the “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict” (UN, 1992, p. 11, para. 21). Further, the UN (2010) emphasizes women’s participation: Integrating women into peacebuilding processes offers new degrees of democratic inclusiveness, more durable economic growth, and human and social capital recovery. Transition should provide a window of opportunity for promoting gender sensitive policies, including through affirmative action in social and economic spheres. For example, it is important to reform property and inheritance law to protect the rights of women, and to ensure appropriate provision is made for groups left particularly vulnerable in the wake of conflict, such as widows and women heading households (p. 35). However, fragile and conflict affected societies vary from case to case, so the integration of women in peacebuilding processes in these different contexts varies as well. Each situation often evolves in unexpected ways, forcing those involved to go back to the drawing board to address unforeseen outcomes. UN guidelines do not always translate into actionable practices and methods that can Local Women’s Voices for Peace

transform cultural foundations of societies. “Political transitions, especially in fragile and conflictaffected countries, do not occur along a smooth or simple trajectory; the peacebuilding path is fraught with tensions, creating turbulence that affects the political and social fabric in profound and sometimes, unexpected ways” (UNDP, 2014, p. 1). Both research and experience have shown that peacebuilding requires sustained effort, constant negotiation and dialogue because, as new alliances emerge, the risks of renewed conflict become real. Spence (2001) provides a more comprehensive and normative definition of peacebuilding as: Those activities and processes that: focus on the root causes of the conflict, rather than just the effects; support the building and rehabilitation of all sectors of the war torn society; encourage and support interaction between all sectors of society in order to repair damaged relations and start the process of restoring dignity and trust; recognize the specifics of each post conflict situation; encourage and support the participation of indigenous resources in the design, implementation and sustainment of activities and processes; and promote processes that will endure after the initial emergence recovery phase has passed (pp. 137-8). This definition is, to a certain extent, relevant for an understanding of women’s everyday peacebuilding in northern Uganda, where issues of restoring dignity and trust are individual as well as communal; and the need to repair broken relations (or build new ones) is crucial for sustainable peace in a war-torn community/society. Arguably, the UN definition of peacebuilding stated above is rather limited in view of the complexities of each fragile and conflict affected society. Women defining peace Then what is meant by everyday peacebuilding? When asked what they understand by peace, the women who participated in this study asserted a transformative vision of peace and security for themselves, their families and communities. They were unequivocal in their responses: Achen: In my own perspective, peace is living well. If I am sick, I’m able to afford treatment, my children are happy, my children are going to school, living in a good house. A good house to me is if it is a hut then it should not leak, if it is a modern house then it should contain everything that a good house must have, for instance, food, chairs, utensils, or even TV where I can watch if I’m stressed… Angweng: Peace is about having land, a structure on it, having a means of survival to support your children at school, all my children being in stable marriages in the future, they should have food to eat, wash their clothes with soap…getting money to satisfy my needs, whenever a problem arises, I should be in position to financially solve it, when I am sick, I should have money to go to In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

hospital…or if you have a man, he should have built for you, things needed in the house should be there, should have food daily, children going to school, even in times of corona which has caused lockdown, you should have the means to support your children to study through coaching, even when you are seated at home and not working, compared to how I live, a person living this kind of life in my community is at peace…your house should have things like posho, cooking oil, onions, eating meat when you need it, is having peace, just send a boda3 when you are in need, you don’t have to stress yourself, change of diet is being at peace. Akoth: As a woman, peace means that I have kero (do what I like to do and what I want to do) as a woman. (Kero is the ability to provide for oneself, the freedom and access to means of wellbeing for yourself and your family). If I do not have the kero I can’t do anything, it means I do not have peace in my life. Peace also means my children are healthy and going to school. Also, if you do not have kero to care for your children and they are not in school, then you do not have peace as a woman. Sara: My understanding of peace is absence of war, not worrying about the unknown, my perception that there is peace, people are no longer running to sleep in Holy Rosary or Kampala. I think there is peace and happiness, I no longer worry about the painful experiences I passed through. Also, my love for prayer has given me strong heart and makes you brush such memories. These women survivors of the LRA abduction and captivity frame peace in ordinary people’s language. They provide an expanded definition of peacebuilding that is person-centered, based on their own aspirations and everyday experiences of life after the devastating conflict. There is no doubt that addressing the issues raised in the excerpts above is crucial to women’s everyday peacebuilding activities and creating necessary conditions for sustainable peace in their communities. They assert visions of holistic and inclusive peacebuilding, where the individual needs, the emotions and memories, and the uncertainties that they continue to face daily are brought to the fore to be addressed. The women go beyond the idea of having sufficient food, they make it clear that having a healthy diet is possible when there is peace. By extension, they are saying that having a healthy diet is a human right. From their perspective there is no dichotomy between the formal and informal peacebuilding processes.

3 Boda is the term used for motorcycle transport and delivery services in Uganda and neighbouring countries.

The word boda is a corruption of the English word border. It was ﬁrst used for motorcycle riders who transported passengers to the border between Kenya and Uganda. To get passengers on their motorcycles, they would call out those going to the border, which eventually became boda boda. Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Harnessing a ‘relational ethic’ for peacebuilding Relational ethic is defined here in terms of how communities tap into beliefs and practices, social norms, and values on which social order, cohesion and hence the well-being of the community hinge. John S. Mbiti’s (1969) classic phrase, “I am, because we are; and since we are therefore I am”, aptly sums up the concept of relational ethic among many African communities, namely, the relationship of the individual and the community that serves as glue that holds together the social fabric. Mbiti explains, “What happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group, community or country happens to the individual. People, country, environment, and spirituality are intricately related. The individual can only say: ‘I am because we are: and since we are, therefore I am” (p. 106). Individual identity and worth are derived from the relationships with others and their contributions to the larger community. This understanding of relational ethic is evident as the women describe their peacebuilding activities and processes. When asked how women contribute to the wellbeing of their families and communities, there is a clear emphasis on the relationships among individuals and different groups such as the women who returned from the LRA captivity with children: Sara: We used to counsel the returnees, uniting returnees together with their families/parents, uniting children who returned from the bush with their returnee parents. Also, we would ascertain whether their parents are either dead or alive and unite them… They endeavour to create amicable relationships with other members of the community to minimize the inter-personal tensions and disagreements that might create disaffection or expose them to stigma often attached to the identity of a returnee ‘from the bush’. “This is being done by collaborating with the women when in a Voluntary Loan Savings Association (VSLA)4 you associate well when they need advice you render it, you avoid being corrupt,” as Sara further explained. In the era of intrastate conflicts characterized by horrific violence targeting civilians at the grain of society, attention to women’s role in both conflict and peacebuilding has increased in academia. Also, women’s rights have gained importance with the transition to a ‘women in peace and security’ framework which defines women’s rights as a basis for building and maintaining peace and security (Laukka, 2018). Here, some of the ways in which women in northern Uganda take advantage of the relational ethic in the prevailing circumstances are highlighted. First, women have taken advantage of this transition to assume different roles in ensuring the survival of the families and communities during and after conflict. They often tap into the indigenous precolonial Acholi social norms still embedded in the fabric of the society, and employ their moral imagination as mothers - bearers of life and caregivers. They employ these social 4 VSLAs are formed by women to generate income to support livelihood projects for their families.

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

attributes to their advantage as strategies for organizing at the family level and mobilizing through women’s groups and organizations at the community level to influence negotiations for peace and ensure resilience in their communities. Though a woman’s burdens are made heavier by the grim realities of the impact of the conflict, “she brings enormous energy, leadership and resilience to protecting families and rebuilding fractured communities” (Shulika, 2016, p. 10). The following excerpts provide some insights into how the women in this case, use their moral imagination to harness the relational ethic to advance the course of peace in their communities. Akoth: As a woman who war has affected, you should be respectful, be a good listener. Do not be aggressive. As a woman, if you have a love for business then be fully leaned into business, if you love digging then lean into agriculture. You should be a unifier and someone who loves people and unites people. True, there is no peace; there is too much quarreling and aggression among family members in their homes. You find that we who returned from the bush, the quarrel between you and the man will start (quarrelling) over the children you came with from captivity. This quarreling is even more and worse than being in the war. These fights are even bigger than the war. Because you, the woman cannot separate from your children. Yet, the man you are with does not accept to care for the wellbeing of the children you came with. But I cannot separate from my children. So, in most cases this is the cause of fights in the home between women and the men and the aggressive behaviour… I have been a member in the groups organized by the local council. I attended and participated in community meetings. I have listened to the teachings from the community leaders. If you are part of the group, you learn a lot how to live with others, how to be united, how to live peaceable and a different way of thinking. You learn to do different things and to think and do things differently beyond what you think is possible. Your mind is not limited like when you use only your thoughts. When you think you cannot do a thing, being part of a group helps you get the courage to do it. Second, since women’s role in peacebuilding is as ancient as their experiences of violence; it transcends cultures, historical epochs, political divides and geographical spaces (Shulika, 2016, p. 10). Pre-colonial African womanhood possessed a “feminist base …from which their powers, authority and participation in the public space flowed” (Isike, 2009, p. 73), allowing “women’s abilities to endure with resilience the suffering of the conflict and to obligate themselves to make decisions that shape their households and political environments” (Shulika, 2016, p. 17). This base is harnessed effectively for peacebuilding and security by women in the Acholi society. By understanding peacebuilding as a process where relationship building is essential, women also understand that meeting the basic needs is essential to peacebuilding. Their experiences of the impact of conflict spur them to action beyond securing their survival, to restore relationships in their communities. Their ability to achieve this clearly challenges the debilitating portrayal of women as vulnerable

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

victims, a portrayal which creates social and political obstacles that often hinder them from using their full potential to contribute to peacebuilding: Sara: For me if that community is united, when you are not jealous of your friend, when your friend is doing something wrong you correct them, something goes wrong you run to the police without solving it amicably, that is a sign of absence of peace in the community. Amicable settlement of issues when things go wrong is a sign of peace. It means you are united… Much as the war is over, stigmatization of returnees is still there, that is why there is absence of peace. The talks - “for that one has returned and mine hasn’t” is destroying the community. Also seeing you work and make a living for your family is taken negatively; they expect you, the returnee to just be a nuisance. When asked about their experiences in peacebuilding, Sara had the following to say: •

Counseling for those with trauma until they overcome that trauma.

•

Offer psychosocial support, we were advised to think of our future and those of our children.

•

Understanding how to relate with the community.

•

Avoiding using violence all the time…

•

We used to counsel the returnees, uniting returnees together with their families/parents.

•

Uniting children who returned from the bush with their returnee parents. Also we would ascertain whether their parents are either dead or alive and unite them.

•

Children and parents with HIV, we counseled them, we also used to support them with money. As a startup to keep themselves busy, we would give them oxen.

Regarding integrating of the children of returnees, Sara sums up her observations thus: •

I see this mostly in schools when women take part in parents-teachers’ engagements and advise the children to drop conversations about the returnees since they are on sponsorship programs.

•

I stay in Layibi and I have no issues, no one even knows I am a returnee; they are living peacefully with the community.

•

I also engage peacefully with others when there is an issue about my children when they wrong others.

The children of returnees are at the center of most family disputes, mainly because they are seen as ‘children from the bush’, fathered by the LRA rebels and fighters who committed atrocities on local communities. They are also seen as land grabbers, making their integration one of the most thorny issues. Their mothers too, are not considered to be innocent, regardless of the fact that many of them were abducted when they were children and held in captivity. However, as they often said, “women do not tire”; besides ensuring material sustenance for their families, women ensure that they “are teaching children love, sharing, forgiveness, respecting people, focus on God and

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

education so as to be responsible citizens in the future”, as Akoth described above what the women are doing to build peace in Acholi. Sara: The war has affected the entire Acholi. They should change their hearts against people and stop thinking that someone’s home is the one that committed such atrocities. If this is not done, then grandchildren will still carry on with this hatred against others. They should cleanse themselves of such things. Forgiveness should be done to all people, other than forgiving partially and arresting others because the men fought and also committed such atrocities. Why do they have to arrest others and leave others? This isn’t right. There are some commanders who returned and are living here, walk in town freely, then everyone should be left free. Is it possible that those who are free are the ones reporting others? And yet on the front line we were all one; in my view this is not right. On restoring good relations among neighbors and people after the conflict, Sara responded with the following points: •

... This usually depends on each one’s heart. Other people didn’t know how to communicate with their neighbors in case something happens when their children are in the wrong. Instead of humbling themselves and communicate well, they instead throw things out of proportion, so that for me is hard to respond, but it depends on each one’s heart.

•

Me, for instance my son … while he was playing with the neighbour’s child his hand hit the son by mistake and his teeth were affected right…I talked to the mother of the child. I accepted that children are wrong, we resolved to treat this woman’s child and they released my son. She agreed as a parent, she understood it was a mistake. This is how we amicably resolved our issues.

•

Learn to communicate well with the community, fire is not used to kill fire.

•

…Our problem as returnees is not knowing where the fathers of our children came from, returning and you are orphaned, our dream is where to put our family and where we shall be buried, we are working towards that.

•

They are trying so hard to conceal that they are returnees because the community, once they know, they stigmatize the returnees…This is being done by collaborating with the women, when in VSLA you associate well, when they need advice you render it, you avoid being corrupt.

Affective human factors, namely, relatedness, collaboration, love, empathy and tolerance are necessary and sufficient for creating a conducive environment for peacebuilding (Lederach, 1997, in Isike, 2009). Peace accords, top-down externalized peace initiatives that ignore the gendered relational dimensions of economic and social justice vital for localized support of peace processes, are unlikely to achieve sustainable everyday peace. Relational elements are central to breaking cycles

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

of violence. Peacebuilding reinforces and validates women and men on both sides of the divide caused by the conflict. Interventions that do not address the root causes of fear, mistrust, inequality and discrimination of the returnees and their children, are unlikely to contribute to social cohesion because fear and mistrust are not only difficult to address, but they are also the most enduring emotions during and after a conflict, becoming obstacles to the reconstruction of a social fabric broken by protracted conflict and gross violations of human rights. This necessitates the design of a long-term gender and psychosocial perspective to aid men and women to appropriate their innate resources and strategies for survival, integration, resilience and recovery, the future of their children and social cohesion. Empowering innovative participatory approaches in peacebuilding “A situation analysis that allows for the inclusion of women’s voices and more in-depth, gendered analyses is not a simple tweaking of the way business is done. In and of itself it is a catalyst for transformation, a realignment of priorities, a widening of the circle of stakeholders and programming in every aspect of conflict prevention...” (Anderlini, 2007, pp. 43-44). In Acholi society, women situate their activism within the communal collective affairs; they act and speak for their families and communities rather than for themselves as individuals. When asked what they are doing to make their voices heard, the response is unequivocal: Akoth: Women are ensuring that they stand and represent the plea of women ensuring that voices of other women are heard, and emphasizing that reparations are made without discrimination. Women and men should receive equal compensation. Justice for the women should be the same as that of their counterparts. Negotiating that the children that women came back with from captivity should justly be treated and given the same privileges as the other children. Women are now in groups to ensure that their voices are heard. You cannot be heard when you speak alone. Collective voicing is the one that matters most. Women are electing fellow women in political positions so as to raise their voices to influence policy making that affect women... Presenting the children from the bush to the clan leaders… as well as the local council structures for sensitization of the community, schools as well as places of gatherings like water points. Lily: At the family level – their involvement in activities is so that their families can live in peace. At family level, women are educating their children on peace, they are doing farming for food security in their families. Women are teaching their children on ways of life since men nowadays just concentrate on drinking alcohol and not concentrating on the family. Women’s activism is based on the view that men and women can come together for common good. They recognize the mutual interdependence on which the society relies for its survival. These In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

women understand that when men “learn to come to terms with the shocks of change” and are selfassured (Isike, 2009, p. 76) that gender equality is not situated in oppositional terms to their ‘being’ men, they will see it as a cultural affirmation of womanhood and the rights of women. Women are innovatively using the social (and public) spaces available to them, such as the water points where community members meet to draw water for household use and to water their livestock. Presenting children at these places is imbued with cultural significance that the women rely upon to address the rejection of their children by the community. Women returnees identify small spaces where they can stand and interrogate the norms and values that perpetuate their inequality and marginalization. By relying on the familiar cultural practices, women can begin to deconstruct the social cultural masculine stereotypes that shape gender attitudes and relations. Women concentrating their peacebuilding efforts on the family understand the foundational role that the family plays, particularly in the stability of a fractured society, a broken social fabric composed of wounded and hurting adults and children. Their method is resolutely bottom-up, beginning with the children, the family, the nucleus of the Acholi society. It cannot be overemphasized that one of the enduring innovative approaches is that women find ways of reconciling the cultural rights of the past with the liberal freedoms of the present, which will help both men and women in northern Uganda (and hopefully in other fragile conflict affected societies), to “re-invent” and “to emplace new positive masculinities and gender relations which are fundamental to peace” (Isike, 2009, p. 76). This is possible because culture is not static—values and norms are constantly being defined and redefined. Furthermore, “the challenge is for men to reject and transform masculine relational ideologies which generate conflict and war, into more inclusive foundations that would be more conducive to peacebuilding” (Isike, 2009, p. 100). In spite of the gender inequality entrenched by the neo-patriarchies of the postcolonial Acholi society, women have demonstrated the capacity to rise above the dichotomous historical divisions, which nurture conflict, largely because they see things differently as women. Women’s ‘moral capital’ as an asset in conflict prevention Acs (2015) points out that the “concept of moral capital emerged only in the 19th century” (p. 14) and defines it as philanthropy. However, from an African feminist perspective, women’s moral capital can be defined as the underpinning sense of care for each other, family, and community, where sharing and helping each other as women, are crucial for the greater good in challenging circumstances. It cannot be over emphasized that as mothers and women (attributes of motherhood and womanhood), the women use soft power of humility and forbearance to navigate a difficult social terrain and manage to create some space for their families and to contribute to peacebuilding. Thus, taking advantage of the cultural background and relying on respect and humility as virtues

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

with which they are invested by their communities, women can use their moral capital and create opportunities for their voice(s) to be heard. During field research in Northern Uganda, most of the women affected by the conflict said that they want to live without fear, stigmatization and exclusion - to live in peace. They are acutely aware of the impact of the conflict, as well as their marginalized status and the struggle to transcend the stigma that they and their children have to deal with daily. Akoth: During the war, some atrocities were committed by the government troops, but you find that pointing fingers is only for those who were in the bush and accusation only on the rebels. In the community, for us who have returned we are still being stigmatized as killers… Women are ensuring that they stand and represent the plea of women, ensuring that voices of other women are heard and emphasizing that reparations are made without discrimination. Women and men should receive equal compensation… Women are pillars of peace; they should give their opinions and make sure their needs and challenges are represented. Sharon: This conflict has greatly affected the virtues, norms and culture of the community. Life has taken a different shift. Children are no longer respecting people. There is too much hate in the community. Violence and land wrangles have dominant factors in the community. Division among the people is a lot, education was disrupted and many are living in poverty… Much as the guns are silent, there is a serious war in the community, violence is rampant, stigma for women and their children from the bush… People are divided, a brother is fighting a father, a brother, over a piece of land and many are killing themselves, people are committing suicide. Challenges of achieving justice for people who suffered during the conflict involve weak leadership. By this I mean the leaders must not take part in regards to justice for victims of war. Leaders should be the ones to stand out and make sure people who suffered during the war are given fair hearing. Corruption is yet a challenge to achieving justice. People, government officials/leaders are bribed away and no longer stand for the truth. People are valuing money over justice. This makes it challenging to achieve justice. Thus, women are not only aware but they have a deep understanding of the challenges that face their communities and the impact that the prevailing circumstances can have on the efforts to build sustainable peace and justice. At the same time, women understand that using an approach that acknowledges the humanity of both the perpetrator and victim of the violence, gives a better chance for sustainable peacebuilding. Alam: Perpetrators of violence are all humans who are bound to make mistakes. They should be forgiven for the atrocities they caused because they acted under duress and also because they were

