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- Mar 2010Celebrating International Women's Day LESS
- To celebrate International Women's Day 2010 I asked the peacebuilders we fund to tell the stories of the women they work with.
You can watch them online at www.peacedirect.org/women.
Join us MOREin celebrating International Women's Day - there's a whole host of ways you can celebrate, here are just some of our suggestions.
Appreciate the women in your life. Your mum, your wife, your best friend, we all know fabulous women, so why not tell them today just how much you appreciate them. And you can even send them a peace ecard with your own personal message
Blog for International Women's Day - Gender Across borders are asking you to blog about what equal rights means to you.
Watch "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" the story of courageous Liberian women who came together to end a civil war and bring peace to their shattered country.
Get inspired by these quotes by women - and if you have any more email Helen@peacedirect.org and I'll add them to the website.
People with clenched fists can not shake hands.
Indira Gandhi
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Anais Nin
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
Nadezhda Mandelstam, Russian writer, Hope Against Hope
I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Helen Keller
- Feb 2010Love in the Time of Conflict LESS
- In a village not far from Butembo a man named Eric is building a house for his wife and future family. He works late into the day, yet even in the dusk MOREyou can still make out the scars on his arms.
Two years ago Eric was a feared colonel in one of the largest and most vicious militia groups in the area. The commanders of this group gain their status through black magic rituals, and they will persue this power at all costs.
For many years communities across the district have been at the mercy of this group, mothers terrified for their children's safety and fathers powerless as their women were raped and their houses burnt down. The colonel's role in this terror was well known.
But when peacebuilder Henri Ladyi met the colonel he saw not a vicious militia leader, but a man who could be a powerful ally in the struggle for peace. Eric was open to ideas about stopping the fighting and he was able to grant Henri safe passage to meet with other militia commanders. Eric introduced Henri as 'the man who is thinking about our future', and through this introduction Henri negotiated the release of 30 child soldiers, to return them to their families.
Yet Eric's own village could not forgive the damage he had done to them. He was living between lives - keen to help Henri to promote peace, yet unable to live himself in peace. Henri talked to him about starting a new family, finding a wife and settling down. But the Mai Mai believe that if you take a wife you lose your power and without a community to support him Eric could not give up what he had leant on for so long.
Henri made Eric see that whilst he continued to rely on black magic, the communities he longed to return to would never accept or trust him.
Eric got married last December and his marriage is a powerful symbol to all those around him of how far behind him he has left the life of violence. Through this he can begin to build trust and to use his influence to help Henri engage with more armed groups in the struggle for peace. We wish Eric and his new wife a happy Valentine's day.
- Feb 2010The Wall of Greatness LESS
- This morning the conference members built the Wall Of Greatness. It’s an idea suggested by our session leader Janet – a Ghanaian in a bright blue kaftan whose laughter and wisdom are MOREguiding us through the journey of discovery that this gathering has become.
Janet asked us each to bring in a single object that symbolised what we do for peace, and tell us why.
One peacebuilder brought in a map of his country - “We have never known peace since independence.” Another showed a photo of his baby niece. A third brought a camelskin purse to stand for the safe places she creates for women. A fourth lit a candle to light the dark of war.
We looked at them in silence and Janet said, “This is the wall we are building across the world.”
- Feb 2010The Nairobi Peace Exchange LESS
- This week in Nairobi 20 people from around the world have gathered together under the African sun to share their experiences as peacebuilders in conflict zones. They have come from countries engulfed MOREby war, like Afghanistan and Congo DRC, countries struggling to make peace work, like Sri Lanka and Timor l’Est, and countries threatened by the prospect of violence, like Sudan.
These are extraordinary people. The lawyer who gave up her career to return to a war-torn homeland in the Himalayas. The youth group leader from a desert village who pays his staff but not himself. The pastor who reports on guerrilla war in the African bush as a form of Christian witness.
Gather them together in one place for three days and you have a world of experience, knowledge and aspiration to share with each other. You have the smiles when people who risk their lives on a daily basis realise they are not alone. And the laughter at what has worked for some.
And then you have the unanswered questions about everything that still needs to work everywhere. How do we get the politicians to listen? How do we reach out to the combatants? How do we protect the youth? Above all, how do we persuade the international system to let the locals lead the peace?
The answers come sometimes from what other peacebuilders tell us they have done. Sometimes they come from the brainstorm sessions we hold together and record on yellow cards pasted across the walls of our conference room. And sometimes they come, in a rush that is close to tears, when someone at breakfast tells you why they must go on.
The buzz is as high as the heat. Right now small knots of people are hammering out how to measure the impact of what they do: how to know when peace is improving? They argue, they laugh, they tell stories, they touch hands.
Someone has brought five squidgy rubber balls and these go whizzing through the air, thrown and caught between us, spanning the room. Sometimes these little electrons are expected with a smile and a nod. Sometimes they surprise and shock. They carry the energy and the friendship of this global meeting. It’s a room full of flying ideas spinning across the world.
