Projects

We believe that young people, if empowered, hold the key to effective community development and building a culture and attitude of lasting peace and non-violence within communities that have been torn apart by war and violence.

We aim to empower young people living in forgotten conflict zones with the skills and tools they need to start and grow community development and peace building projects.

As part of its commitment to empowering young people in forgotten conflict zones, FD recently sponsored nine new youth-led, innovative, grass-roots peace-building projects.

These grants follow the five projects sponsored as part of FD’s first grants program in 2009 which was highly successful and proved FD’s key message to policy makers – that if empowered, young people can be the solution to community peace and development and can bring about a more cohesive and peaceful attitude within communities. Using innovative, low-cost ideas like teaching students about peace and conflict resolution through the use of sport or drama, the projects we sponsored have made a difference in over 10 countries.

We’d like to thank our main sponsor ArtAction, for supporting our work and making these grants possible.

Pictured: An FD sponsored project in Nepal using theatre to educate children about peace

PROJECTS

Gulalai Ismail – Pakistan
A one day workshop on peace, non-violence and tolerance for youth at risk of being recruited into terrorist groups in Peshawar in Northern Pakistan. A peace building training manual will be developed and also distributed through schools

Jose de Jesus – East Timor
Using sport to help integrate vulnerable youth and street children into society and reduce potential future conflict between communities

Hans George – Liberia
Using cartoons and posters to spread messages about non-violence to youth including vulnerable youth and former child soldiers. One on one coaching on non violence will also be conducted on some youth

Belaynesh Abebaw – Ethiopia
Using art developed by women and girls to advocate for peace in their communities while also empowering women

Ashis Himali – Nepal
10 youth led street dramas conducted in 8 different villages with a target audience of about 9000 villagers to break down caste discrimination barriers

Ogaga Maxwell – Nigeria
Bringing over 200 secondary school student leaders together and using art and culture to create awareness of the need for peaceful inter-religious co-existence in the Niger Delta area

Emmanuel Niyamugabo – Rwanda
Raising awareness of and promoting human rights for people with disabilities and a campaign to reduce discrimination towards the disabled

Lorena Callejas – Colombia
Understanding the experiences of youth involved in armed conflict in the Mariano Ramos region, the problems affecting them and their motives for engaging in conflict and then teaching them about non-violence

Shree Krishna Thapa – Nepal
Using theatre to educate children about peace

PROJECTS FROM OUR FIRST ROUND OF GRANTS IN 2009:

NIGERIA and NIGER Delta

Sport Skills for Peace

The project would be in the Sapele area of the Niger Delta region, a semi-urban area there have been cases of inter-school fights and violence, where students from different schools fight each other and these has in some case escalated to families, streets and some times led to the closure of the said schools, we want to use these project as an intervention project using sports and mediation /peace education skills capacity building workshop to empower the student to act as agents of change and held instil peace in their schools. The increase in school violence has led to the formation of secondary school gangs a sense of belonging may decrease the vulnerability of young people to school gangs and militancy afterward, sports becomes a good method to increase dialogue, friendship and new identities, while at the same time they are acquiring new skills. The target audience is 40 students (aged 13-20), 8 each from the four schools in Sapele that have been involved at one time or the other in fighting (violence).

Students Arise Against Conflict (SAAC)

The Student Arise Against Conflict project is targeted at students in secondary Schools from Classes JSS 1-SSS 3. SAAC believes that conflicts arises from a break down in communication at the different levels in society be it the family, school, church and other social institutions. Therefore the preparation of young people as conflict mediators is very necessary for the attainment of peace in our society.

The SAAC project is focused on the 2 local government areas (Calabar South and Calabar Municipality) in the Calabar metropolis. The reason for this spread is because of the social stratification existing in these local governments, this difference in economic power and social amenities provided to these areas do cause tensions between students residing in this area, there are also reported cases of inter-school fighting between students of private schools and that of public schools.

ETHIOPIA

Teenage Peace Brigades

This project is designed to establish teenage peace brigades at elementary and junior schools here in Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia. These children and teen will be trained and will be given appropriate technical and material supports to enable them mobilize their peers, parents and teachers for our peace building campaigns.

We want to establish a system in junior and elementary schools that can teach students and the school community informally about the importance of tolerance, the benefits of exploiting the magic of difference and non-violent conflict resolution methods and techniques to build peace at grass root levels.

The reason why we want to establish these groups in schools is to introduce new thoughts and techniques to children to help them take active part in prevention of conflict occurrence in their schools and in their families’. Conflicts start at school and family level and expand to families, community, society and national levels although the causes are different at different levels, our children and teen experience conflict either at their home or at their schools. In the past, when conflict occurs among teen in schools, there was no systematic way to solve these conflicts, penalizing all parties involved in the situation was the only action our schools were practicing and the chance of conflict reoccurrence is still common because only penalty cannot solve it permanently. This has learning for us to work on possible ways to conflict resolution and prevention to make sure that our community can prevent conflict occurrence or can manage conflict properly after its occurrence. We will start our intervention at schools and this intervention will be expanded to student families, teachers and members of the community at large.

So as to introduce these new thoughts and techniques about peace building, conflict resolution and tolerance to our community.

UGANDA

Girls Taking the Lead

Postcolonial Uganda has been marked; indeed scarred, by a history of militarized politics. The most protracted of these conflicts has been the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) conflict, which lasted more than 20 years encompassing five different rebellions living thousands of devastated lives and a shattered generation.

The Karimojong have been known for their notorious cattle raids with in Karimojong itself and in the neighbouring districts in Acholi, Lango, and Teso Sub regions including areas bordering Kenya. In Teso Sub regions in North Eastern Uganda, the districts of Katakwi, Amuria Soroti and Kumi have mainly suffered from these raids. Although the disarmament programme started by Government has resulted to some relative peace in these districts there are still incidents of raids by Karimojnong in the nearby districts of Katakawi and Amuria. The effect of these raids on the communities of these districts has been enormous with most people living in internally displaced people’s camps in fear of their lives. This has further hindered any potential social and economic development of these districts in the absence of peace and good relations among the two tribes.

These already tense relationships have further been worsened with the recent border conflict between Moroto district and Katakwi in which the two districts have shown hostility towards each other over the fertile stretch of land between the two districts. This is a potential conflict trigger in the near future which if not addressed will further worsen the already delicate relationships of the two people in these districts.

With the support of YAC and the Forgotten Diaries project, the Girls2Leaders Movement seeks to conduct a peace campaign with young women leaders taking lead to build cross border peace among Karimojong and Iteso in Moroto and Katawki District in North Eastern Uganda.