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

indoctrinated to killing and looting as the way of life, that’s why they did what they did. Forgiveness heals both the perpetrator and the victim of violence during the war. The women’s peacebuilding strategies empower them to speak out about the consequences of heighted poverty, especially among women and girls, which upset the balance in the traditional malefemale power relations, making it more difficult for women to access resources, particularly that which is most valuable—the use and possession of land. By focusing attention on the issues often ignored because of failure to link them with sustainable peacebuilding, women not only make their voices heard, they play a crucial role in the efforts to create social cohesion in a fractured society. Anderlini (2007) notes, “Ignorance of gender dynamics can also lead to oversight of fundamental causes of conflict…Such oversight can also result in a lack of understanding of the gendered impact of conflict” (p. 29). From this perspective, creating an enabling environment for women to use their skills and moral authority for the common good, implies recognizing and addressing the impact of the imbalance in gender relations. Traditionally, it was acknowledged that women, especially mothers, can play an important role in fostering community resilience and influencing worldviews and attitudes among young people. Acholi women in northern Uganda use their moral capital—the attributes of womanhood, motherhood, and their intrinsic cultural and ideological worth of humility, forbearance, compassion, peacefulness and guidance of family virtues—for the benefit of their communities. When asked what women are doing to help the families affected by the conflict, Lily shares: What women are doing? For example, me, I am engaged in farming because the men nowadays have left all responsibilities for women to shoulder. For me right now, I am squatting here because I was chased away from my marital home by the whole clan, chased saying I was a rebel and if left to stay there; I would kill people. However, despite that, I was given a space here where I am doing farming and also engaged in a small business to support me and my children and this is what most women are doing. Us as women or any other women, you as a woman what you should do, you should struggle but you should not also lament that you have come back from war and your life is completely destroyed and that you are completely useless, but you should try by all means and do something to eat for your family even when you see people pointing behind your head (gossiping) about you, you should not take everything seriously you are always going to be involved in fights, you should be a person that despises such talks/gossips. Have strong heart knowing that such things happen. Using this ‘moral capital’, Lily can prevent the escalation of the conflict. The fact that she is squatting in some space, does not prevent her from navigating this difficult situation. She relies on her capacity for forbearance, humility (not to fight back), and peacefulness even when she is

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

stigmatized and chased away by the whole clan, to find “a space” in order to be able to provide for herself and her children as a woman, because men have left all responsibility to women. She is fully aware of this inequality and injustice; yet, she leans on the intrinsic cultural and ideological worth of a woman and a mother, regardless of how the clan treated her. She does not express bitterness, despite being ostracised by the clan, which is a powerful social institution, the custodian of cultural norms and values. Similarly, other women and mothers can help address fighting among children in schools, where the stigmatization of the children of returnees (seen as ‘bush children’) is one of the main challenges that often forces them to drop out of school. The mothers are usually the first to intervene, since most of them are the heads of their households, and are responsible for their own children even when they are in living with men/husbands who are not the fathers of the children. It cannot be over-emphasized that women are crucial to building community resilience. “Resilience refers to communal strategies communities adopt to mitigate the conflict” (Chome, 2016, p. 11). Using their positionality as women and mothers, they can and often do contribute to the prevention of conflict and violence in communities. Discussion: “absence of war” and “absence of peace” at the same time The women in this study described the situation in northern Uganda as two-sided, namely, as “absence of war” and “absence of peace”. They introduced this concept to understand the complexity of a fragile and conflict affected setting. To lay the foundation and develop a feministinformed argument for a people-centered peacebuilding in the Acholi society, I will address four main issues. First, returnee women’s visions of processes and initiatives that focus on building transformative everyday peace and security are explored. In this vision of people-centered peace, women have put forward a clear agenda, aptly summed up as “living well”, meaning living with dignity, without fear, without uncertainty about the future and being able to deal with painful memory, being able to meet basic needs, feeling safe and without being violated, and having ultimately the freedom to do what one wants to do and what one likes to do. Second, in their vision the women have demonstrated the significance of harnessing a ‘relational ethic’ for peacebuilding. With a grounded understanding of the complex impact of the war on them and their families, they turn to their own inner strength to develop strategies that help them to transcend the limitations imposed by the impact of the war. For instance, despite being “a woman who war has affected (by the war you) you should be respectful, be a good listener. Do not be aggressive… Learn to communicate well with the community, fire is not used to kill fire.” These strategies can allow them space on which to stand and make their voices heard and engage the issues of peace and security in the appropriate settings. This is possible because it is not only prudent for the women to do so, but more importantly, being a good listener and being polite and not aggressive are part of the values and

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

norms associated with dignity, and therefore upheld by the society. They emphasize the importance of good relations with others, the need for listening, participating, and joining groups in order to learn “how to be united, how to live peaceable and a different way of thinking.” Women are aware of the importance of creating and maintaining good relationships in the community, being united, in other words, the significance of a psychosocial approach that can help them to deal with their experiences of trauma and discrimination. Third, women use their ‘moral capital’ as an asset in conflict prevention. They are speaking out about the unseen devastating impact of the conflict on the society – how the “conflict has greatly affected the virtues, norms and culture of the community. Life has taken a different shift. Children are no longer respecting people. There is too much hate in the community.” Thus, they are lifting some of the key issues often ignored by the national and international peacebuilding initiatives that focus on structures and ideologies of the nexus of development and security. They boldly call on the leaders and remind them that “Leaders should be the ones to stand out and make sure people who suffered during the war are given fair hearing”. In the same breath, they urge forgiveness for perpetrators in the belief that “Forgiveness heals both the perpetrator and the victim of violence during the war”. Fourth, women are using a multi-pronged approach where they combine advocacy at the local community level, such as joining “groups to ensure that their voices are heard” because they have realized that “collective voicing is the one that matters most”. Women’s voices at the community level are always there, but such women peace builders are often not invited to the negotiation tables or the corridors of power where ‘high level delegations’ are entertained. This can be explained by the international definition of peacebuilding that I have alluded to above – the formal and informal, laying emphasis on international notions of security and political structures that makes the negotiations one-sided and unrepresentative of more than one half of the conflict-affected population. More importantly, it lacks the relational ethic, the person-centeredness; it ignores the perceptions and experiences of those directly affected by the conflict. The relational ethic is vital for repairing or building new social, inter-personal, intra-family, and intracommunity relationships that form the foundation for the social cohesion needed for building sustainable peace. The women in this study demonstrate a holistic approach to peacebuilding, which recognizes the significance of everyday peacebuilding where individuals are engaged in ensuring their own survival and that of their families; and are rebuilding broken relationships and creating new ones—essential for trust building. I conclude that the distinction between the formal and informal peacebuilding undermines and minimizes women’s vital role in everyday peacebuilding at the interpersonal, family, and community levels. In the aftermath of conflict in northern Uganda, challenges such as huge needs for resettlement and rehabilitation of displaced populations, demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of Local Women’s Voices for Peace

combatants and other groups, the loss of resources and livelihoods, and the polarization effects of a protracted conflict, continue to complicate peacebuilding and recovery efforts. However, as the women have expressed, most of those affected by conflict would like to live in peace with their neighbours and communities. Peacebuilding initiatives should consider the implications of heighted poverty, especially among women and girls, which upset the balance in the traditional male-female power relations, making it more difficult for women to access resources, such as land. It is important to pay attention to the issues often ignored because of the failure to link them with sustainable peacebuilding. Women’s new roles and the changing family structure for the returnees, where women take on men’s role and yet they have no access to the resources that men have in order to perform their roles as breadwinners. The children from the bush are not accepted and this discrimination creates social disharmony in society, fear and mistrust as the children are considered as ‘children of rebels’ who killed and destroyed the society. At the national level it would be difficult to address such issues and that is where individual and community efforts are crucial for addressing this underlying threat to sustainable peace. As I wrote the section on relational ethic, I thought about Kenya’s late president Daniel Arap Moi’s Nyayo philosophy of peace, love and unity as a political strategy to unite Kenyans and ensure peace and stability. Initially, many people did not attend to the underlying meanings and implications of having a national philosophy founded on peace, love and unity. Research has shown that during the first half of Moi’s long reign, Kenya enjoyed security, stability and social-economic development, becoming known as ‘an island of peace’ surrounded by conflict-affected neighbours: Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan South. The Acholi women’s relational ethic cannot be relegated to informality in peacebuilding—their everyday peacebuilding is crucial for building sustainable peace at the national level. It is not only charity that begins at home; the Acholi women have demonstrated that peace too, begins at home and spreads horizontally to embrace the whole society for there to be resilience, stability and security for all. Concluding remarks In conflict situations, women experience varied forms of violence: they can be held in sexual bondage or as ‘bush wives’ by militant groups, used as female child soldiers; used as pawns or booty by warring clans or groups; and even forced to bear children for the victors or to change demography in war situations. Nevertheless, we have listened to Acholi women describe how they are emerging from such traumas to ensure the survival of their families and contribute to rebuilding their communities. They demonstrate a deep understanding and knowledge of what peacebuilding entails in their social and political context. They understand the impact of the conflict, and what it has taken away from individuals and families—the ability to meet their needs, access healthcare, trust

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

among neighbours, and safety for women to walk to any place without fear of attack. The results of the conflict are broken relationships, rejection of children born in the bush fathered by LRA fighters, and the rape of many girls and women subjected to forced labour and sexual bondage, leading to ill health, and bodies weakened by torture and hardship in the bush, as women survivors put it. Trauma and stigma continue to plague survivors. Exclusion, discrimination and violence against women returnees continue to complicate their recovery. These effects must be addressed for sustainable peacebuilding to be achieved. Failure to address these issues will surely undermine efforts to foster social cohesion and build resilient and stronger communities. I suggest that peacebuilding interventions need to take the following issues into consideration (a) the experiences of women; (b) their capacity for building resilience; and (c) the nature of the root causes of conflicts and employ strategies that: •

Pay attention to cultural understandings of changing masculinities and power relations.

•

Promote the human factors of relatedness, collaboration, love, empathy and tolerance, which are necessary for creating a fertile environment for building sustainable peace.

•

Integrate a psychosocial approach in peacebuilding to allow trust building, which is crucial for repairing the broken social fabric.

•

Recognize that cultural values are not neutral; therefore, there is need to promote socialization of children within a culture of gender equality and respect for human rights.

•

Promote inclusive social, political and economic policies with gender equality at the center, for women and marginalized groups to fully participate in the affairs of their communities and the state.

•

Women’s participation is crucial for building sustainable peace and security, both of which are crucial for social, political and economic development of the entire society.

•

Employ a human security approach, which recognizes women’s rights and resonates with the idea of a relational ethic of care that puts women and men at the center of the peacebuilding process.

•

Separating peacebuilding work as formal or informal is unfavourable to everyday peacebuilding by women; reducing their security, personal safety and psychosocial wellbeing, which are often either neglected or placed last in the hierarchy of needs for protection after conflicts.

Within their prescribed indigenous gender roles, women in northern Uganda can make tangible achievements in peacebuilding especially at the local levels. Women provide material and psychosocial support to thousands of children: teaching them love, respect and ensuring that they get access to education. As a woman and mother, she often finds herself caught in the identity of a returnee and rejection by family and community. By drawing on her moral capital and harnessing the

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

power of cultural norms and values, she can transcend the limitations placed on her and engage in peacebuilding across social and community boundaries. References Acs, Z. (2015). Moral capital in the twenty-first century (Sweden Entrepreneurship Forum Working Paper 36). Advisory Consortium on Conflict Sensitivity (ACCS). 2013. Northern Uganda conflict analysis. https://www.saferworld-global.org/downloads/pubdocs/accs---northern-uganda-conflictanalysis-report.pdf Amadiume, I. (1987). Male daughters, female husbands: Gender and sex in an African society. Zed Books. Anderlini, S. N. (2007). Women building peace: What they do, why it matters. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Annan, J., et. al. (2011). Civil war, reintegration, and gender in Northern Uganda. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 55(6), 877-908. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002711408013 Atanga, L., Ellece, S. E., Litosseliti, L., & Sunderland, J. (Eds.). (2013). Gender and language in SubSaharan Africa: Tradition, struggle and change. John Benjamins Publishing. Atkinson, R. (2009). From Uganda to the Congo and beyond: Pursuing the Lord’s Resistance Army. International Peace Institute. http://www.jstor.com/stable/resrep09604.7 Behrend, H. (1999). Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits. Fountain Publishers. Chome, N. (2016). Violent extremism and clan dynamics in Kenya. PEACEWORKS, No. 123. Hamber, B., & Kelly, G. (2005). A place for reconciliation? Conflict and locality in Northern Ireland. Democratic Dialogue, 18. https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/11285881/ddreport18.pdf Isike, C. (2017). Soft power and a feminist ethics of peacebuilding in Africa. Peace Review, 29(3), 350357. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2017.1344535 Isike, C., & Uzodike, U. O. (2011). Towards an indigenous model of conflict resolution: Reinventing women’s roles as traditional peacebuilders in neo-colonial Africa. African Journal of Conflict Resolution, 11(2), 32-58. https://doi.org/10.4314/ajcr.v11i2.69832 Isike, C. (2009). Feminising the peace process: A comparative analysis of women and conflict in the Niger Delta (Nigeria) and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). [Doctoral dissertation, University of Kwa Zulu Natal]. https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/items/5cb1407d-0234-4e09-a63e-e26d5d96aaa6

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

Joireman, S. (2018). Intergenerational land conflict in northern Uganda: children, customary law and return migration. Africa, 88(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972017000559 Laukka, M. (2018). Women, war and peace: A feminist content analysis. [Master’s thesis, University of Tampere]. https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/103974 Lederach, P. (1997). Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. United States Institute of Peace Press. Mbiti, J. S. (1969). African religions and philosophy. Heinemann. Omach, P. (2010). Regionalization of rebel activities: The case of the Lord’s Resistance Army. In W. Okumu, & A. Ikelegbe (Eds.), Militias, rebels and Islamist militants: Human security and state crises in Africa. Institute for Security Studies. Porter, E. (2007). Peacebuilding: Women in international perspective. Routledge. Reinke, A. J. (2016). Gendering peacebuilding in post-conflict Northern Uganda. Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective, 10(2), 71-86. Shulika, L. S. (2016). Women and peacebuilding: From a historical to contemporary African perspective. Ubuntu: Journal of Conflict and Social Transformation, 5(1), 7-31. Spence, R. (2001). Post conflict peacebuilding: Who determines peace? In B. Evens-Kent & R. Bleaker (Eds.), Rethinking humanitarianism conference proceedings. University of Queensland. United Nations (Boutros Boutros-Ghali). (1992). An agenda for peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping. Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/145749?ln=en United Nations. (2010). UN peacebuilding: An orientation. UN Peacebuilding Support Office. United Nations Development Programme. (2014). Human development report: Sustaining human progress: reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience. UNDP. UNESCO. (2003). Women and peace in Africa: Case studies on traditional conflict resolution practices. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000133274

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

When we rise together, we shine This poem is about what normally happens to Kenyans every election year and the possibility of making the year 2022 better than previous election years.

After every five years I wake up with a stutter Because it is that time when we become mad again We remember our differences as if we just discovered; Ø

Tribe

Gender

Ethnicity

Geographical area

Clan

Education and many other differences

We clamor to be noticed and to be associated with our own We forget the one thing that makes us the same, the colour of our blood We fight, burn and kill forgetting there is tomorrow I hope one day in five years’ time I will wake up and not shudder Because we shall have realized together, we always win And will set aside our differences because we are one Salome Nduta (Kenya)

In search of people-centered visions of peace and security

Blending citizen-led community-driven research and practice to build a women, peace and security agenda in Cameroon Patience N. Agwenjang5 In 2021, Research and Advocacy for Gender Justice (RAGJ) recruited Coady graduates from Cameroon to study the community-level activities working to improve women’s peace and security (WPS). Patience Agwenjang, Executive Director of RAGJ explains: “We are in a conflict situation in Cameroon, so there are a lot of relief and recovery activities going on…What we are trying to do is to bring all of these [activities] together and do a comprehensive report of ground practices.”6 Communities and participants involved Eight communities in the project: the ABCD institute was held in four towns (Bamenda, Buea, Douala, and Yaoundé), and four case study communities in peri-urban areas were the sites for the conversations on women, peace, and security (Abiomuchi in the Northwest region, Missaka in the Southwest region, Lenale Ndem in the Littoral region, and Mvognomo in the Centre region of Cameroon). The 118 participants in the community conversations were a diverse demographic representation of each community (youth, women, men, farmers, single mothers, displaced persons, host community members, traditional authorities, minority groups, etc.). Women and girls in the case-study communities were mostly internally displaced persons (IDPs) with limited access to and ownership of farmland but were into transformation, retail (buy and salam), and transportation activities, which form part of the agricultural value chain. Other women/girls who indicated an interest in carrying out business ventures but did not have the basic/necessary skills needed. The IDPs in all communities were mostly neglected and not fully integrated socio-economically. Mvognomo and Lenale Ndem recorded an alarming rate of poverty and GBV, with unavailable or inaccessible socio-economic services. Missaka and Abiomuchi addressed poverty and GBV through the mobilization and productive use of community peace assets. 5 Executive Director, Research and Advocacy for Gender Justice. 6 Nov 5, 2021, https://coady.stfx.ca/graduates-research-womens-peace-and-security-in-cameroon/

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

The 118 participants in the community conversations were a diverse demographic representation of each community (youth, women, men, farmers, single mothers, displaced persons, host community members, traditional authorities, minority groups, etc.).

Project activities The assembled team developed context-specific research tools comprised of: •

Strategic Mapping on the ground of community actors and activities with 14 partners/Coady graduates (396 CSOs);

•

ABCD Institute with CSOs in each region for three days to explore the blend of ABCD and the WPS agenda (120 CSOs/145 individuals);

•

Community Conversations in each region, one day of focused group discussions organized with participating CSOs/individuals drawing learning (118 persons).

One hundred twenty CSOs have been trained and are applying ABCD approaches to WPS to their work and have shared their learning on the use of ABCD in community peacebuilding through the Domains of Change (Rao & Kelleher, 2002; Batliwala & Pitman, 2010) analysis for their interventions. During both ABCD Institutes and community conversations, participants contributed real-time mapping of their assets (knowledge, skills, attitudes, connections) and reflections on the peculiarities of various peace practices. The groups considered the realities of women and girls in conflict situations, particularly gender-based violence (GBV). CSOs increased their understanding of ABCD and identified the WPS pillars that their activities fell under and the differences, comparisons and complementarities of their actions on the ground. CSOs, through their action plans, reviewed their operational strategies and integrated ABCD approaches into their projects and actions within their organizations and in the communities where they are working. The Domains of Change feminist analysis tool used in the project enabled participating CSOs to separate formal from informal spaces of intervention as well as systemic from individual actions. Further, it enabled proper understanding and an issue-by-issue breakdown on legality, law-making, policing, resource allocation, access and control over resources, socio-cultural norms, beliefs, and practices, and internalized attitudes, values and practices. Discussions from all activities centered on the complexity and vulnerability of women and girls to socio-economic pressures rooted in patriarchal norms and structures. Discussions around GBV were very intense, indicating its critical nature and pertinence. Poverty remained an overwhelming

Blending citizen-led community-driven research and practice

reality. Persons with disability and ethnic minorities, represented in the project highlighted their challenges and expectations. Missaka was a peculiar community that succeeded to deradicalise its youth. Unlike neighbouring villages, most youths had joined the non-state armed groups to be involved in violent armed confrontations with military forces. It created a vigilante group of 108 youths (including five females) who was not only involved in security surveillance but intervened in GBV matters, addressing inheritance by women and reducing rape to zero reported cases in three years. Also, women groups mobilised themselves to institute a ban and sanctions on indecent dressing through the wrapping of loin cloths above the breast, which helped reinforce GBV prevention. In Abiomuchi, women's groups were organised to mediate over farmer-grazier land disputes and peace discussions to prevent youths from joining non-state armed groups. They advocated for radicalised youths to drop their guns. Key findings and lessons •

While the project was women-focused, both women and men appreciated ABCD tools.

•

Experiential learning enabled both women and men to fine-tune their thoughts, actions and attitudes in various conflict situations.

•

Experience sharing on GBV did not only limit to women and girls as men expressed their GBV challenges and solutions.

•

The Domains of Change analysis enabled women and men peacebuilders to reflect and redirect their interventions.

•

Intentional and well-thought application of ABCD in community development and peacebuilding is phenomenal. Deep reflections and multiple interactions help reinforce knowledge-oriented learning and practice in community development.

•

Community skills building must align with the socio-economic empowerment of women (and men). Both women and men, particularly in communities, are doing a lot of peacebuilding work. They require (as requested) socioeconomic transformation tools that can change their mindsets and collective practices.

•

Women in rural communities have security and influence unlike the narratives on rural women projected by urban-based NGOs. Urban CSOs struggle to handle the challenges of rural women as they are not living their realities. Information sharing and joint reflections amongst CSOs help to bridge gaps in knowledge and practice on WPS issues.

•

Poverty remains an overwhelming challenge in most communities and GBV is a crucial concern for both communities and CSO interventions.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

•

Communities with peace-oriented and gender-sensitive leaders are able to organize themselves better to address issues of WPS, particularly around GBV.

•

Security is a major factor in planning peacebuilding research—violent conflict persists in North-West and South-West and humanitarian actors face multiple risks. Discretion, political sensitivity, and community acceptance are required for community activities during conflict.

•

Collaboration and cooperation should be extended to social and political institutions. A proper Domain of Change analysis enables CSOs to self-reflect and build collaboration and cooperation on issues of concern.

•

Future research would like to document a historical timeline of women's engagement in community peacebuilding for each region/community. Discussions on the peculiarities and trends in different women’s “societies” began with the graduates and continued during the ABCD Institutes.

References Batliwala, S., & Pitman, A. (2010). Capturing change in women’s reality: A critical overview of current monitoring and evaluation frameworks and approaches. AWID. https://www.awid.org/publications/capturing-change-womens-realities Rao, A., & Kelleher, D. (2002). Unraveling institutionalized gender inequality (AWID Occasional Paper No. 8). Gender at Work. https://genderatwork.org/

Blending citizen-led community-driven research and practice

Reflections on practice: Blending women, peace, and security and ABCD in Cameroon Glenys Regina Mafor, Jacinta Foncha, Omer Songwe, Patience N. Agwenjang, Rabi Boti, with Robin Neustaeter (convener) The intricacies and complexities of insecurity, displacement, violent conflict, pandemics, poverty, and gender-based violence (GBV) affect individuals, families, communities, regions, and nations around the world. Since 2016, the North-West and South-West (NWSW) regions of Cameroon have been facing a security and humanitarian crisis that seems to have no solution to date (Kinkoh & Boudjekeu, 2023). The Covid-19 health crisis further complicated the situation, making it even more difficult for the populations of NWSW particularly the women who suffer disproportionately from the effects of this violent conflict (WILPF, 2024). Those forced to leave their villages have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) who face stigmatization and distrust, sexual harassment, physical violence, poor mental health, unhygienic living conditions, and denial of access to certain public amenities. In the Fall of 2021, a group of Coady Institute graduates in and from Cameroon got together to brainstorm a collective project to examine the intersections of Asset-Based Community Development7 with the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) framework as outlined in the United Nations’ Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325. Recognizing the gendered nature of violence, security, humanitarian relief, and peacebuilding, UNSCR 1325 calls for recognition and support of women’s work in addressing these realities, as well as implementing a gendered informed practice across the four pillars, Participation, Prevention, Protection and Relief and Recovery, ensuring women’s full participation. Note: The term ABCD has evolved from the work of Kretzmann & McKnight (1993) who developed a process for community organizing that aimed to shift people’s thinking from a deficit mindset (looking at community problems needing solutions) to explore the “assets” the community possesses, such resources, skills, and capacities, that could be mobilized to initiate activities for the benefit of all. Coady Institute has adapted ABCD approaches over the past two decades (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003). Coady colleagues have also explored linkages between ABCD and human rights-based approaches (Landry & Peters, 2018) that are more familiar within the field of WPS.

7 For more information on Coady’s approach to ABCD, see https://coady.stfx.ca/themes/abcd/

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Their project, Blending Citizen-Led Community-Driven Research and Practice to Build a Women, Peace and Security Agenda (BCLCDR4WPS) in Cameroon (Chapter 3), incorporated four ABCD workshops, four community consultations, and a survey to collectively build peace asset maps of communities in four regions of Cameroon. As Bamenda, Buea, Douala and Yaoundé are the main host communities for the IDPs, they were identified as key areas for study. The project received funding from the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives, Global Affairs Canada via the Canadian High Commission in Cameroon. After the project’s completion, team members were invited to a conversation circle to engage in a deeper dive of their own learning experiences with the project. The conversation circle format has been preserved in this chapter. The dialogue has been edited for clarity. Introductions Patience: I lead Research and Advocacy for Gender Justice (RAGJ) in working on law, governance, and natural resources related issues. I am equally a Research Fellow and four-time graduate of the Coady Institute. I coordinated the BCLCDR4WPS project and co-researched alongside other graduates. I facilitated four ABCD workshops, three community conversations, collected data in three regions, and co-learned with participants and graduates. Glenys: I am a freelance web designer and blogger focusing on education and lifelong learning skills in addition to my work on inclusive education with OLOGS in Yaoundé. Since this project was the first of its kind for the Cameroon graduates, I wanted to engage fully on all levels, connect, make an impact, learn lessons, and prepare for the next project. I was more concerned with the skills and efforts I was bringing in, the learning experience, and empowering myself on this journey than just focusing on tasks and outcomes. Omer: I am the Coordinator of Youth Outreach Programme (YOP), which is a youth development focused organization based in Bamenda. We work holistically in youth development, especially in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, and promoting governance. We are involved in the recovery programs involving youth affected by the ongoing conflict in the northwest region. We also run activities on peace education and economic empowerment. Concerning the project, I was one of the Coady graduates involved in the research and I facilitated the ABCD workshop in Bamenda and the community dialogue in Bamendankwe. Rabi: In the project I worked as a Coady graduate and thus a co-researcher. I had the opportunity to conceive the draft code of ethics for the project. I facilitated fully in workshops in two locations, namely, Yaoundé for the Centre region and Douala for the Littoral region. I was also co-coordinator

Reflections on practice

in the community conversation in Mfou, a peri-urban setting in the central region. Besides, I also carried out actors mapping and worked on other issues of the project as the need arose. Jacinta: I am a natural resource manager and the head of the Training and Development division in the Pan African Institute for Development - West Africa (PAID-WA), Buea, Cameroon. I played the role of a facilitator and researcher in this project. I learned more on assets—most often when dealing or working with vulnerable communities’, the emphasis is based on their needs which usually come from “outsiders” (Chambers, 1998). In reality, these communities are endowed with assets which if properly identified, make them aware and when put in practice will empower them, thus making them resilient to uncertainties (unprecedented and unpredictable situations). The world is facing challenges like climate change, Covid-19 among others. The most affected are the rural poor—these are the people I work with. There is need to raise awareness in assets more than needs in their communities. Identifying assets and making the community know the importance of assets was a major achievement to me during the project and will also apply to other community led projects. Learning Through the Project Robin: Jacinta. I am glad you mentioned learning because that ties in well to this conversation circle. What do you feel you have learned through your participation in this project? ABCD and peace Jacinta: I have been working with rural communities. They have a range of needs, always expecting external aid, especially from development partners. I now know everyone has an asset (tangible or intangible) but it depends on how issues are handled to identify the assets. I learned that most rural communities think they are in need, but when we can bring them together, identify their assets, help (assist) in building skills and capacity, it will give them confidence. This will contribute to the development of their area and make them more resilient. I have been working with people to identify their assets in their respective communities, informally, just by using my knowledge and the local resources available. These resources include physical capital, natural capital, financial, social, and the human capital to meet their needs, which enhanced their resilience. However, if we work in a participatory manner, going back to where I’m coming from, it will not only make communities resilient and fruitful but peaceful. In fact, integrating the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) with their particular situations and experiences into the ABCD and peacebuilding discussions has enhanced my skills, especially in the Missaka Village where

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Patience and I worked. Coupled with the knowledge from Coady in Livelihoods and Markets, Social Enterprise for Inclusive Local Economies, I think I will do better if given the opportunity. Omer: During my stay in Coady, I studied advocacy and citizenship. ABCD wasn’t part of what I did. Joining this project was an opportunity for me to learn about what the ABCD approach is and how it also relates to what we do through looking at our work with young people, looking at strengths that young people have in community to gain a better understanding. The process of mapping out can be a strong way of getting people to understand that the cup may be three-quarters full and not even half-full or empty as we always look at it. It helps all of us to understand the assets we have in our communities and how we can utilize them in building better communities. It enables community members to sit and look at themselves from a different perspective. After the one here in Bamendankwe, we were lucky to post the conversations we had. It gave all of us an opportunity to see some of the assets we have in the community that we probably took for granted. It was an eye opener for me as well as the community. Patience: I have learned several things and observed different perspectives about the work and how communities perceive themselves. Contextualizing ABCD approach to peacebuilding requires realtime thinking. However, the ABCD approach is an unfamiliar concept. It is not necessarily new, but the intentional and well-thought application of the ABCD approach in peacebuilding is phenomenal. This project has caused me to reflect upon my work with Youth Outreach Programme (YOP). I realized that YOP unintentionally had used the ABCD approach as most activities were designed and achieved using community resources and at almost zero-financial cost. ABCD is easier when we as CSOs leaders intervene as “assets” with a stake in the development of the community, rather than as experts. Rabi: As a community microfinancier working in communities, I had often used the participatory approach in development, involving stakeholders but it had never been as deep and inclusive as I found out in the ABCD approach. This was a huge learning process for me. Mapping of the assets in the different communities was never handled in the deeper form as I found out in ABCD. However, working in microfinance from a credit union, member-owned perspective, we can look at the ABCD approach through the value of “self-help” and “member economic participation” as enshrined in the cooperative values and principles. I am currently working on integrating this approach as I go along in coaching and supervising credit unions and other member-owned microfinance institutions. I am seriously looking forward to bigger challenges in which my knowledge can be further deepened in WPS processes in particular and ABCD approach in general. Understanding that everyone is important and can contribute through different forms (competencies/skills, network, attitude) is something I will live to appreciate forever. Also, the

Reflections on practice

concept of enjoying the process, no matter the twists it takes made me see that everything and circumstance can be positively exploited. Coming together with other graduates, especially those working in the civil society space improved my understanding of peace and peace processes and my interventions and contributions have never been the same on this topic. I also learned a lot from the coaching methods of the Coady team: consistency, follow-up and interventions, especially during the period of “misunderstanding” amongst group members. I feel blessed and I am eagerly looking forward to more of such opportunities and projects with graduates and with the CFLI. In general, the research was an enriching learning one for me in particular in peace matters. I understood better UNSCR 1325 in the process and I am most appreciative. This remains the most important thing that happened within the framework of this project. Just like me, there was a complete rethink and mind-shift that almost all participants (CSO practitioners) had about their legal status and domains of intervention/activities. This was in lessons on Domains of Change (Rao & Kelleher, 2002; Batliwala & Pitman, 2010). In fact, the shock /surprise expressed during these presentations in the workshops in Yaoundé and Douala was so glaring, and thus proof of its importance. I am deeply convinced that some heard/understood this for the first time and still obviously need to hear and be coached on this. Also, most CSOs though busy in their humanitarian work did not even know within which pillar they were working and or did not even know about the existence of such pillars. The ABCD approach in its newness too also made learners of which I am a part, shifting from always considering communities as “needy, vulnerable…” As parties, stakeholders and more, who have a lot (assets: both tangible and intangible) to be considered if their current situation must be improved upon. There were some CSOs that had mastery of their works and the legal framework, especially in Douala and I particularly learned a lot from them. Finally, I can never say thank you enough to Team Coady Institute, fellow graduates, and participants for the positive things that happened to me in the process. Patience: ABCD causes us to think differently in different circumstances. While we were conducting this project, there were times that I had to reflect back. When I was still with Youth Outreach Program (YOP), and the way that I saw that YOP was working, as I said it was an ABCD approach in the sense that most of the youth outreach programs were built on volunteering and most of the activities were achieved with almost little financial means. For instance, when YOP had to get support to have sports activities or sports equipment or had already sport equipment in the office and would go to the prisons. Young people (and some community members) within the community Local Women’s Voices for Peace

of Bamendankwe voluntarily mobilized themselves and facilitated the project activities in the juvenile section of the prison or in the communities. We had success with young people who transformed. Even in the prisons, young people who went to prison because of rape, and they came out through the training or weekly programs that YOP was having in the prisons with young people. They became peer educators, educating their peers in prison. The other peer educators were moving into the classes and changing things and sometimes generating means to reach out to people or do environmental programs. Considering ABCD from a CSO perspective, often as CSOs we sometimes detach ourselves from the communities we are serving and come in as experts. There are times that we have a stake on the issue affecting our community, and we take action to identify and mobilise others to use their assets to resolve the issue affecting us all. Glenys: I learned that everyone’s input is important, no matter how small. Even if it was just their presence and listening ear. I also learned to be very patient and accommodating. Projects that involve people from different walks of life can be challenging. I learned to build relationships with people when working on a project and relate with them in a way that they understand so that genuine effort is not lost, time is not wasted, and goals are achieved. Also, in my opinion, community development projects in general are very successful when we understand the people, the nuances of culture and other dynamics. Jacinta: There is something I learned generally, it’s tolerance. It wasn’t easy. When there is tolerance, there is peace. I learned a lot in the aspect of tolerance. To resolve conflict is to get everybody involved. The main problem where we are having conflict is because of non-inclusiveness. Robin: Listening to all of you talk about your learnings, it is striking to me that the thing that you talked about was ABCD and that though it was new, it was also familiar. It may be a new term for something that in some ways, you never realized you were practicing all along. Domains of change Patience: For me, what stood out or excited me was the Domains of Change (Rao & Kelleher, 2002; Batliwala & Pitman, 2010) analysis. It shifted thinking, re-directed the work of most CSOs, and finetuned CSOs project conception and implementation. Most of the heated arguments during the ABCD workshops and where I saw a lot of learning, correction and change of perceptions was when we were trying to fit into the domains of change. We have instances in some workshops that participants were somewhat discouraged as it felt impossible to do a domain of change. We have Reflections on practice

cases that it felt inappropriate as some participants indicated through grumbling, their disappointment in the fact that we asked them to do the domain of change analysis. Some participants truly didn’t understand it. In each case, we continued coaching and thinking with participants to establish contextual (regional) domains of change using examples in each of the four WPS pillars. Most CSOs corrected their knowledge, approach to work and perception, especially on their legal status and scope of work. I observed that most CSOs were yet to understand the laws and policies related to the issues their organizations were addressing. Individuals and CSOs (though surprised and sometimes disappointed) learned about themselves, their role vis-à-vis other actors and institutions in the community and nationally. Consequently, it facilitated their understanding of legality and collaboration with political, socio-economic, and cultural institutions. I was excited because the Domains of Change analysis gave me the opportunity to learn and think differently with different individuals and organizations. I could not have said that I was a domain of change expert. I had the baselines to do the interpretations but while interpreting, I saw I was learning and diagnosing issues from various angles and using different lenses. It was always, ‘Please let us reason this together. Let us think through it and tell me from your experience.’ We gradually used the expertise and the real time knowledge of participants to build the Domains of Change. At RAGJ, we are conducting a Domains of Change for our areas of focus, particularly on civil documentation, GBV and agriculture. One of the innovations we have introduced in our civil documentation projects is the Domains of Change Analysis for four regions. We are examining the French-Civil Law and English-Common Law systems. We are currently gathering interesting analysis and perspectives from government officials, private actors as well as individuals in rural, peri-urban, and urban communities around civil documentation. By the end of this year, we shall publish the results of our findings. Similarly, we shall establish a Domains of Change for GBV once we establish our four-fold legal clinic, then for agriculture. All our offices have big charts of the Domains of Change; we use it to discuss with other actors, especially with CSOs that consult us to fine-tune their programs and projects. 1325 and local peacebuilding in action Robin: This whole project comes out of a strong focus on WPS coming from the pillars of 1325. I am curious if you can share more, speaking about your own learning in this project and the context in Cameroon. Patience, you talked about the real time reality of this project and that being in real time in communities, adapting in real time ABCD to communities and to their realities. What about

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

peacebuilding? How has this project informed your ideas around working with conflict and peacebuilding? Patience: Although this is not my first work experience on the WPS concept, I am new in this area of work. I started working on UNSCR1325 in April 2020. I have since then assisted HOFNA (Hope for the Needy Association), CAGEAD (Centre for Advocacy, Gender Education and Action for Development) and WILPF Cameroon to facilitate the localization of the WPS through ABCD approaches and by injecting a legal and governance lens into their projects. This gave me the opportunity to deepen my knowledge by continuously breaking down the four pillars of the WPS through broad-based activities and multiple overlapping layers of interventions and actions of different actors in Cameroon. Examining intersecting themes and various entry points for small and big actions broadened my understanding of blending practice with research. Throughout 2020 and 2021, I was simply applying wisdom generated through experience in facilitating governance processes and applying ABCD in my works to simplify and demystify WPS concepts to the understanding of a local person and non-technician in development facilitation, law, and policymaking. Working and thinking through and fine-tuning the expectations of diverse actors and stakeholders increased my curiosity about WPS issues and their contextual application. I have been able, for the first time, to understand myself within the context of peace and security. A lot has happened; from the internal conflicts with other graduates, tensions on conducting the research within a tight time frame and extremely competing needs and expectations of coresearchers, in addition to the security considerations throughout the project. After hesitating for a long time, I can now recognize the importance of using storytelling to understand conflict. I now have a peace story and can situate myself in the context of conflict, and multiple overlapping insecurities. Several times, I felt threatened and insecure while executing this project. I relate personally with several issues affecting the people in the communities we are working with. I am not just an expert working in communities, but I am also a survivor devising peace-oriented strategies to deal with conflict issues affecting me. I have learned a lot about myself, my circumstance in the northwest region of Cameroon. I’ve learned how to do things differently, how to find inner peace, peace within civic spaces, within professional circles, and with life. I have also learnt that discretion, political sensitivity, community acceptance, and acceptability are required for community activities during conflict. Active listening helps in building tolerance and patience is required to facilitate peaceful negotiations. We continuously conducted real-time security analysis during the planning and implementation of all activities to ensure everyone’s safety. We carefully chose the date, time, and location for our activities.

Reflections on practice

Communities with peace-oriented and gender-sensitive leaders can organize themselves better and address issues of WPS, particularly around GBV. Missaka and Lenale Ndem in Melong are good examples of such leadership. In Missaka, the Chief is a graduate and practitioner of peace and security, and a GBV Community Service Provider. His wife has a degree in gender studies and is engaging with women. After being attacked by a non-state armed group (NSAG) in 2017 and neglected by the armed force and security officials, young people, instead of joining the non-state armed group, formed a vigilante group to secure peace in their community and help address GBV. In Lenale Ndem, a migrant chieftaincy that has created its economy in the Littoral regions, the Chief is a retired Gendarme (security officer) with a 40-year track record of minimizing insecurity in the community as well as facilitating education and entrepreneurial activities, especially for IDPs, including providing shelter for IPDs and other traditional rulers from the conflict-affected regions of Cameroon. Drawing from both the ABCD workshops and the community conversations, poverty and GBV remain as overwhelming challenges in communities, particularly amongst IDPs. Workshop discussions on poverty and GBV were always alarming given their interrelation with conflict. Communities’ appreciation of poverty and GBV transcends cultural and linguistic differences. All three (two French-Speaking and one English-Speaking) communities I worked with had IDPs, who were neglected and not-fully integrated socio-economically (drawing from the assertions of IDP themselves and the indigenes). In the French-speaking communities of Mfou and Melong, the rates of poverty and GBV were alarming. Socio-economic services were either not available or inaccessible. In Mfou, hostility in the family circles was a cultural defect and widespread amongst indigenes. Whereas in the English-speaking community of Missaka, poverty and GBV were being addressed structurally through the mobilization and use of community peace assets in productive manners. For example, the community vigilante group of 108 youths (5 females) protected, investigated, and ensured punishment. Women’s efforts are recognized and rewarded through appointment in administrative roles. Also, the women grouped themselves independently as well as jointly with the men to address socio-economic issues, including adopting their own laws and rules of engagement in the communities. The Chief himself takes issues of GBV very personally and has significantly reduced the occurrence of GBV in Missaka. Glenys: I have learned that peacebuilding is a very broad term and is understood by different people differently more in the context of let there be no war and conflict, than in the context of loving mankind and looking out for the other’s best interest. It is important to know what peace means to someone or a community to accommodate all these differences to achieve the set goals.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Robin: I am thinking how those two realities of poverty and GBV transcend the four pillars of 1325, and participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery, for example, how women’s experiences of poverty impact their ability to participate. Or how it can cause them to make decisions that they would not make otherwise that could lead to GBV or put them in precarious situations where they have an increased risk of GBV—how those also fall under the umbrella of relief and recovery. Gandhi said that poverty is one of the worst forms of violence. Patience: Look at protection, not just prevention because prevention is basically sensitization, which is OK, but in terms of protection, poverty also stands out. Most of the arguments and discussions in the workshops and communities show how economic deprivation and harmful practices such as early marriages are influenced by poverty. Some families trade girls’ education for marriage and discourage girls from assuming leadership roles. They are all very sensitive. Robin: I would challenge you on that prevention is primarily sensitization because in the examples you’ve just shared, prevention of GBV is also preventing poverty. Supporting socioeconomic development, livelihoods, ensuring an income so girls can go to school, that schools are safe. All of that is also prevention. It’s more than awareness raising. Patience: During the ABCD institute in Buea, the team working on the WPS prevention pillar used economic empowerment as their strategy to address or prevent SGBV. I was surprised as I thought they would develop a sensitization approach. They defended their approach so well and it was justifiable. I agree with you Robin, with the challenge of not always thinking of prevention as sensitization, but as empowerment too. Economic empowerment can prevent SGBV. Hence, community peacebuilding must align with the socioeconomic empowerment of women (and men). Both women and men, particularly in rural communities are doing a lot of peacebuilding work. All three communities I worked in demanded that our team runs training sessions with them to equip them with socioeconomic transformation tools that can change their mindsets and collective practices, especially around agriculture. This made me think that the ABCD workshops we held in towns could have been held in the communities. Robin: I admire everyone’s willingness to take the time to reflect and admit how your eyes are opened by what you heard and learned and seeing people in new ways or see new ways of addressing issues. Something I heard someone say earlier, this learning with community, learning within the ABCD institutes, within the community conversations, when you sit down and work with people to talk through the domains of change, or the four pillars. Bringing it into real time that there’s this experience of learning which isn’t easily replicated and yet is very important for understanding or building knowledge on what these concepts really mean.

Reflections on practice

Patience: Yes, that’s true. There were overlapping areas of learning, especially while mapping skills and attitudes. Discussions around negative attitudes led us to recognize that besides assets, there are needs to address. Jacinta: Let me mention inclusiveness for collective action. Whatever project or activity I am involved in, I am looking for empowerment for the community to be less vulnerable. Most of their problems come because of a lack of empowerment. If we carry out inclusion for collective action, this will empower them, and they will become less vulnerable to violence. Just as I had entered the field, I had to read some literature from Cambodia and Chad on what they’re doing that became interesting to me. That is why I could try to make some contribution. Then I was working with the pillars of 1325, I call them the 3 Ps and 2 Rs. That is how I have been working. Concluding Appreciation Glenys: Congratulations to everyone for their participation, persistence and contribution to this project. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact in my own small way. I would have loved to have more time for thorough preparation, for proper understanding of the target communities and all the dynamics involved and to properly understand the concepts and the delivery of the asset-based approaches, and how this approach can differ in different contexts. Lastly, I would have loved if we had the time to really enjoy the project process and create connections.

References Batliwala, S., & Pitman, A. (2010). Capturing change in women’s reality: A critical overview of current monitoring and evaluation frameworks and approaches. AWID. https://www.awid.org/publications/capturing-change-womens-realities Chambers, R. (1998). Beyond “Whose reality counts?” New methods we now need. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 4(2), 279-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/10245289808523516 Kinkoh, H., & Boudjekeu, T. (2023, October 3). Time to resolve Cameroon’s persistent yet forgotten crisis. ISS Today. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/time-to-resolve-cameroonspersistent-yet-forgotten-crisis Kretzmann, J., & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. ACTA Publications.

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Landry, J., & Peters, B. (2018). Assets on the right(s) track? Reflections at the intersection of human rights-based approaches and asset-based and citizen-led development (Coady Innovations Series No. 19). https://coady.stfx.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IS19.pdf Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). Who is driving development? Reflections on the transformative potential of asset-based community development (Coady Occasional Paper No. 5). https://coady.stfx.ca/wpcontent/uploads/pdfs/resources/publications/5_Who_is_Driving_Development.pdf Rao, A., & Kelleher, D. (2002). Unraveling institutionalized gender inequality (AWID Occasional Paper No. 8). Gender at Work. https://genderatwork.org/ Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF). (2024). Cameroon: Achieving social justice for Women. https://www.wilpf.org/focus-countries/cameroon/

Reflections on practice

Focus on education in supporting WPS Perspectives from Gloria Manzoti, Gladys Farfán, Dina Hussein, Samantha Sauni, Mousumi Halder, with reflections by Muzna Dureid Many of the stories women shared during the LWVP conference touched on the importance of education to support the people active in peacebuilding and to promote social improvements that can contribute to a culture of peace. This chapter highlights several of these stories from different perspectives: •

The role of higher education and research experience to assist women to reach positions to engage directly in policy discussions

•

The broader view of educational and economic development activities to foster a climate of stability that can overcome the persistence of violence against women.

•

Education on participating in online spaces for peace.

•

Linking basic skills and technical training with broader goals for equality and WPS

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Training opportunities for grassroots women to gain voice in peace advocacy.

•

The critical importance of creating spaces and opportunities for girls and women to obtain the education they seek to facilitate their full participation.

Gloria Manzoti Rule of Law, Citizen Security & Human Rights Policy Specialist for UNDP in Latin America and the Caribbean, and has two decades of experience in justice, citizen security and conflict prevention. Gloria has combined her academic experience with the public service in her sector advising on the design of citizen security and programs, support for transformations of justice system in Latin America and promotion of human rights agendas. I began to work as a researcher when I was 19-20 years old at the national university, and we measured the armed forces in society. We were in the process of democratization. The first forum I participated in was in an auditorium with 500 people with only five women. Two of those women were academicians. My inspiration came from a colleague from Brazil and another colleague from Argentina. This caught my attention because this public event had women in the role of accompaniment and a social role, but not the role of sitting at the table and presenting topics important for public policy. I mention this because now, 25 years later, there is a space. In Latin America, there is a network of women who are researching security and defense. This doesn’t mean

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

the women have training and gender focus but at least we are occupying important spaces in a security sector that is resistant to women’s participation of all our states. Think of the justice sector and the police bodies, sectors that traditionally have been so resistant to women’s participation. These have been very masculine spaces, replicating practices that were common patriarchal leadership styles. We need to occupy these spaces and form a practical perspective. I have a collection of anecdotes from roleplaying and mansplaining exercises for public policy that I’d like to share with you. For example, stereotypes in Latin America, I have a nose that is unusual in these traditional areas. I laugh about it because it’s something I have. Men want to explain to you how things are and they make comments on your physical appearance. Men are very comfortable in their right to be able to offer some space for representation. The men say, ‘You can give the opening remarks, but when it’s time to talk about strategic points or technical aspects, where is the male consultant?’ They reveal their attitudes as they cannot imagine that a woman could be the specialist, be the consultant. When you are taking the floor, come in with lots of content so that when you speak, your message is so strong they have to sit down and listen. Use your voices in the common sense. We use our tools and common sense for our knowledge as well as our message. I use strategies that we have been given by women’s networks, like active listening. We use our voices. It is a tremendous challenge to be able to use and exercise power. For example, police institutions in the context of COVID. I am sure if we talk among ourselves, we will understand that over and above the difficulties and political tensions in Latin America, we are addressing some paradigms that are related to our gender rights, but the police institutions are left alone. They are aware that they are outdated institutions stuck in the past. The regulatory frameworks are obsolete. They are not inclusive. They have to look from the perspective of women within the institutions and in terms of the public service that they were supposed to provide to all citizens, and of the rights that they are supposed to protect. We know that many of them have a number of different departments that they will be much more transparent and a higher quality if the institutional infrastructure were simplified. We can contribute in addition to the information, the technical language and our training and the tools for transformation, from the common sense of how we are able to organize and make these spaces function. We can participate in these conversations and put on the table the points that are obvious to us. There are barriers and walls in terms of policy. Here in Latin America, from the political, the policy structure, we now have the updating and institutional training of the security sector. This will be possible as long as we are at the table and part of the conversation, otherwise we will not be able to contribute. The final point I wanted to discuss with you is intersectionality—the intercultural aspects and diversity that we, from our spaces, tend to facilitate the expression of voices. Our voices serve as bridges. If we want to include Caribbean women in the conversation, it’s not I who can speak on

Focus on education in supporting WPS

behalf of Caribbean women. I can help provide a bridge to give voices to those women and the direct diversity of women throughout the regions. This would be the tools we can offer. This issue of diversity, when looking at the example of the police institutions with their frameworks and internal regulations, we find we will penalize practices using their language of what they call ‘homosexualism’ or ‘lesbianism’. In some countries, this is more severe than others. It can be more serious for a person to be identified as having what they call homosexual practices than to murder someone. We have to open up this conversation. Many women said to me, ‘You’re so impatient, how did you dare to bring this up?’ I said it’s because we want to see transformation and I want to see different outcomes. It’s not an easy task. The effort is not just to transform these perspectives that have been so internalized in public functions in the security sector. Our organizations have invested so much in training, progress and normative framework in terms of women’s inclusion. It continues to be a very difficult sector, but a key to transformation is access to space. How do we do this conversation, the transformation of institutions? It’s not just public officials who are leading these institutions or ministers who are in charge of these institutions nor is it just the women who have been able to occupy decision-making positions in the sector because we have had female heads of police, female ministers of defense, female justices. The conversation is a conversation of each society. We do not have manuals to refer to. Open up the space for the conversation and take it beyond the institution. I am a representative of Latin America. I would like to thank my female colleagues who are working in this area and our countries. I invite you to continue in your social networks from Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Cuba. All of these countries are represented by women in networks, and they are daring to propose transformation of the justice and security sectors. It is not an easy task but with our organizations, no one should be left behind. The network of interlocal women who are working right now providing support for victims or working in different areas have a great deal to contribute in terms of security institutions. What types of security institutions do we want as a society at large? This is one of the keys. To be able to take this conversation out from just a group of friends who are exercising power and expand that to a key conversation. What type of society and institutions do we want? In my case, we have a very concrete agenda, which are the sustainable development goals. The SDGs I talk about, transparent, efficient and quality institutions, and SDG no. 5 talks about all that we need to do in terms of gender. It’s very difficult for this sector to not associate with gender, with violence against women, or genderbased violence. We want institutions with crosscutting gender focus. We want institutions both at the community level and at the national level to hear our voices. We have invested a lot in training at higher educational levels for the justice sector. We have had a response that doesn’t reflect the reality of women. A public defender in Brazil explained to a group Local Women’s Voices for Peace

of us at a meeting, that 80% of the demands for legal support from public defenders that we receive regarding the state are from women, Afro-women and youth. 70% of the staff that are in charge of providing public defender services are primarily older white men. So the conversation is part of society. We can continue training, it’s important. We also discuss what type of institutions we want to have. It has to do with the resistance we have to make these institutions more representative of the population. It was painful to have to hear that there are certain paradigms that are backward looking. It is not easy and obviously for the traditional men who occupy these spaces, who make use of their power and privilege in the case of the security sector, why do they want to change? They’re very comfortable as they are. Access isn’t easy but for me the key is not to limit the conversation. The message is that we have to open up this conversation. In my case, when I began working with a police institution, I was a civilian. That made me invisible. They didn’t consider me able to propose anything. The question was ‘What is this young civilian woman doing here?’ She comes from academia. She comes from a ministry who wants to have civilian leadership for our institution. It was a very difficult situation. The response could be considered symbolic. I came to work in these areas because of my university background. I attended the public university in my country. The university opened the door for me for everything. It wasn’t that I came into public governance in my country because I was in a political party. I’ve never been a part of a political party. I came because I was part of a research team originally in a time when the countries in South America looked for people in academia to be able to help contribute to the transformation of political public policy in security areas. I have to recognize the great value of public education. I had lost my father, and my mother needed us to help support the family. From the age of 20, I helped to support my younger twin sisters, and we’ve been able to allow them to study as well. Access to quality public education has been the step that made it possible to generate opportunities to be able to currently be in these spaces. It’s been a great privilege. Having been in contact from an early age with networks of women who were doing things, discussing things, testing things. This has always been a privilege as well to have these as reference points. We don’t have manuals of how to do it but we do know we want to do it differently. It’s been a privilege for me to be able to participate in spaces and regional and national conversations. We see that as a bridge. This is not our final destination. For the first time it is a woman, a Latin American woman, who has served as a regional advisor for rule of law. Recognizing this has been a privilege in my world. I have served as a bridge to generating opportunities for women and to hear women’s voices. I would like to stress again the importance of public education. If it weren’t for public education opportunities, I would not be where I am now. Focus on education in supporting WPS

Gladys Farfán Municipal leader in Bolivia. My name is Gladys Farfán. I come from a very small rural municipality within Bolivia. It has a diverse ecology. We are one of the municipalities that is located in the high area of Altiplano of Tarija. We have a beautiful valley where we produce grapes and other fruits. The main richness we have are our people, our views, our land, and our culture. As others have mentioned, I come from the municipality where women in the past have rarely had the opportunity to participate. In our municipality, it has always been led by men, mayor men and men leaders and it has been difficult to gain inclusion of women and for women to make headway in different organizations in a leadership role. Because of this, we have taken on this challenge. I have worked since 1997 in my municipality in different positions. I worked with children, initially young children under six, in childcare and education. Later I worked as the person in charge of youth and teenagers. Then I started to work in the municipality and my role as a woman started to come forward as a candidate for the movement toward socialism. When we won the election in 2010 with 64%, we were brought forth by popular organizations and according to the laws and regulations in our municipality, I won the election with 87% of the vote on my second re-election. I have five other council members who were from my same political group. Thanks to this overwhelming support, we have begun to focus on social and economic policies that we have been implementing from the very beginning. What has been our major challenge? To avoid children leaving school and trying to get women included in education. For many women, culturally they have been relegated away from education. In rural municipalities, usually the idea that people hold is that in the family, the priority is for the boys to go to school, and the girls can but they’re second choice. The idea is that why should girls go to school if they’re going to get married and men are the ones who are going to have to take care of production and financial aspects of the family. We’ve been working on changing this since we’ve been in office. We have worked on creating municipal policies to create participation of women and encourage that and gender equity. We have created programs for girls, teens and women to finish secondary school. This program has had great results in our municipality because we provided scholarships through international organizations, to create financial resources so that there are scholarships for all these young girls and teenagers who had been relegated so they can now participate and finish their high school diploma. We are starting to work as a municipality on gender equity and this has been a part of it. An important challenge we faced was to help those women who are already beyond the age of elementary school and had not had the opportunity to study. We created an alternative education centre for girls and women over the age of 15 who can go to that school and finish their elementary school, as well as their middle school and high school. They can study technical degrees like food, Local Women’s Voices for Peace

tourism, and ranching in the high Andean area. There are other technical careers they can learn so they can graduate with actual tools to be able to work and create and be innovators developing their own projects within the municipality. We would not have been able to achieve all of this without focusing on gender equity in order to focus on these programs. In addition, because of our own characteristics in the municipality, we are also raising camelids, such as llamas. It’s an important part of our economic development in the area. Llamas do not require a great deal of care and because of this, we realize that many women who are in charge of caring for the animals and also who are in connection with nature and caring for our natural resources, this activity can generate opportunities for them to take on education and technical training. Another aspect that we have generated in our municipality is training for women. Training can be something sporadic and doesn’t lead to something specific. Education of people, especially women, has allowed us to create new opportunities such as restaurants and hotels for tourists. We have women who are creating and sewing clothing that is sold locally in the province. We also have a technical institute that creates very skilled technicians and that has allowed us to have equipment for this institution, so these young people are learning and beginning new projects. As a municipality, we have the mission to stop immigration and get women trained and educated so they don’t have to migrate because that goes hand and hand with training women leaders. So when women become leaders, problems get solved in terms of social, economic, and political problems. A problem we have is violence. Women suffer from violence and that’s often because of their economic dependency within families. This has been a joint effort within a program we call Bioculture and Climate Change. It has helped us to strengthen and generate leadership based on grassroots organizations. We have women who are union leaders, municipal leaders, president of their school boards, and members of municipal councils, municipal representatives. Most representatives in my municipality are women. They have taken on different roles and different decision-making positions. The president of social control who supervises municipal work is a woman. Women are very good administrators. We work well with others. Because of this, when a delegation visited our municipalities, you can see the great advances that we’ve made in terms of gender equity. We are still one of the poorest municipalities in our province and in the country. Today we are proud to say that through the studies carried out by the UNDP, Yunchará is no longer in the poverty level in our department. This is encouraging for us because we have worked on inserting women in regular and technical education as well as production, economics, and food security. We have built more than 500 different hot houses to grow vegetables and food that can supplement families’ diets and also be sold to generate income for families.

Focus on education in supporting WPS

Another important aspect that we have worked on in the municipality is that when I started my first term, we had 30% coverage of communities with potable water. Today we have 87% of the communities who have potable water. The other 13% has water through different pipes but it’s not drinking water yet. We still have to work on the small percentage that’s left. This has created great gains in health and saved women’s time because they used to have to get water from a distant well or from the river. Having drinking water in their homes has increased the quality of life for women and it’s also saved time and provides them the opportunity to become trained as leaders and learn a technical career and to help in the education of children, which is fundamental to transform society. In our municipality, we came in with the reality that we had very few resources but we had an incredible wealth in terms of natural resources and human resources. We have such an amazing and healthy people. My people have the lowest levels of rape, femicide, violence and domestic violence. We are still working to get rid of these altogether. We believe it’s important for women to be able to take and use these decision-making roles. In 14 years, laws have been put in place to help women and it’s important with unity of women. One of the important experiences that I’ve had as a municipal authority is that in Tarija, there are 11 municipalities. We’ve received support from ours, so we have the presidency of different municipal associations. This has created a message that based on the municipalities; we are able to work on equality and gender equity, not only locally and not only in language. We have to do it from the grassroots, based on our people, the organization, and on education. That is critical. We have improved and generated great conditions and different stages so the women who live here have more opportunities to improve themselves and get ahead and also become leaders who will help change the municipalities in all of our rural communities. This work together with an alliance with our people, our women, and with our local authorities, has made it possible for our municipality, which today is no longer in the level of poverty within our province. It is critical to include men in classes or trainings that we have regarding rights of women. The main mistake in our society, in other time periods, was that women would get together and talk about problems among women. We wouldn’t include men in that discussion. As we empowered women about leadership and their rights, we would send them to groups where there were men and women and there was a conflict. Women could not share the same and show the leadership they had. They became intimidated because of men. This made it so that we were not able to create spaces within those organizations or within our society. Including men in the training about rights and possibilities of women and the roles in supporting within the family, in supporting the education of children and production and housework, allows men to change their perspective of women. School clearly plays a critical role as well. From a very young age, we need to work on gender equity with children. We should not separate different roles that our children play depending on their gender. We need to

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

have holistic educational policies so that at the home and at school, we can transform mentalities of men and women and live in a society that is equal. Another important aspect is empowering and raising self-esteem of women themselves. Often it is said that women are our own worst enemy and that machismo and patriarchy is not only exercised by men, but also by women. Although there is a possibility of participating often, in some cases women ourselves set barriers and limits on stepping into certain roles because we’ve been trained to believe that we don’t have the ability to fulfill those roles and we can’t fit into that space. The fact that there are women in public positions and leading organizations and NGOs is a way to break through that and create that role model and get rid of the fear that we have. Dina Hussein Expert on counterterrorism, working with Meta and Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). She has researched the use of technology for radicalization. I want to highlight some overarching trends that I see working within the environment of the counterterrorism field. As you know, most of you are working on the upstream portion of the work that I end up doing on the downstream side. A lot of the work that I do centers around building work streams that build up online resiliency and understanding the utilization of the internet and how it can be used to radicalize and move people down that spectrum of radicalization. A big part of my job leans into educating women specifically, to find opportunities both online and offline. One of the big work streams that I concentrate on, looks at equalizing a playing field for women when it comes to utilizing online tools to participate and to upskill and upscale their voices when it comes to advocating around peacebuilding missions and peacebuilding work streams. Education is an introductory means by which women can vocalize and heighten their ability to have these discussions with their community. One of the biggest indicators of a woman’s success is both her education and her economic network, but also all of the different opportunities that are given to her. One of the biggest red flags that we see when we work within counter terrorism is that women’s education and the weaponization of women’s education has become a disturbing trend. Education is spoken about as a right in many places but one of the things that is concerning is that over the last 5-10 years, we’ve noticed the trend of terrorists looking at women’s education and aiming to weaponize that against their cultures and their societies. When looking at the issue from a wider perspective on the opposite side we see an opportunity to elevate their voices and elevate their stature within their communities.

Focus on education in supporting WPS

On the other hand, I think one of the things that we’re noticing now is the move towards more young people and women in particular, being impacted immensely by this virus. One of the concerning trends we notice is that women are the first to be put up to take care of their homes and to take care of their families. One of the biggest impacts that we see is at a larger scale, beyond just the primary education which many of my fellow panelists will touch on. Women’s education when it comes to higher ranking at high school education, college education, they are the first ones to be asked to sacrifice their access to education, colleges, to different opportunities during this crisis. They’re perceived as being the first ones to take care of their families. That becomes an immensely problematic aspect because we know the generation of women that are currently being educated are going to be the generations that will be negotiating peace. Any of the obstacles that they face at this point in time will have a much larger and more adverse effect as we move forward. We are losing, day by day, the peacebuilders and the peace negotiations that we see. We know that when women are at the table for negotiations around peace, they are 30% more likely to come to a conclusion with the other side. Not to make this a very basic discussion about gendered natures, but women are statistically more likely to come to a conclusion around negotiations if they are at the table. If we are losing women’s access to these spaces, then what does that say about our ability to access these discussions around peacebuilding and around negotiations? That’s another big concern. Regarding online resiliency, education about utilizing online tools is an important issue that I think historically we have not been highlighting. In order for women in the majority of the world to get access to a computer, they need to go to a school or an NGO’s organization or building. With the coronavirus and the lack of access recently, we see that not only are we losing education from a more basic skillset, but we are also losing the ability for women to become educated in the internet age and their ability to access the tools that the UN has now stated are fundamental rights. If women are not able to maneuver equally to their male equivalence on the online scale, that gives them less access to economic growth, less access to opportunities of open-source education, and less access to an ability to connect across cultures. We have seen historically that one of the biggest indicators of why somebody – I come from a radicalization and extremism field so excuse me if I lean heavily to that side – who is radicalized and who is taking part in hateful actions can then be pulled back from that world is if they know and are in communication with somebody from the opposite side. We know that it humanizes the other and it humanizes the different factions to one another. More and more we’re seeing that while offline people less and less have access to each other in order to have these discussions in person, the access to the online sphere really does allow for that more than ever. Once again if women are not being given access to that sphere, they’re less likely to be having these discussions and less likely to be humanizing the other.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

I want to wrap it up with a quote. I grew up in Cairo and I was educated in Egypt up until the age of 21. Looking back at the latest rankings for Egypt, the 2015 Global Gender Gap Index, which measured the disparity between men and women across countries, ranked Egypt at 136 out of 145 countries worldwide. Women have significantly lower participation in the workforce than men, 26% versus 79%. So 26% of women are out in the workforce versus 79% of men. Much lower literacy rate – women have a 65% literacy rate versus 82% of males. When we look at that, we see the disparity in 2015 and 2016 is huge. It means that if you’re not getting the education, you are not going to be the one that is in the room when we are discussing resources to gender equity. You’re not going to be the one in the room when the education or security minister is having talks about what are our demands and budgetary requirements. When you look at this holistic picture, it’s very concerning. One quote as promised, from Queen Rania of Jordan, “If you educate a woman, you educate her family. If you educate a girl, you educate the future.” I think most of you have heard this, but I think it’s a beautiful quote and it is very apt here. One of the things that we do notice across the board in the majority of countries, the threshold of what is accepted as sufficient education for young people is vastly different for girls as opposed to boys. In a lot of cases, parents and communities in the society will perceive that a lower level of education is counted as sufficient for girls. In certain countries, the laws in place try to equalize that but without required laws that give a minimum age of capping for education, we do see this trend and that to some extent might answer the question. Societally we need to change this perspective that women only need a certain amount of education versus their male counterparts. One of the main issues that I discuss within the organizations I work with is that we shy away from certain situations asking for quotas. I know this is a controversial point but I am a firm believer that quotas for girls involvement, whether it be the quotas for equal representation in schools when we’re giving funding. A lot of people on this call have the privilege of having an education that brings us to this table, which I think we all know is a rarity, especially from my side of the world. We need to hold ourselves accountable to say when we are afforded the privilege of being at the table. We need to hold everybody around us accountable in the form of asking for resourcing to be tied to quotas for women’s representation, both at the table and also in the resourcing that we’re given. If you’re writing a grant, asking for a grant, or sharing grant support, please make sure that a quote is included. Please make sure that experts in gender mainstreaming are included. All of these things can be scary if we are asking for funding from a larger body. I’ve done it a hundred times. I think it’s incredibly important for those of us who have been given the opportunity to be at the table and help support everybody else to make sure that they get a voice as well. That’s it from my side. I want to say that when we look at our male counterparts, in a lot of circumstances, there is a requirement that minority representation is also included and it’s not just that because they have one Focus on education in supporting WPS

man who speaks for all men. I think we should do the same. Just because one woman is afforded a seat at the table, that doesn’t mean that one woman, through her experience, can speak to the experiences of the women around her. One of the things I would advocate for is that a lot of times we are brought on to check a box to say we had a woman at the table. Those of us at the table need to say that indigenous women have an experience that can be vastly different from all the women around the table at any other point. Requiring that, when we look at men, it’s not just because one man is there and we check the box and we say that our male equivalents have filled the box for all the other minorities. It’s a requirement that if you are indigenous, you’re represented. If you’re from a certain group, you’re represented. We should do the same. Sometimes it can be scary because one woman is the only space that sometimes will be allowed because of society and patriarchal parameters. Stating that not just one woman can speak on behalf of an entire gender globally. Samantha Sauni Ugandan lawyer, feminist and a human rights activist. Samantha has spearheaded and participated in the drafting of the domestic violence bill that was later passed into law as the Domestic Violence Act of 2010. She is the country representative of CEDAW Institute Uganda. I will take you straight away into what is happening in our country. We see that girls with little or no education are far more likely to be married and they suffer domestic violence. They live in poverty and also in most cases, they lack a say over household spending or even their own healthcare. They don’t have a say compared to the better educated peers. This harms them. It also harms their children and also the communities. Then to note, particularly Uganda as a country, women with primary education or even less globally are married as children. They lack control over household resources and condone wife beating compared to women who finish high school. When you look at most of the women that are battered, you will notice that these are children and women without any education, especially formal education. This brings me to the issue of teenage pregnancies, which is rampant in our country. Nearly one in five girls in Uganda becomes pregnant before 18. Pregnancy related causes account for most deaths among young girls. Now these same girls, because they want to continue with school and out of fear of their parents, they end up terminating the pregnancy and thus suffering abortion related complications, which result in death. All this can be measured in terms of lost income and we also know that Uganda has a tight clause for example, an abortion, and only provides for it under a very narrow scope. Most of these teenagers, they get pregnant and because of a restrictive legal and policy environment that we’re in as a country, they first resort to crude methods

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

like taking drink or soap, using hangers and so forth to remove the pregnancy. It is evident in more regions that better educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children. Most women that are highly educated are able to make their own decisions regarding their bodies. They always have a right and can always say how many children they want to have and maybe how often they want to have the children. Thus, they have greater autonomy in making decisions and more power to act for their children’s benefits. When you educate a woman or a girl, she has better control over sexual and reproductive health and rights and ownership and control of land, housing and so forth. Women and girls are increasingly completing school and university but the work choices remain restricted. This is a very big challenge, even here in Uganda. Even after school, you’ve had your degree, you’ve had your diploma, you’ve gone through high school, but the work choices are restricted by laws and even the social norms that dictate whether and what work is appropriate. This is a very big challenge. As I wrap up, this is a cycle, you don’t have an education, then teenage pregnancy or child marriage, then no employment, then you look at poverty. All this increases gender gaps. Regardless, at CEDAW Institute Uganda, we have come up with strategies. One of the things that we do is encourage the fact that states or Uganda as a country should hold primary responsibility for advancement of the WPS agenda. In achieving this, we came up with a forum to strengthen approaches and strategies for implementation. We have also adopted plans on WPS while we have integrated the WPS agenda in local and community development plans and policies. At the same time, we also ensure that women’s international human rights are embedded and respected at the national level. It is a work in progress. We have also introduced technical and vocational education training because we do not only focus on formal education. There is a lot that you can do to help the girl child and this has left a tremendous positive impact. The training that I’m talking about normally includes non-formal training and skills development along with the necessary elements of life skills and literacy, so these strategies have brought about empowerment of women as well as equipping them with new vocational skills which bring in both intrinsic and extrinsic values, increased capacity and self-worth. In the end, you find that once disadvantaged and disappointed girls and women are able to feel capable of serving society and contributing to their social and economic emancipation as well as participating effectively in the country’s development. Finally, we do have some recommendations. One of the recommendations that we strongly uphold is going out to the policy makers. Policy makers and stakeholders need to address some of these challenges. For example, in Uganda we know that abortion is heavily restrictive and illegal. Regardless of it being illegal, it doesn’t stop the girls from actually getting pregnant and terminating those pregnancies in unsafe ways, which leads to death as a result of abortion-related complications. I must say I am proud of CEDAW Institute Uganda, we have moved the Ugandan Law Reform

Focus on education in supporting WPS

Commission to have some of the laws amended and actually make abortion very safe. Like I said, it is still a work in progress. The other thing I would recommend is expanding opportunities and amplifying the voices of women and girls because gender equality conveys broad development dividends for men and boys, families and communities, because constraining women’s agency by limiting what jobs they can do or condemn, condoning gender-based violence can cause huge economic losses and also hinder development efforts. Then there is also the need to enhance women’s land rights because these can be strengthened by progressive legal reforms and improved governance. More emphasis needs to be placed on investing in programs that uplift the lives of the victims of conflicts and violence. There is need for women’s groups to step up their game. I am talking about us, you and I. Women’s groups and collective action play a very important role in building momentum for progressive change. Such women’s movements are associated with more comprehensive policies on violence against women and you notice that when more women are elected into office, now policy making increasingly reflects the priorities of families and women and in the end, results in greater responsiveness to citizen needs. Mousumi Halder Senior Capacity Building Officer with Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh (CCDB). I will share my experience of how I see education playing a great role to make positive changes in women’s lives. I am a practitioner, a trainer, a gender specialist and of course, a feminist. My presentation mostly focuses on the field level experience and success stories we have regarding the role of education in human life. Here in Bangladesh, our constitution gives equal rights to men and women and our government has much affirmative action for girls’ education in recent times. That is why the involvement of girls in schools has been increased drastically in recent years. However, attending formal education for all people in Bangladesh is a big challenge. I am talking about the peoples who are middle aged right now. When CCDB started working with people, they kept focus on informal/non-formal education for the adults. What does CCDB do? At CCDB, we have been working with the poor and marginalized and climate vulnerable people in disaster prone areas of Bangladesh. CCDB focuses on a just and caring society. It values women empowerment the most. In a series of interviewer training, CCDB has found more than 800 peoples’ organizations at the community level where 90% of them are women lead and the approximate membership is 80% women. To make this happen, CCDB has provided a lot of educational support to community

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

women. Our results show that when receivers of our training are women, they are better implementers than men. Initially it wasn’t easy to make women attend skill development training but they did it and the result is amazing. I am focusing on some of our results that, by receiving trainings such as leadership in human rights, peacebuilding, and in different income generating activities, local women are now playing an active contribution in society. Now they are involved with different income generating activities and it gives them financial security, which is the most urgent issue for women, security in society. At the same time, it has also been reported that women are valued as an asset in their society and the family, including so-called decision-making power they have now. It has been also reported that household violence has decreased remarkably in areas where we are now giving women education and learning inputs. Apart from CCDB, we also promote women leadership and now women actively take part in advocacy, lobbying with the government and it is our great pleasure to share with you that many of our women are now elected members of local government institutions and other different standing committees. They keep their voices raised to promote for themselves the issues they want addressed. Here are some short stories about how education and non-formal education gives positive changes to our community women. Bangladesh is a developing country, it needs far more ways to go regarding education, and literacy as our literacy rate is not remarkable. We are here. We can see how education plays a critical role in changing women’s lives. One other thing that I will flag from the perspective of looking at things online, it is concerning to see that literacy now is being limited to the baselines of education that we had in the past two centuries. As someone who is looking at the future and is working on technology and what the future of technology will look like, education for women beyond the basics of just access to obviously language, but understanding the basics of mathematics, the baseline of education. We also need to look at the understanding of the online sphere as a baseline education requirement because that’s where we see a lot of opportunities for women, whether it be economic opportunities or opportunities for dialogue. I would definitely push for that as well as coding and that kind of work to be something that’s considered as a baseline educational tool. Muzna Dureid To summarize some of the key insights from these discussions, this chapter concludes with observations from Muzna Dureid, a Syrian refugee deeply involved in human rights issues and promoting women’s voices in peace processes. Currently with the Nobel Women’s Initiative, she holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Public Administration. Focus on education in supporting WPS

My conclusion of what I heard from all of you, that the 1325 Resolution (Women, Peace and Security) should play the role of preventing war and not to genderize the war, which is to make it safer for women. Our ultimate goal is to stop the war because women pay the most during war. This is a good highlight I took from the presentations we received. The ultimate goal is to prevent war. Be flexible with our programming and response to the situation because women usually have limited options in terms of when it comes to mobility. We need to find solutions in creating more flexible programs to give women and girls access to education, especially now after COVID-19. COVID-19 has proven that it’s important to have homeschooling and online learning for children but also to provide that to a woman. Women are the most who are put out of school when it comes to crises. This is why we need to benefit from available virtual and e-learning now and provide it for them in a private and safe way. There is a strong call amongst these women to enable the voices of activists and women peacebuilders. We need equal and meaningful participation of those activists who are working on the ground and relevant within the context of local communities. This is not only by inviting them for webinars or meetings, but also to have equal participation and an equal chance to design policy and programs. Engage them at the table of decision-making. If we have pain and go to the doctor for treatment, no one can describe the pain as the patient can. This is the same thing with women peacebuilders. They need to speak about the pain and problems from their own perspectives. To be present at the table of meetings, webinars, and designing policy and response is a priority. We need to create new options for women peacebuilders as often they are at risk because they are playing multiple roles. The space for women now is getting smaller and smaller in light of the ongoing effects of conflicts and the pandemic. This is why we need to protect activists today. It is important to find a way to protect activists when they are at risk or under any kind of threat, including cyber violence, cybercrime. We often see cases of virtual crimes—it is important to recognize this as a real threat against women peacebuilders. Give them an option to strengthen their capacity building by providing training and education. In the context of war and conflict, education is a luxury. As an action, we could say that women need a stipend or financial support for providing internet and technology to be engaged and also to strengthen their capacity building. I think the main problem here is that we have child marriage. In Syria, in camps of IDPs or refugees, and sometimes in urban settings, there is a high number of child marriages. This is why the chance for girls to get into school or continue their education, it is so low. This is why we need to support girls to continue their education and to provide safer schools. Sometimes the school isn’t close to their homes or their camps so it’s dangerous for them to go out. There is rape and harassment on the way to school. This is why parents prefer to keep their girls inside the home instead of outside. From Syria, this is the problem as we have the highest number of refugees and IDPs in the world.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

There is a lack of affordable numbers of schools for girls. When it comes to who should continue their education, boys are selected to do that by social roles. From my personal story, I see the difficulties facing women refugees to attain higher academic levels. A passport is required to apply for IELTS exam, a document that is expensive and difficult for a refugee to obtain. I was able to come to Canada through the Nobel Women’s Initiative Sisterto-Sister mentorship program, which gave me the options to be in a safe space to continue my education. I ask our academic institutions and NGOs to provide scholarships and grants for women peacebuilders to continue their education. Education is the first element to prevent extremism, especially in the case of an active war, such as in the Middle East, and other contexts like in Africa. It is important to prevent extremism by education, by giving the generation who have been a witness to war, a chance to learn and open their minds to building the future. All that we have is the next generation and youth, young people. This is so important to give them this chance to have a transformative solution and for us and for countries everywhere.

Focus on education in supporting WPS

Strengthening local structures & practices: Stories from Nigeria and Kenya Eleanor Nwadinobi, Loise Wanjiru Ndegwa, with commentary by Salome Nduta and Abiodun (Abi) Essiet Peace Clubs in Nigeria Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi is a medical doctor and an international health, women, peace and security, gender and human rights expert. She is a founding co-chair of Every Women’s Treaty, a group calling for a global treaty to end violence against women and girls. She has worked to support the development of WPS action plans at local, state and national levels in Nigeria. Happy International Peace Day, everyone. Every day should be a day of peace for us. But I know it is great that we set aside one day in particular where we make an extra effort for that ceasefire. It is my pleasure to share with you the case study of peace clubs that was set up between 2012 and 2017 thanks to a DFID funded program that I worked on called the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Program (NSRP). It was set up to address key elements of conflict in different parts of Nigeria: in the south around the oil-extracting industry; in the middle belt around farmers, herders, conflicts; and in the northeast around the Boko Haram conflict. Just to give a quick background, you know that women and girls, boys and men, experience conflict quite differently and are subject to different forms of violence. Women and girls are more likely to experience sexual violence, while men and boys are more likely to be detained by security sector forces and drawn into gangs and militia. Nigeria has a background of being deeply rooted in patriarchy and with men and women socialized differently, disparities in their access to power and resources exist. In the midst of this, you have an estimated 35% of women and girls who are 15 years or older, experiencing one form of violence or the other. Let us look at safe spaces, which is what we called the peace clubs. The peace clubs initiative focused on building the capacity of young people within the ages of 10 to 24. The idea was to have a facilitated process with peace club attendees who were taught life skills to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls, to prevent conflict, to denounce harmful practices like drug addiction, cult and gang activities. We used the term ‘safe spaces’ to refer to autonomous physical spaces for young people, ensuring that the public’s space was especially safe for them. The objectives were both to assist women and girls to overcome barriers to their participation and

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

increase in accountability of formal and informal mechanisms at state and community level, especially addressing violence against women and girls. These safe spaces were identified by young people themselves as safe. When we went into the communities, we were not prescriptive in pointing out, ‘Here’s a safe space for you.’ What we did was to engage with the community members and say to them, ‘Where is it that you particularly feel safe congregating?’ We discovered that these spaces were not fixed as in the case of formal spaces because you could find that, for example, a safe space for a group of hawkers (vendors) varied with the seasons of weather—they could have been under the tree in the dry season, but not during the rainy season. You have those who said the school space was safe, others identified worship centres as safe spaces, such as churches and mosques—places where the young people would collectively come together and easily discuss issues regarding their wellbeing and could also feel safe to speak up against duty bearers and whether duty bearers could be held accountable. We discovered that when we started in 2012, community members identified school spaces as safe. But, with the series of school-based incidents—the abduction of the Chipok girls that happened in 2014, and before that, the burning of a boys’ school in Buni Yadi, and later, the abduction of girls in their schools in Dapchi—it now became clear that for some, schools are actually not safe spaces. What did we do to get these peace clubs underway? Before going to the methodology, I would like to go through the objectives of the peace clubs. Why did we, as a conflict program, think of peace clubs? They were to provide for boys and girls, women and men, a safe space. It was an opportunity to have a facilitated way of engaging with them to enhance their self-esteem, to equip them with tools to negotiate conflict in their own lives and in the wider community. They could learn about gender-based violence and the prevention, learn to speak up for themselves, and explore healthy living choices. It was a place for rights literacy, and it was a place for peer-learning and a way in which they could look at making themselves more useful to their communities. The idea when we started was to have formal peace clubs in school spaces for those who had formal education and informal peace clubs for those who did not have formal education. The original idea was to have ages 10-16 and then 17-24. We had a Big Brother club, which was 17-24. The Big Sister club was the same age. Then we had the Little Brother, ages 10-16, and the Little Sister, also 10-16. Guess what? Once we started getting the peace clubs underway, in certain parts of Nigeria we found out that parents were not happy to let their young daughters, between the ages of 10-13, go for the peace clubs. Being a very adaptive program, we introduced the Aunties Clubs. Who were these aunties? These aunties were trusted family members, females aged 24 and above, who would be in an adjoining peace club to the Little Sisters club for the younger girls. For each of the clubs, a club was constituted of five units called ‘Clublets’: Little Sister/Little Brother, Big Sister/Big Brother, and Aunties. So if we were under a tree, training the group of Little Sisters, their aunties, who were

Strengthening local structures & practices

sometimes their Big Sisters, or real aunties, or just trusted older females in the community, were there as chaperons within shouting distance and not too far from the youngsters. We equipped the peace club attendees with identity cards. They had badges, school clubs. The boys were given flannels and the girls were given hygiene packs. They had stationery and we developed a manual. The facilitator for each clublet had a mobile phone and they were taught how to send text messages. The facilitators had to be those who were literate to send text messages. Each clublet has a solar powered radio. We developed a peace club manual that had standalone modules. The facilitator had the freedom to spend as much time on a particular module depending on the uptake of the peace club attendees—life skills, self-esteem, communication, negotiation, livelihoods, trauma healing, and participating in the communities. The facilitators used to send their reports by text message to members of NSRP. Those facilitators went through a very rigorous selection process. We had to make sure that there was safeguarding by the civil society organizations (CSOs) who supervised each of the clubs. In the period of the five years, we had 11,709 peace club attendees of which 7,405 were girls and 4,304 were boys, in 40 peace clubs, with the five clublets that I mentioned. Let me go quickly to the achievements. We were able to record some huge success stories. Because we were in different parts of the country, we had, for example, in Rivers State, members who were reformed cult members so there was an issue around cult and gangs in the southern part of Nigeria, around the extractive industry. Through our peace clubs, cult members denounced cultism and followed the course of reform through peace club interventions. We had them partner with security agents so they signed peace pacts with security agencies and began to work with security agencies to improve their communities. We also had a situation where through the peace clubs, we were able to get girls in regular school to lead some of the school activities which had never happened before. We had a situation where, without support, those who admired the peace club intervention, now created more peace clubs within the communities. Peace club participation also encouraged out-of-school youth to explore options. For example, one girl who was out of school and working as a water seller, approached her community seeking support to attend proper school. The community rallied around her because they had seen how much she had become a leader in her community through the peace club. In Borno State, where we had the Boko Haram conflict, we had 35 street hawkers (vendors) who decided to take on an alternative income generating activity. The community rallied around them and based on their abilities, they were able to set them up, the older ones in small-scale businesses. The communities themselves now discovered that thanks to the peace club attendees, the level of criminality in the communities reduced.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

Building community trust We did have challenges. We had issues, for example, of the name ‘club’ in a particular part of Nigeria. It was misunderstood as a nightclub. We had to go the extra mile to explain to the members of the community that the club was not a nightclub. We had issues around attrition because some of those in the informal peace clubs, those who were meeting in sheds, or under the trees, some of them belonged to nomadic communities. We had attrition and movement. We had issues around seasonal variation. There were those who felt the peace clubs were providing only Western education until the facilitators who were providing Tsangaya education, were able to let them know otherwise. Our approach for gaining trust in the community begins with reconnaissance. You go into the community and it is good to find somebody who is a trusted member of the community to take you into the community, if it is one that you are not familiar with as a practitioner. A lot of our communities have community leaders, men and women. We need to show by example, by being inclusive. Yes, we know that most of our communities are led by men. But as you pay homage to whoever the leader is that’s there, then you ask: Who are your religious leaders? They might want to point to somebody who is their own faith leader. You also ask: Are there other faiths? Who are the other respected people? Who is the oldest woman in the community? Who is in charge of the market? You want to have a very inclusive reconnaissance. You want to engage with the gatekeepers. You do your community assessment so that you understand what has gone on in that community before. Now that you are coming in, then you learn the language. There are some communities where a word that you used in one language, is taboo in the next language. We had a community in the south of Nigeria where the conflict was divided by a road. There were two communities on opposite sides of the road, in conflict. It was because of a football match in an English league. They were ready to burn down their houses. If the mention of a particular English football name is going to cause people to burn down houses, you must not do harm by not being conflict sensitive. Gaining the trust is a multi-layered assignment and conflict sensitivity is a huge area on its own. What language must we not use? What are the titles of the people? What are the perceptions of the young people? Who are the youth leaders? Do they worship their stream? Do they worship a particular tree? Then you want to find out what are the community conflict management mechanisms. We came across a community where all they need is for the oldest person in the community, man or women, to take an iron rod. If that iron rod is driven into the ground, even if people are wielding knives, everybody has to stop. You find out about the community conflict management mechanisms themselves, so that you’re aware of it. Then you apply that to peace clubs because nobody is going

Strengthening local structures & practices

to trust you if you come, for example, with a prescriptive method of doing things. They have their way of doing things and you have to show respect and work with them. It is a joint venture. For peace clubs, by the time you get, let’s say the first five people in a peace club, and you have one of those children going home and saying, ‘Oh look, I am proudly wearing a peace club badge. I’m interested in cleaning the community. We learned today that if you block the drainage, you will get mosquitos and then you will fall ill.’ Already the parents are saying, ‘I would like my child to go to that peace club.’ They see the incentive to send the children to the peace club. You also show that respect. When they said to us, ‘look for us’, the word ‘club’ means night club, we had to show them that it was not a night club in order for that trust to be built. As I conclude, one of the things that you might want to ask as well, that support was only for five years. What has happened since? You have to realize that when you have programs that are funded of this nature, they are intended to fill gaps where there are systemic failures. These short program lifespans sometimes are not long enough to entrench long lasting visible change. This program closed down in 2017. However, the reality is when you have the opportunity to go back later on and measure impact, facilitators call me to say, ‘oh peace club attendees have either excelled in community work or in their schools or they are now community leaders.’ We were able to link the peace clubs with another part of the program, which was an observatory on violence against women and girls. We found out that we were able, through peace clubs, to break the silence around violence against women and girls because the girls who were violated found they were in a safe space, they had a trusted facilitator. The facilitator could send a report via text message to an observatory steering committee that was also supported with healthcare personnel, legal personnel, security sector personnel, and community leaders. The observatory was closely linked to the peace club initiative where we were taking reports and responding to reports of violence. Linking youth peace work with UNSC Resolution 2250 (youth, peace and security) With the focus on 1325 on women, peace and security, you have to realize that it took Nigeria thirteen years to have their first national action plan on women, peace and security, despite being one of the nations in the world that signed up in the year 2000. Sadly, we have a history of being slow in domesticating. You’re also aware that an integral part of the national action plan on WPS was the Nigerian Violence against Persons Prohibition Act. That took 14 years. Quite right in the context of 2250, time has come for us to integrate all the gains, the lessons, the focus, the inclusion of our young people as laid out in 2250. The gains of the peace club, that is where we should look. It’s going to take concerted effort. That’s why I gave the history, a background of how long it took us to get our national action plan on WPS.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

We appreciate those who assist us with donor aid. In fact, the history of Nigeria’s National Action Plan, the first and second generation on WPS, cannot be told without the help of the UK government’s DFID, and the help of UN Women. We need to realize that nation states themselves are responsible for ensuring that they domesticate these laws, instruments, and policies. When we do get donor aid through programs, they have a lifespan. It has to be a whole of civil society and a whole of government approach. Any country wherever we are on earth, that fails to invest in its young people has failed to invest in its future. A lot of times, young people are told ‘you’re the future’. To be honest, our young people are the now. If we continue referring to them as the future, it means we have not created the space for them. The future is for those yet unborn. For our younger people, they are the now. Psychosocial support Psychosocial support, being a physician myself, is a specialized area. One of the things that we do as practitioners is to make sure that when specialist care is needed, that we have an appropriate referral system. Thankfully, Nigeria has referral guidelines. However, when it comes to psychosocial support, mental health, because of the history of stigma around mental health, we have very few practitioners in that area. We desperately need more. We discovered that with conflicts up and down the country. Sadly, we do have those who feel, ‘Oh you can become a counselor by going to a oneday training.’ Unfortunately, it does not work that way. If you do not have the appropriate skills, you can do more harm to the survivor. Sexual violence, in particular, as we all know, suffers the three Ss: Silence, the culture of silence, stigma, and shame. It is an area that I encourage us, especially within civil society, to think of expanding the networks to provide more psychosocial support. It is a muchneeded area. In the context of Covid-19, violence, especially sexual violence, has risen exponentially, at the same time the social distancing rules made psychosocial support even more difficult. We have known that the training involved one-on-one, sometimes the survivor is breaking down, you need to hug the survivor. You have to listen at close quarters. Can you imagine what those who are undergoing issues that require support now are going through because even the very few practitioners we have, must socially distance? It is a huge challenge. This conversation has to continue. I would like to say that ultimately there is one thing that will hold us all accountable. That is a global treaty to end every form of violence against women and girls. It will hold our governments accountable. I am looking forward to a day when the world will wake up and realize that we need every nation on earth to sign a global treaty. Please join me and sign for a treaty at everywoman.org. In the same way that smoking has stopped in our airplanes because of a tobacco treaty, no longer should our women and girls suffer any form of violence.

Strengthening local structures & practices

Boda Boda Training for Livelihood and WPS Loise Wanjiru Ndegwa has been one of the champions of rights in Kenya, and active on matters of peace and security. Loise lives and sees the issues facing her region, and responds as a community leader, peacekeeper and human rights defender at the community level. We have forest community associations, people who deal with the environment. I am also a secretary in an association where you realize in the forests there are these resources and there are conflicts all over. For example, when you are in the forest, one of the conflicts that comes up is conflicts on water. You realize sometimes it is so dry, people upstream along the rivers will block the water from flowing downstream. I also work there to try and bring peace between the communities when they disagree around the resources that are not obviously enough for everyone. I have been in peacebuilding for women and also for children for quite some time. I joined a peace NGO in 2008 that is called PeaceNet Kenya where I was trained in dealing with peace and I have been in the peace committees in the district. Peace committees where we have also experienced conflict and especially when it comes to illegal groupings that is judicial groups. Where I live is an area where we have domestic violence. Sometimes we get sexual violence, alcoholism. In the case study that I am about to talk about is where after we have come from, 2008, is when we came and got an area where the rides, we commonly call them boda boda riders, where people use motorbikes for transport. At the district level we realized that the groups, the men and youth that are using the means of transport, the boda boda riding, as their businesses. They became vulnerable in being used especially by politicians to bring chaos in the area. That is when we came up and we joined together to find a way of bringing them together so that we can train them to learn how they could do their businesses without causing chaos and being involved in illegal activities. We came up with an idea where we started going around to the towns and bringing them together and mobilizing them to join groups and register groups so that they will have leaders who will guide and help us to bring them together and train them. There was a very serious area, especially the border of our county and neighboring county called Kirinyaga, where at some point we had those people joined together and so many people were killed in that area. There was a challenge especially when you are a lady and you have got to go and take some meetings with those people and go about the incident that happened. Security especially was a challenge but up to now we have been able to form those groups and we have been able to train them through another NGO funded by Germany. They usually have meetings every week where we join them, depending on the timetable, and talk to them and hear their issues. In those groups that we have formed, we also help them to register the way they save and give them their livelihoods.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

In this case study, we have seen achievements in how we have brought them together. We realized they are not able to improve their lives and even to groom themselves so we brought together with other stakeholders who train them on how to go about their daily lives. That is an achievement we have seen. Those groups come together and have been able to convince them not to participate in the activities that would be a threat to peace of other people. Mostly the people who use the boda bodas or motorbikes to rape ladies, women and girls, you can see their methods to get to the women. We had cases where a women takes the ride then at some point, they may be taken another way other than their destination and then you realize that when they get to a point, they are raped or violated by the riders. We have also been able to make drivers learn to get out of those illegal activities. For psychosocial support of the victims, in most cases we have counselors in the faithbased organizations who were there and once we identify a victim, we recommend the victims to the counselors who will go through with them and help them to overcome their trauma. In case they may be in the villages, we have also the administration, which is the chiefs and subchiefs. If they can report them to us, I will usually help them on where to get help, depending on the area they’re at. Summary of Discussion An important aspect arising is the point of having a support system and a link or referral to any safe space centre we want to set up for peace or to provide support for victims of gender-based violence. In Nigeria, I think the spotlight initiative that’s currently ongoing is setting up a safe space centre for girls where they can get support and also counseling on issues around sexual and gender-based violence. It is similar to what they have in Rwanda, the Isange One Stop Centre. It attends to victims of gender and sexual based violence. It is a centre that has a referral link to psychosocial support, health and all the necessary support a victim needs. I think it is something we all should look into, setting up a one-stop centre, a safe space centre for victims of gender-based violence and also in whatever peace club we hope to set up. Some of the common aspects draws on the fact that men, women, boy and girls are affected differently by conflict, and therefore when setting up an intervention, you need to think about the varying impacts that conflict has on men, women, boys and girls. The other thing is the safe spaces in Nigeria were identified by the boys and the young girls, and the similarity in that with the Kenya case study is that the interventions being put on the boda boda people, together with the peace committees that Loise and team are working on, have been identified by the same people. When dealing with conflict, it is important that the involved parties are made part and parcel of the interventions that we are seeking to put in place.

Strengthening local structures & practices

The question of achievements and that each intervention and case study have been able to get, is important, noting the numbers of boys and girls who have benefitted, and the fact that that parents have come to appreciate the work of the peace clubs. Something as simple as people understanding that when we talk about clubs, we do not mean the place where people go to take alcohol. That change in narrative and understanding is important. You cannot quantify the impact of educating or teaching young children about peace values because it becomes something that they grow up with. I want to encourage all of us to take that on. Among the achievements made by the peace committees, as Loise was able to explain, is that the boda boda people have already started thinking about livelihoods. Beyond peace and conflict, people start thinking about livelihoods and probably their inability to meet their basic needs could be driving them towards conflict. Each case has brought out different achievements based on the target group and the environment they are operating in. Throughout, there is a focus on trust and how to build trust within our communities. Trust is not built within a day. It is a process that you invest in. There is a lot of community organizing that goes around it. But of importance, the language of peace is key when you are dealing with issues of conflict and peacebuilding. You need to understand the language, you need to understand the meaning that is put to words so that you do not escalate any conflict. A final similarity was on the referral pathways that exist in the case study of Nigeria and in the case study of Kenya. In Nigeria, they have a referral system and guidelines. For the case of Kenya, Loise was able to tell us we have referral systems within civil society but also the administration and the peace committees themselves are referral pathways. To cap it, the doctor shared with us the three Ss that are normally associated with trauma. That is the silence, the stigma, and the shame. She urged all of us as civil society, as people working with communities, to try and invest in psychosocial, something that both the peace clubs and the peace committees have invested in. As we come towards the end of our session, one of the key recommendations that I’m hearing being mentioned said silently and loudly is the aspect of investing in psychosocial support for sexual and gender-based violence, be they women, boys, girls, or men. This is key because when somebody is not stable, when somebody is traumatized, they are not able to deal with issues of their own personal conflict. But neither can they intervene in situations where they find other parties conflicting. So, if you are not going to carry anything else out of these stories, kindly make sure the question of psychosocial becomes part and parcel of what we should all strive to do as people who are working in the field of peace and conflict.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

REFLECT in Peace Education: Educating hearts and minds Jacinthe Rihan8

One of the main issues of conflict and tension in rural Egypt is sexual gender-based violence (SGBV). SGBV is identified by illiterate women and girls as a critical issue that creates conflict on a domestic level as well as on a community level, especially in conservative and rural areas. The patterns and persistence of SGBV are inter-woven into social norms and power relations. In this context of disparity, many women and girls also face barriers to accessing education. During my work in the last several years, I have focused on researching and analyzing this growing monster through my academic and practitioner work in Egypt. Through the journey of both my Master and Doctoral degrees I started to explore SGBV issues that are rooted in Egyptian local communities. Furthermore, I delved into critical gender topics such as early forced marriage of girls, female circumcision and the impact of the gender gap on parochial women’s development (Rihan, 2006). Definitely, I see there is a need for the REFLECT literacy approach in peace education to address SGBV issues in illiterate communities, and to support women’s learning and community participation. The dimensions of integrating peace education and literacy provide a shift in pedagogy and adult education philosophy from programs treating these areas separately. REFLECT circles take place in grassroot Community Development Associations (CDAs), while some REFLECT activities operate in collaboration with educational institutions such as Adult Education Authority (AEA). During my work, I observed that REFLECT initiatives in peace education contributed to cultivating civic values and practices against SGBV. These initiatives promote positive knowledge, skills, and attitudes that help mainly local women either to prevent the occurrence of conflict, resolve conflicts peacefully, or create social conditions conducive to peace. Raising the voices of rural women creates rigid collective values of nonviolence and social justice which are central to peace education (Rihan, 2018). The objective of this chapter is to show REFLECT as a literacy and social change approach adapted for Peace Education. REFLECT circles/groups in rural Egypt experimented and utilized this adapted approach to discuss local conflict, discrimination, as well as Sexual Gender Based Violence

Ain Shams University

REFLECT in peace education

(SGBV) problems. I describe the REFLECT approach, define peace education from a gendered perspective, and share insights into applying REFLECT in peace education. Framing REFLECT Approach and Peace Education REFLECT approach “Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques” was developed in 1993 through empowering community techniques. It builds on the framework of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire but nowadays it is known as a term of a participatory approach for adult learning, empowerment, and social change (Finnish Refugee Council, 2016; Archer & Cottingham, 1996/2012). The introduction to the original manual, that is the primary resource for the REFLECT literacy program, provides a succinct overview of the philosophy and significance of uniting Freirean pedagogy with the PRA (participatory rural appraisal) methods widely used in community development processes. This blending of participatory methods aims to promote active dialogue and empowerment: In a Reflect programme there is no textbook – no literacy ‘primer’ – no pre-printed materials except a manual for the literacy facilitators. Each literacy circle develops its own learning materials through the construction of maps, matrices, calendars, and diagrams that represent local reality, systematise the existing knowledge of participants and promote the detailed analysis of local issues. These ‘graphics’ can include maps of households, land use, or land tenancy; calendars of gender workloads, illnesses, or income; matrices to analyse local crops, credit sources/uses, or participation in local organisations. A graphic is initially constructed on the ground (using whatever materials are locally available) promoting everyone’s active participation. It is then transferred to a large sheet of paper/card using simple pictures. Words are then introduced on the graphics, initially as labels, and later as commentaries. The graphics are used to stimulate discussion, participant-generated writing, related numeracy, work, and action to address local problems…The fact that participants construct their own materials in Reflect circles leads to a strong ownership of the issues that come up – which it would be impossible to achieve through introducing issues in a primer. This has led to local action and a strong link between the literacy programme and other development activities. Reflect circles can be catalysts for wider processes of change (Archer & Cottingham, 1996/2012, p.4-5). In the ActionAid REFLECT action research conducted in El Salvador, Uganda and Bangladesh (Archer & Cottingham, 1996), participants highlighted “self-realization” arising from the REFLECT Local Women’s Voices for Peace

circles. They had higher self-esteem, could articulate ideas better, and increased their critical problem-solving skills, and increased gender awareness. Learners collectively engage in social and economic actions. Local actions give the ability to retain community peace, maintain local control over decisionmaking, and address their own development needs—for example, elimination of early forced marriage of girls is addressed through creating pressure groups of supporters in safe spaces. Accordingly, women and girls learn through REFLECT discussions about their rights and ways of practicing it without getting into conflict with their male siblings and community members. Peace Education has been described in various contexts over the past century. Biswas (2018) provides a helpful overview of the field which has been informed by UNICEF’s Education for Development approach (see Fountain, 1999) that emphasizes a commitment to “solidarity, peace, acceptance of differences, social justice, and environmental awareness.” UNICEF defines Peace Education as “the process of promoting the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values needed to bring about behaviour changes that will enable children, youth, and adults to prevent conflict and violence, both overt and structural; to resolve conflict peacefully; and to create the conditions conducive to peace, whether at an intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, national or international level” (in Fountain, 1999, p. 1). The main concept of peace education is to make people aware of the importance of peacemaking and to develop a positive environment. (Rinehart, 2005). This is not just an individual learning experience, as it encourages collective participation in the promotion of peaceful change processes. Betty Reardon’s (2001, 2010) work integrates gender awareness in peace education. As Reardon notes, despite global progress in reducing gender inequality, recognition of human rights, and achievements in poverty reduction, conditions of war and violence persist as well as the systems promoting and financing weapons in the name of security. Reardon also draws attention to the specific gendered impacts of war through the perpetuation of violence and argues that as gender equality is necessary for peace, “education for gender equality is an essential component of education for a culture of peace” (p. 21). Education for peace raises awareness of the conditions and structures that support systems of violence, perpetuate inequality and gender discrimination. “The quest for a culture of peace calls on us to examine the ways in which gender roles and all forms of human inequality are woven into the fabric of cultures of violence (p. 21). As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are foundational to peace learning, so too must be gender-informed conventions, such as CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and more recently 1325 (Jenkins & Reardon, 2007). Such examinations call for critical awareness raising to make visible the processes of discrimination, to REFLECT in peace education

find peaceful, more equitable alternatives. Reardon (2010) promotes Freirean pedagogy in this effort, stating, “the theories and practices we have learned from Paulo Freire are the conceptual and methodological heart of the most effective peace learning and peace politics.” (p. 66). This focus on awareness raising and the participatory and discussion-based teaching methods, align well with the REFLECT approach that is also deeply rooted in Freirean consciousness raising. The Egyptian Context SGBV: UNFPA (2021) reports from a survey in 2015 that each year 7.8 million women in Egypt suffer from violence. Egypt has continuously experienced high levels of violence against women and girls, manifest in; sexual violations, female genital mutilation (FGM/C), physical abuse, and widespread discrimination. In 2021, Egypt was ranked 109 out of 191 countries in the “Gender Inequality Index” in UNDP’s annual Human Development Report (UNDP, 2022). UNFPA Egypt notes this low ranking highlights the persistence of gender discrimination despite the progress made in other measures including female literacy rates, enrolment rates, labor force participation, and unemployment. UNFPA adds that this situation negatively impacts Egypt’s achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 - gender equality. (UNFPA Egypt, 2021). A UNWomen (2013) study reported that 99.3% of Egyptian girls and women surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment. The study details a wide range of intimidating, threatening, and violent acts perpetrated against females. Gendered Barriers to Education: World Bank (2022) data reports that literacy in Egypt overall is 75%, a figure that drops to 68% for women. In Egypt’s survey of literacy in 2017, 10.6 million women were considered illiterate (UNESCO, 2022). In rural Egypt, similar to many developing countries, women can have dual status as they might be the victims of violence as well as drivers of violence. A study conducted in Sierra Leone examined the ways women are socialized to reinforce discrimination and abuse, showing how illiteracy and ignorance of human rights protections contributed to the acceptance of domestic violence. In these instances, women were socialized to accept the notion that male partner violence against them was permissible (Barnes, Albrecht & Olson, 2007). Such a situation underlines the critical need for gender aware literacy support for women facing such attitudes and human rights violations. The root causes of gender-based violence are multi-faceted and often intertwined. First, illiteracy leads parents to choose sons over daughters when they cannot afford to send all their offspring to school. Second, conflict with persistent and culturally sanctioned gender roles, often entrap girls in roles that exclude them from school, such as when they are obliged to help with household chores, or to enter the child labor force (Rihan, 2006). Lack of employment opportunities for women can

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

also reinforce the notion that the return on the investment in education is low for the individual and their families alike. Sultana’s (2007) report on girls’ education in Egypt presents a stark image of some of the barriers facing girls, whereby accessing learning can pose real threats: In a self-feeding vicious circle, uneducated girls are less likely to have the power to negotiate relationships. In many countries, girls are forced by their families into early marriage for cultural and economic reasons—as early as age 12 and sometimes before—thereby losing out on formal education, their income-generating potential, and their ability to make informed decisions about their lives. In some rural, traditional communities—as we find in some governorates in Egypt for instance— tensions can also erupt due to so-called family- or blood-feuds, thus parents prohibit their daughters from leaving the hamlet to walk to school fearing that they will be an easy target for those set on taking vengeance (p. 15). In Egypt, peace promotion has a profound effect on quality education. It helps young people and adults gain knowledge, enhance their skills and form an attitude about the meaning of peace in human life. Peace education prevents the emergence of conflicts and creates conditions for peace in poor communities. REFLECT can promote conflict resolution that promotes peace. Literacy is key to supporting peace learning, as well as supporting women’s overall community participation and empowerment. The USAID Literate Village project implemented CDAs as safe community spaces for women. After the literacy classes, women were able to improve leadership skills and participate in community meetings (World Education, 2021). An adapted approach; “REFLECT in Peace Education” During the past few years of my work in peace education, I noticed that there was always a need for a participatory literacy approach that aims to build constructive change in local communities, especially in rural deprived areas. It is known that REFLECT’s perspective of peace education has a special potential in empowering dialogue practitioners to raise women's critical consciousness through dialogue (Bilgin, 2020). While practicing peace education in REFLECT women circles in some Egyptian villages, it was observed that gaining information equipped women to comprehend the root causes of violence and promote equality. Peace education is utilized in REFLECT circles through the following uses:

REFLECT in peace education

Ø First, to promote collective peace activities using arts, music, etc., which gives members of the group a proper concept of solidarity. Ø Second, to build community values and social networks. Ø Third, to support the freedom of the decision-making process on household and community levels. Both REFLECT and peace education concepts can be incorporated into the teaching of a wide range of subjects. Interactive, participatory, cooperatively-structured educational methods are as important as the content of learning for development. The above approaches allow learners to better grasp complex concepts, build problem-solving abilities and develop social skills. These approaches are used in local educational activities and provide a framework for tutoring people about community, peace, and social justice issues. In Egypt, Peace education initiatives encompass innovative multi-sectoral approaches including community-based activities, legal awareness sessions, women/girls empowerment initiatives, and art therapy. REFLECT is used as one of the innovative ways applied especially in rural areas during the last decade to pacify the community pressure (UNHCR, 2017). In the last decade, thousands of REFLECT groups had been formed in Egypt to reach illiterate adults especially women and girls in marginalized areas who are now free from illiteracy and also empowered enough to change their life positively (Rihan, 2018). REFLECT is mainly implemented through CDAs which are grassroot nonprofit organizations in rural areas of Egypt. Peace Education in action: Many examples of activities are conducted through circles/groups of REFLECT to create synergies through: 1- Creation of democratic space of dialogue between women and men as well as different generations of girls and boys, 2-

Listening sessions for acceptance,

Acceptance of others,

4- Give a voice to the excluded, especially the most vulnerable by utilizing REFLECT tools of empowerment as a daily routine, 5-

Encourage collaboration in diverse groups by using arts and sports,

6- Discuss controversial issues through street theater or story telling especially in topics related to SGBV including early marriage and FGM/C, 7- Use experiential learning which is important to learn by doing as well as promote creativity and thinking. Local Women’s Voices for Peace

The new adapted REFLECT approach for peace education is proven to be more effective at teaching people to read and write and more efficient at linking literacy to wider development. In 2017, A comparative research was conducted in one of the villages in Egypt to explore the impact of implementing REFLECT versus the traditional adult literacy program. The research assessed the learning methods used in literacy on the attitudes of rural women towards gender equality issues in one of the Egyptian villages. Impact of practicing REFLECT was examined in this research through five themes: awareness towards gender concepts, gender differences, women empowerment, violence against women, early marriage of girls. Results showed that REFLECT can be adapted not only as a literacy approach but as an empowerment approach. REFLECT has a strong positive effect on gender issues, peace building, community development (Rihan, 2017). Furthering their knowledge of the local environment (agriculture, health, income generation, and survival skills) helped this process of self-realization, which was also reflected by improved relations within the masculine community (and within the household). The discussions in the literacy groups often lead to community level actions in order to improve local conditions. Women can create social cohesion and harmony—for example, income generating activities for REFLECT groups of women supported self-confidence of learners to participate in civic activities such as volunteering and joining CDA boards. These actions ranged from the economic sphere (constructing grain-stores, diversifying crops, cooperative buying or selling) to community projects (small infrastructure such as re-grading access roads, school repairs, and water pipes); from the environmental sphere (terracing, organic fertilizers, tree nurseries, tree planting) to the health sphere (digging a tube well, building latrines, clearing rubbish, cleaning stagnant water). The key factor in achieving the implementation of these actions was felt to be that the learners had independently arrived at decisions to do something through their own analysis - they felt local ownership of the problems and of the possible solutions. Advantages of REFLECT in Peace Education (adapted approach) appeared to have had a positive initial impact on gender roles and relations in which facilitators reported that many men have taken on domestic work. Women are now more vocal and more involved in key household and community decisions. Education on peace aids people to recognize many forms and causes of violence and promotes values and skills to live in society. REFLECT approach within Peace Education influences social behaviour, changes attitudes, and habits aiming for social cohesion and lessening tension in families and local communities. Furthermore, REFLECT approach within Peace Education proved to be low-cost and cost-effective in rural Egypt. (Rihan, 2017).

REFLECT in peace education

REFLECT activities gives an opportunity for peaceful involvement of women along men in larger community development e.g. cleaning and greening, etc. Such joint activities through REFLECT supports safe healthy relations in rural society. Women during field discussions said that now they can get involved in household decision making processes because: "now we have enough information and skills to feel confident in leading our families with our husbands without family conflicts." Another woman participating in the village community development association said, “joining REFLECT helped me with sufficient awareness and knowledge to be able to protect the health of my daughters” (Rihan, 2017) It should be noted that the REFLECT approach describes the trainer’s role as a “facilitator” as one who “facilitates” the discussions, exchanges amongst participants, and different experiences and points of view of the group—and not for the trainer to appear as the expert. The intention is to promote the local knowledge of the participants (Bouchard, 2015). It is recognized that most of the facilitators are women as they can endorse the culture and traditions in conservative community settings. (Rihan, 2017). The REFLECT facilitator is characterized to be from the local area, very open, and respecting people’s customs and points of reference. The facilitator should have direct experience working on SGBV prevention and response, mainstreaming gender equality and peace building. The facilitator’s role is to promote community actions and advocacy around gender-based violence and to encourage community members and opinion leaders to collectively discuss their concerns, exchange ideas, and develop key messages that promote safe, healthy, and productive life choices for families and communities. Activities of REFLECT in Peace Education: REFLECT in Peace Education enables many participants to think critically about practices and actions. It is critical for participants to identify a hub to endorse practicing positive activities and social cohesion interventions. Many organizations like CDAs, Non-Profit Organizations, and school assemblies can act as a powerful vehicle for teaching values, raising self-esteem, and developing enthusiasm. These organizations won recognition for their outstanding community engagement work in the areas of moral, social, and cultural education. REFLECT supports looking for inspiration and ideas in incorporating Peace Education and nonviolence into communities. It also serves as a resource platform for various peace and nonviolence education activities. Some of the effective activities that take place: •

Listening & talking circles: Promotes openness, and shares voice amongst individuals of a group to celebrate, build community, make decisions, or address conflict.

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•

Free writing: Opens up new ways of thinking and reacting that are not confined by structure. It can tap into higher level thinking. Allows for freedom of expression by eliminating the need for perfect structure and grammar.

•

Community sympathy: Highlights the various interests, talents, and experiences that group members bring to the group and can be used to enhance their learning experiences. It also gives group members ownership over determining how the group guidelines are to be structured to meet the unique nature of each learning community. When group members have ownership over developing those guidelines, they are then also more likely to adhere to them and self-enforce.

•

Needs assessment: Generates buy-in and shared responsibility for creating and sustaining a positive and relevant learning experience. Values the input, ideas, needs and wants of the learners and helps establish a partnership model of education. It gives participants ownership over their learning experience.

Success Story: “Muna … from learner to leader”: REFLECT in Peace Education not only fights illiteracy in the villages of Egypt but also reduces the tension and builds bridges of dialogue. There is a number of successful models in particular women; such as Muna, 30 years old married woman. She joined a REFLECT group in her community. She found the approach very interactive and effective not only in learning numeracy, literacy and life skills, but also for promoting dialogue and raising awareness about challenges, social pressure and conflicts that she and other women face every day. Many married women like Muna experience violence in their homes frequently. Attending REFLECT groups gave a safe space for women to discuss openly their challenges to mitigate the conflict. Women meetings encourage constructive conversations, share ideas and resolve differences peacefully, without violence. Muna-was quoted mentioning that “It is learning that opened the window to possibility whereas most opportunities were inaccessible to me before” from where I stand: “I am passionate about promoting peace”. Muna is one of few women to become a member of her local Community Based Association in her village. Since being trained as a woman facilitator for peace education and gender equality, she became a passionate advocate for peaceful conflict resolution, starting from home and extending to the larger community. Finally, REFLECT contributes to Peace Education as it supports learning about cooperation, tolerance, identity, empathy, creativity, and leadership as participants are increasingly exposed to their larger communities. It teaches multiculturalism and relationships in a way vulnerable and

REFLECT in peace education

marginalized groups can understand, and exposes them to the understanding that, though people may have many differences, they also have much in common.

Conclusion The essence of the REFLECT in Peace education approach proved that adult literacy solely does not empower people. Nevertheless, REFLECT learning approach within social change and peace education is a strong method to form a foundation of cohesion and conflict resolution foundation in communities. It appears that REFLECT approach involves two parallel and interweaving processes: a literacy process and an empowering process. Literacy gives people practical skills which will help in the empowerment process (for example, as they assume positions of responsibility in community organizations). The empowerment process, in turn, creates uses for literacy in people’s everyday lives. This mutual consolidation and reinforcement is the essence of why it makes sense to fuse the two processes. To successfully interweave these two processes, it requires a well-structured participatory methodology like REFLECT.

References Archer, D., & Cottingham, S. (1996/2012). REFLECT Mother Manual: Regenerated Freirean literacy through empowering community techniques. ActionAid. http://rhizome.coop/wpcontent/uploads/2018/06/Reflect-Mother-Manual-2012.pdf Archer, D., & Cottingham, S. (1996). Action research report on REFLECT: Regenerated Freirean Literacy through empowering community techniques; the experiences of three REFLECT pilot projects in Uganda, Bangladesh, El Salvador (Overseas Development Administration Education Papers No. 17). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08db5ed915d3cfd001b90/paper17.pdf Barnes, K., Albrecht, P., & Olson, M. (2007). Addressing gender-based violence in Sierra Leone: mapping challenges responses and future entry points. International Alert. https://www.internationalalert.org/publications/addressing-gender-based-violence-sierra-leone/ Bilgin, G. G. (2020). Freirean dialogue: An effective pedagogy for critical peace education. Journal of Theory and Practice in Education, 16(2), 139-149. https://doi.org/10.17244/eku.801805

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Biswas, R. (2018). Peace education – a brief overview. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342277017_Peace_Education__A_Brief_Overview Bouchard, A. (2015). REFLECT approach. Engage. https://engageplus.org/en/approche-reflect.asp Finnish Refugee Council (FRC). (2016). Adult Literacy REFLECT training manual (Sierra Leone Programme). Fountain, S. (1999). Peace education in UNICEF (Working paper). Education Section, Programme Division, UNICEF New York, USA. https://inee.org/sites/default/files/resources/UNICEF_Peace_Education_1999_en_0.pdf Jenkins, T., & Reardon, B. (2007). Gender and peace: towards a gender inclusive, holistic perspective. In Handbook of Peace & Conflict Studies (pp. 209-231). Routledge. Reardon, B. A. (2001). Education for a culture of peace in a gender perspective. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000124850 Reardon, B. A. (2010). Human rights learning: Pedagogies and politics of peace (Keynote address 2008-09). The University of Puerto Rico. https://unescopaz.uprrp.edu/act/Lecciones/2009reardon/HRLearningBettyReardon.pdf Rihan, J. (2006). Gender gap in rural Egypt: A comparison between two subcultures [Doctoral Dissertation, Ain Shams University]. Rihan, J. (2017). The impact of learning methods used in literacy on the attitudes of rural women towards gender equality issue. A Comparative study between “REFLECT method” (Learning for Life) and the “Traditional method” (Etalem Etnawar) in Manshaat Alkeram village, Shebin AlQanater, Qalyubia governorate. Ain Shams University. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369650543 Rihan, J. (2018). Illiteracy in Egypt. General Egyptian Book Organization. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369540132 Rinehart, M. (2005). Toward better concepts of peace. In G. Burgess & H. Burgess (Eds.), Beyond intractability. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado. http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/peace Sultana, R. (2007). Girls’ education initiative in Egypt. UNICEF. https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/33492/1/The_girls%E2%80% 99_education_initiative_in_Egypt_2008.pdf UNDP. (2022). Human development report 2021/2022. https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2021-22 REFLECT in peace education

UNESCO. (2022). Literacy empowers young women from remote communities in Egypt. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/literacy-empowers-young-women-remotecommunities-egypt UNFPA Egypt. (2021). Gender-based violence. https://egypt.unfpa.org/en/node/22540 UNHCR Egypt. (2017). Sexual and gender-based violence. https://www.unhcr.org/eg/ UNWomen. (2013). Study on ways and methods to eliminate sexual harassment in Egypt. https://gisf.ngo/resource/study-on-ways-and-methods-to-eliminate-sexual-harassment-in-egypt/

World Bank. (2022). Gender data portal: Literacy. https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/se-adt World Education. (2021). Literate village program household survey endline evaluation report: Executive summary. https://publications.jsi.com/JSIInternet/Inc/Common/_download_pub.cfm?id=24597&lid=3

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How to share your story effectively: A panel discussion Dorothy Goredema9, Aparna Lall10, Sherna Alexander Benjamin11, Biju Kandel12, Catherine Irving, (convener reflections and summaries) As part of the registration process for the Local Women’s Voices for Peace e-conference, we asked people if there was anything they wanted to learn more about, and if they had any knowledge they were willing to share. Interest was expressed in learning more about documenting women’s stories. Those who were willing to share their knowledge on this topic kindly agreed to participate in a skills workshop. The conversations offered a range of suggestions from practical skills and words of encouragement to lessons learned from personal experiences. This chapter summarizes the key insights offered by the panelists. The organizing team for the e-conference heard from participants that the stories across the various sessions resonated with attendees. The importance was noted that these stories were grounded in women’s experiences in communities, in contrast with the “highlevel” reporting that is typical of international discussions on peace. As you read the advice offered by the panelists, think about a story you would like to share. Dorothy Goredema, Zimbabwe Despite strong evidence of women’s numerous creative and courageous peacebuilding activities, their stories are rarely documented. When women have been instrumental in forging peace processes, we do not get to hear enough of their contributions. Too often women are invisible and sidelined in peacebuilding narratives. My presentation today urges women peacebuilders to share with other women peacebuilders across the globe their peace stories through documenting. It is hoped that when women read or hear of these peace stories, they are motivated by the success stories of other women and they will start contributing towards the peacebuilding activities in their own countries. How do we expect women to document their struggles when they lack the skills, the knowledge, and the practice in documenting? This calls for documentation skills training and that focuses on three key skills required in gathering and documenting women’s stories of peacebuilding: Good listening, critical thinking, and documenting practice. One has to be a good listener in order to be able to understand the story the 9 Midland State University, Zimbabwe 10 Welthungerhilfe, India 11 The Center for Nonviolence, Research, and Development, Trinidad and Tobago 12 Story Kitchen, Nepal

How to share your story effectively

interviewer will be documenting. As one collects the narrative shared by the peacebuilder, developing critical thinking skills helps the interviewer to reflect and ask questions about the story. While documenting practice is an ongoing process, a workshop session would help writers develop the skills to make that practice a habit that continues one’s skill enhancement in documentation. For practical purposes, stories are told in the workshop, then the participants are asked to make a recap to reflect and ask questions. Afterwards they write down documents. The documents are assessed and evaluated, then feedback is given to the students so they can see the progress they are making. In documenting, you need a lot of patience and practice. Practice in documenting sessions, practice in good listening, and practice in critical thinking. Practicing over and over again is the same goal, practice makes perfect. When you practice you find that your skills are honed or they’re enhanced and you also become more confident in your documenting sessions. Documenting is a process that is learned, created and facilitated in stages. So once the participants acquired the skills in documenting, they will be able to decide on what to document and how to identify the technology that is needed in the documenting of the story. They can also be able to gather information and evidence that would be used in writing the document. Then to reflect on issues in a structural way, bring in logic and insight, then draw conclusions based on evidence and good assumptions. In brief, I am saying women themselves should pick up the challenge in documenting their struggles. It is most defeating that these stories are undefined through documenting. When we document peacebuilding stories, we continue the dialogue on the role of women in peacebuilding and as peacebuilders, for many years to come. Catherine: That comment about ‘practice makes perfect’ resonates. Students say to me, when they read the work of other people, ‘I can’t write this well’. I reply that those authors have worked at this a very long time and they have developed their skills through extensive writing. Other writers’ skills should not prevent them from trying to express themselves. No one writes perfectly from the outset. Writing is very personal and it is very much like artwork. It reminds me of an earlier session in this conference. There was an art exercise and a number of people said, ‘I can’t draw. I’m no good at drawing.’ The lesson from that exercise was, do not be judgmental to yourself. Peace requires us not being judgmental to others. To start that, we have to let go of that judgment against ourselves.

Aparna Lall, India I will talk about the actual practices by the civil society organizations (CSOs) with respect to storytelling. That is my background. In the past seven years, I have been associated with 60-70 CSOs in India working on different thematic areas through my project. What I understood, there is a very Local Women’s Voices for Peace

noticeable pattern when it comes to external communications. I don’t know how relevant it is internationally, but in India, many of the organizations are doing amazing work. They are creating very good grassroots level change. But when it comes to communications, they are not known outside their own stakeholders or that area. Most CSOs still prefer the traditional way of communication. Yearly annual report, or maybe oncein-a-lifetime content update on the website, or some random monthly social media post. That is the first thing I noticed. The second thing that stood out is the preference for standard communication and documentation. Digital communication or social media is not the priority of many of the CSOs. The same people who are doing the fieldwork or handling the project, are doing the communication work whenever they find some free time. This attitude needs to be changed immediately. The supporters and donors for the CSOs are getting younger day by day. These are millennial people. They have a very different attitude with respect to conjunction of communication material and also content. They are always on mobile. They just scan, they don’t read. The most effective way is storytelling, which we are talking about right now. There are three important elements of storytelling: The first thing is story of change, or the story of the people with whom you are working, the community. The first-person story showing the changes in their lifestyles, the struggle, the ultimate result. That is the story of change. The second thing which is very important is the data and statistics. Data and statistics are very powerful if they are used intelligently. These data should be specific and localized with respect to geography, demography, or maybe thematic areas. That is very important to localize your content. The third element is very powerful action photos and video clips. Photos and video, if they are good, have a very great appeal to capture attention. These are the three basic elements of storytelling and if they are right, then your communication masses will have a greater appeal. For effective storytelling, there are some basic essentials that every CSO should do: Creating an organizational knowledge bank: As Dorothy said about gathering of information, it is the same thing. There should be one place, either on the internet or hard drive, where every person, including the field people can gather and deposit all the data. The stories, statistics, photos, and videos. It should be accessible to all. That is the most important thing. Creating a contact database: In every organization, there should be an action which should be accessible to everyone. The organization should maintain the email ID and phone numbers of relevant people, whether they are donors, journalists, volunteers, influencers, anyone. This data

How to share your story effectively

should be updated regularly so when your communication material is ready, you have a list of people to disseminate this communication material and have a greater and wider outreach. The language of the story: You have collected information but how will you present the story? Your target audience is completely changing. When writing stories, it is important that language should be simple, short, crisp, and conversational, with no jargon. Words like empowerment, beneficiary, thematic areas, these mean nothing to common people. In place of using the word empowerment, we should show empowerment and how it’s happening. It is happening through change. It should be very people friendly, simple conversational language. Communication should be a very clear call to action or appeal. If you are creating this communication material for donation or appeal, then you have a clear direction for donation. You shouldn’t write ‘help us’ or ‘support us’. You should clearly write ‘donate to us’ a specific amount of money, and help us to sponsor the education of five or ten children. Provide very clear directions to the donors. Last but not least, the frequency of posting (on social media) or engagement with the donors, supporters or advocates, that is very important. It should not feel like that once in a blue moon, you are doing some posts. There should be a schedule and you should stick to it whether it’s a newsletter or social media. Catherine: I want to pick up on your point how communications, especially in the CSO/NGO sector, do still tend to be very traditional in annual reports and dry policy papers. We have become so much more creative in participatory and artistic ways with adult education and research. We can learn from those methods to apply in our documentation work—we can do more to share that knowledge gained from our learning and research activities in creative and clear ways.

Sherna Alexander Benjamin, Trinidad and Tobago We are all storytellers, public speakers and writers. Stories are all around us. We live in a world of stories. Deep in our DNA is a desire to listen to stories or tell our own. For years, audiences have been captivated, curious, persuaded and listened with great interest from ancient to modern storytellers. Through stories, individual and collective changes have turned around communities and systems, making global news headlines and inspiring ripple action. In 2006, I began advocating for the prevention of interpersonal violence at the family and community levels with a specific focus on women and children. Becoming an advocate was not by chance. It was due to my experiences with severe childhood, adolescent, and adult interpersonal violence. Some people say leaders are born. Others say that leaders are made. Others say that leaders

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just appear. I beg to differ. Some leaders are made through harrowing experiences and oppressions of life. We all stand up for something at some point in our lives, making us all speakers and storytellers. From childhood I dreamt of being someone who helped others. I never knew the profession’s name. As I grew older, I realized such people are called social workers. Storytelling, or public speaking was never in my mind. I viewed storytelling as the only way I heard it – Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and so many more. Every time I heard these stories, I fantasized about a prince coming to save me from the atrocities I endured daily. Sadly, no prince ever came. I never knew part of advocacy was storytelling. Back then, I just wanted to speak about the violence I endured, and the violence thousands of children and women suffered within their homes and communities. As I listened to women advocates speaking profoundly on the issues, I envied how they articulated the situations they encountered. I was a novice at best and would often feel like I was in over my head as I didn’t have anything to contribute. Yet I wanted to make a change. Was this an ambitious goal or was I allowing an unhealthy fear to cripple me? I struggled to make sense of my purpose in the nonprofit sector. I remember being invited to give my first presentation, during which time I did not speak about my experiences. I presented statistics and unfortunately, because I couldn’t find any local statistics, I used those published by the United Nations that spoke to other countries. I looked around and the audience seemed far away, tired, and ready to go home. At this time, I went on for a few minutes more and then concluded. The applause was far from appreciative. After the event, I falsified a reason to get out of that space as I felt embarrassed and disappointed in myself and wanted the earth to just open up and take me up. A few days later, a pioneer advocate who was at the event and on whose shoulders I stand today, called me into her office. I sheepishly walked in, bearing defeat all over my face. As I sat she said, ‘Lift your head,’ with an assertive tone. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘You have stories. Use them to make room for yourself and to help others.’ “Stories?” I exclaimed. My facial expression reflected unbelief as I thought to myself, ‘What stories is she speaking about?’ She looked at me with great intensity and with that Caribbean stare which only Caribbean children and people would know about. She said, ‘Sherna, your experiences make up your stories. Tell them to the world. Do you think I do not have stories?’ She exclaimed.

How to share your story effectively

At this point, I said to myself, either she is losing it, or she hates me that much. I fumbled to find words to respond as her statement had evoked various emotions. My experiences, I thought again with a trembling voice, almost as if I wanted to cry. I uttered, “I cannot speak about what happened to me in public. How would people view me? Would they even believe me?” What she said next did not only shock me, it created a space for me to rethink how I view story and storytelling. She said, ‘If you do not tell your stories, then what happened to you was in vain.’ Some persons may say she should not use such strong language. She had to use such language because I didn’t see in myself what she saw in me. That language challenged me to step out of the box I was hiding in and keeping silent. At this point I was crying and I asked, ‘Where and how do I start?’ She said, ‘You start by speaking your truth anywhere someone will listen. If there is no space, you create a space.’ Without any formal training on storytelling, public speaking or writing, I launched out knowing that I had a pioneer who was holding space for me. Most Caribbean women would push you into the water and watch you fight to swim. If they perceived you were going under, they would step in and pull you out. That’s a way of building strength, courage, and becoming better at what you do. I guess that’s their way of saving ‘I love you’ and ‘I’ve got your back.’ I failed at storytelling more times than I could remember. However, I have also learned a few things along the way. Today I am an evolving storyteller, better than I was in 2006. My journey has been eventful, but I love it. I never believed I was a storyteller however my life is filled with untapped stories upon deep reflection. I was socially conditioned to see my experiences as secrets that no one should know or hear about. I was ashamed about my experiences and was taught through social norms to believe that society would be ashamed of me, and no one would listen. I thought nothing good could come from sharing horrific experiences that leave physical, emotional, and psychological scars. I have seen and continue to see the good from sharing experiences through storytelling, public speaking and writing. However, I did not get here alone. I met individual and collective Amazon sisters from whom I drew inspiration. They challenged me to be better the next time I spoke or wrote. I did not realize that many along the way drew inspiration and looked up to me. Life is not a solo journey, and our advancement can be credited to various people, groups and organizations at different moments in time. When I received the invitation from Catherine to be one of the panelists for this empowering, prolific and historical econference, I thought about sharing the work I do with individuals and groups to build their capacity to tell their stories and that of others through advocacy. I thought about sharing on conflict transformation and peacebuilding and that work I do with communities. However, in all the work I Local Women’s Voices for Peace

do, I see hundreds who may have the information who are better writers than me, who struggle with themselves, struggle to tell their own stories, even with all the tools. I thought, what better tribute to women and girls listening who are struggling to tell their stories than to share with them what I have learned along the way. I will quickly go through this list. Here are some of the lessons I learned in my quest to tell stories, to write and speak: Believe it before you speak it. Before you share your story, you must believe it. When I started, I acknowledged my experiences. I spoke about how they impacted my life. However, something was missing. I was not connecting with my story because I was disconnected from certain aspects of my experiences. Shame, guilt and unhealthy fear created a veil for me to hide behind even though I was in the public’s view. I was speaking but I was detached. I was not reliving my story. I was narrating a situation which can be rather dull. I was passionate however I was not driven by passion because unhealthy fear created a disconnection. When you believe in your story, you bring it to life with passion, purpose, and hope. This does not mean that your story is not factual. It means that you have not embraced it internally because an internal fight still ensues. Believing your story has to do with accepting the traumatic or crisis event you experienced, occurred and it altered your life, skewing how you view yourself and others and how you interact with the world around you. Rethink perfection. My other steps will resist the urge to rewrite your story. Society tells us that we must rewrite our story so that it will become palatable to the ears and my thing is if we are able to live true horrific atrocities then those in society should be able to listen as we speak. The traditional view of perfection can kill creativity, authenticity, closing the door on vulnerability. It promotes selfrejection and self-isolation. In this process of telling your story I speak of, it is about reimagining perfection. See it not as an outcome, but rather a process. It is about those moments of excellence— those moments when we do the best we can with what we have. It is the moment when we refuse to hear no and we step on that stage and speak as though this is our last opportunity that the world would afford us. Practice does not make perfect but it makes you conscious. It enables the consistent evolution of yourself and it enables you to tap into value-based support systems. As you practice and you get familiar, you become excellent at what you do. Be intentional, be authentic, embrace vulnerability. Connect with value-based support systems, know your medium, face your fears, believe your own story, highlight the conflict and build your capacity. Mind map your thoughts, record yourself, use images and statistics, connect issues. Enjoy the journey, be unique, share space, pause. People will try to shut you down, and tap into your spiritual source. Thank you. Catherine: You noted that when people do start writing, they tend to hide behind statistics and other people’s knowledge and quotes from other people. It really does take confidence building to

How to share your story effectively

bring your own voice forward and when I mentioned earlier, following Aparna’s comment about communications tendency to be traditional in NGOs, the academic world is in that same boat. It is a lot of work to claim our voices and to trust that they are legitimate perspectives.

Biju Kandel, Nepal Story Kitchen is an organization working to make Nepali women’s ideas, work and experience visible. We do this through the power of narratives and storytelling. The Story Kitchen applies storytelling as its core approach for creating safer space, healing, truth telling, and peacebuilding. The Story Kitchen looks into the history of Nepal for women’s perspective and works to document herstory because since history is written from the perspective of the male perspective, we are working to document the herstory. Today I will share my experience about herstory writing, herstory telling, and by using the narrative approach, how my perspective towards herstory works. Before I joined the Story Kitchen, I worked in movement building with rural women of Nepal. I wrote stories of women from my perspective, the project perspective and donor perspective. We linked their stories with our personal goals and objectives. It was not the intention but we always underestimate the herstory of women, what they really have. Their stories of courage, their coping strategies, how they fought injustice, and what they went through. When I got the chance to know about the narrative therapy approach and storytelling, after joining Story Kitchen, it was an enlightening experience for me. Now I know that we don’t need to beautify the stories. They are already beautiful. The words from the personal experiences from the storytellers are enough to make a beautiful story. I would like to share how to use narrative therapy approach in herstory writing. It is the approach to make a storyteller powerful, not a storywriter. When we write the story using the approach of narrative therapy, the people themselves (are) the owner of the story, the narrator and writer of their own story. We are only the co-authors of these stories and it is the idea to bring out the life experience of people. The story recognizes them as a brave person and as a leader. In the traditional approach, we may have seen them as victims or survivors. The intention of narrative approach is to strengthen and empower the storyteller as well as to energize the reader. Another beauty of the narrative approach is that when we read aloud the story to the storyteller, we can observe the smiling face and their emotions in their face. How we are using this approach in storytelling and in story writing in our organization.

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Catherine: I appreciate your comments about sharing other people’s stories. We have been speaking about sharing our own stories, but when we are in this role of responsibility to bring other people’s stories to the fore, we think on how we use our privilege, our opportunities to help people bring their stories forward who may not have those opportunities. We need to critically reflect on our own views, or expectations of what our donors or our audiences expect. I appreciate that comment you said of ‘we do not need to beautify because their stories are already beautiful.’ That’s a very powerful comment. Discussion with Attendees Sharon: When the first speaker raised the issue of documentation, I was going to say that it is important for us to maintain some level of objectivity in our documentation. When we talk about documenting peace and conflict issues, we are often tempted to document based on our own perspective to the issue and that could be detrimental because of what we have found. For example, going through the records of the materials that are available, you may find there are various perspectives to one issue. Often students or researchers find it difficult to ascertain which of the issues, which of the contributions, paid close attention or correct attention to the issue. Maybe there is no correct perspective anyway. But that is one thing we need to look at. Two, I want us to look at storytelling as the key to transitional justice. Within the issues of peace and conflict, we find out that the media does a lot in that regard. What happens, let’s imagine the scenario of the media mis-telling our stories a lot of them said about us, engaging the media, involving the media and all of that. My question is who are the people who constitute the media? The moment we have people who are non-feminist, who are non-conformist to the plight and aspirations of women, are we not risking them mis-telling our stories. If that happens, how do we bridge the gap? That is why women have to continue to stay on the line and keep responding and reacting to issues that are on both sides. It’s not just an issue of responding, but sometimes we have to react so the documentation can be perfect. Lastly, there are times because of the trauma and challenges that women have gone through, they often refuse to tell their stories. That is also detrimental to the future of our communities. As a researcher, sometimes where you go out in the field and try to find out about certain incidences, all the women decline. Often women decline telling the stories so of course that is also telling that we need to encourage each other, no matter how ugly the story is, no matter how painful the story is, we should be encouraged to tell it. Thank you to all the speakers. Nchang: Today was really wonderful and I want to thank all the speakers from Dorothy to Sherna to our last speaker. I have one question on the presentation of Sherna. You talked about perfection,

How to share your story effectively

the traditional way of wanting stories to be perfect. I have a problem from my own point of view because we have, when you consider the different actors that have to tell their stories, I’m sort of divided. In grassroots, when you travel abroad, you have a different way of listening to stories, looking at stories. The people that tell the stories, they naturally tell it in a different way. How do we bridge that gap some way that people would want you to tell the story in a particular way? How do we bridge that gap so as to make it that those who are telling the story, tell it in such a way that it has been perceived the way they really want to tell it? Not being influenced by those who come from outside, the different readers. Sherna: The context for someone who has a story, let’s say in a rural community in Kenya, and the context of someone who has a story in a country like Canada, Nova Scotia. While there may be some similarities to the individuals experiencing certain type of injustices, both stories are unique and the context should be taken into account and also who is telling the story. If the story is being told by the individual who experienced the atrocity, then the depth and the authenticity and the strength of the story will come off with different types of energies. If the story is being narrated by a second or third party, then you will get some type of changes to that story. With studying under Catherine, I am reminded always go to the primary source when citing. The primary source is the person who experienced that violence, and building their capacity with the skills and the tools that tell their own stories. This is why I spoke in my journey that urge to rewrite our stories. When we go through violence, we are silenced when we experience it. When we come away from that violence, society tells us to be silent still. Tell your story in a nice way, package it in a way that it would be acceptable to those of us who are listening, the rawness of the story, the ugliness of the story, and the messiness of the story. We don’t really want to hear that because it will hold us to account. It will make us responsible to act. Even in telling our stories, there is the notion of trying for us to rewrite our stories. This is why I urge people who are storytellers telling stories, to resist that urge to rewrite. When you rewrite, you are dishonoring the value of your story. You’re not holding your story and placing it at the center of truth. In responding and closing to that response, context matters. The context will carry a different tone of the story but the fundamental aspects of the story remains the same. Catherine: Sharon’s remarks feed off this past question about objectivity. It is one of the words that is used when we’re struggling with how are we ensuring that story is authentic and not being shifted too much by certain agendas. Because in advocacy work, we are often challenged by opponents to say, ‘oh you’re biased, that’s not true.’ But we are saying that these stories are important and they are valid. What are ways that we ensure these are reliable and we can stand behind them? Other panelists may respond to that, as well as Sharon’s comment about how we engage with the media

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who are not supportive or understanding. There is that element of media education to get people on board in terms of supporting and bringing these stories to light. Biju: It is the same experience in Nepal, how the media frames the story about the people—they make the victim more of a victim by their stories and without any consent or authorization. They are publishing stories of people and that meaning of stories is beyond their reality. We discuss how can we change this perspective, how to educate the media about authenticity and how to write a story from the perspective of storytelling. They are the owner of the story and they have a right to publish or not publish their story. Aparna: I agree with what Sherna said, but as I am an ex-journalist, I will give you that perspective of the media. Currently the situation of the media is not very good. The editorial freedom is restricted everywhere. That is the one thing. So they are constantly trying to make the stories very sensational. There is a need to keep yourself away from that trap. You cannot change the entire narrative of the story. Maybe a little bit of tweaking is OK. But do not ever get into that trap of media because it has the tendency of sensationalizing stories. Second, from the communications perspective, different research has shown that if you are showing too much pain and hopelessness, then by the general people that situation is not liked very much. I’m not saying it’s ethical or not. The common people do not associate with too much helplessness or hopelessness because they cannot change the situation. Even if they are doing something, donating or sharing your stories or becoming advocates for your stories, if the situation is hopeless they feel disconnected from that story. There should be some middle ground. That is my point.

Concluding Reflections The panelists have offered a wide range of ideas and strategies for documenting women’s stories. Dorothy spoke of the craft of writing, and the time and practice required to develop skills. This is important to catch people’s divided attentions. I have noticed with so much information available online, if something is difficult or confusing to read, people will just go somewhere else. Sherna asked us to reflect critically what we mean by “perfection”, this can be a double-edged sword whereby we feel compelled to write to someone else’s standard, or we may be intimidated not to bring our ideas forward for fear our writing is inadequate. As Biju noted, the women’s stories are already beautiful. Learning about writing styles relevant to different audiences and contexts can help develop our skills in ways we can communicate effectively. By exploring different forms of communication, as Aparna explained, we can learn strategies that are effective and engaging, while remaining authentic to our own voices, experiences and contexts.

How to share your story effectively

A challenge for multimedia approaches is finding an audience. Critics argue that there is now so many stories recorded that there is not enough time in the world to read, watch, or listen to them. This becomes a disservice to the people who agreed to give their story to an interviewer, in hopes that it would be shared. Learning the methods of interviewing, editing, and communications to find audiences is key in the creation process, the craft of writing extends to editing audio and video. Writing can be a lonely process, with our inner critics taking hold of the process, as Sherna warned. Finding supportive colleagues and friends can be very helpful. Dorothy spoke of workshop methods for collaborative writing. At Coady, we have also used workshops to bring writers together to learn from each other. These two resources have been helpful in our workshop design: 1. The Barefoot Collective in South Africa has produced a series of manuals on topics ranging from organizational change, social justice and the environment. The process for writing these manuals is described in the introduction of each issue. The Collective’s website has made available a number of tools to foster conversations, provide helpful critiques, and expand critical thinking: https://www.barefootguide.org/tools-and-exercises.html 2. Angela Milligan and Petra Bongartz describe the process of a participatory writeshop13 which can be downloaded here: https://www.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/G02810.pdf I hope the stories and insights collected in this book inspire you to seek out and share the experiences of peace promoters in your community.

Milligan, A., & Bongartz, P. (2010). Let’s write! Running a participatory workshop. PLA Notes 61.

Local Women’s Voices for Peace

LOCAL WOMEN’S

VOICES FOR PEACE Sharing Stories and Strategies

Coady Institute St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, NS, Canada coady.stfx.ca