Communication for Peace and Conflict Prevention
From SOUL BEAT AFRICA - where communication and media are central to AFRICA's social and economic development
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
* COUNTERING XENOPHOBIA through community dialogue and sport
* INFORMATION ON PEACEBUILDING on the Soul Beat Africa website
* Radio and video about GENDER AND CONFLICT
* The role of MEDIA IN CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION
* Soul Beat Africa MAKING A DIFFERENCE
* Peacebuilding FESTIVAL AND TRAINING
Welcome to the first edition of The Soul Beat newsletter in 2010. We kick off this year with what we hope will be a positive and inspiring topic for Africa: a focus on the role of communication in promoting peace and tolerance. The newsletter offers a selection of programme experiences, strategic thinking documents, and resources which look at how communication can: foster social cohesion in contexts of xenophobia and ethnic conflict, address gender-related issues in conflict situations, and, through the media, support peace and reconciliation processes during and after conflict situations.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please contact soulbeat@comminit.com
To subscribe to The Soul Beat, click here or send an email to soulbeat@comminit.com with a subject of "subscribe".
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DEALING WITH XENOPHOBIA AND ETHNIC CONFLICT
1. Towards Tolerance, Law, and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa
By Jean Pierre Misago, Loren Landau, and Tamlyn Monson
This research report from February 2009 discusses the violence against foreign nationals which occurred in South Africa in May 2008. The report presents the findings of a baseline study commissioned by International Organization for Migration (IOM) and conducted by the Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP) at Wits University in Johannesburg. It outlines the political economy of violence against outsiders and the immediate triggers and factors that helped translate xenophobic attitudes into the violent attacks witnessed in May 2008. The report suggests that there is not enough being done to foster re-integration and communication that will ensure that such events do not happen again.
2. One Movement Campaign - South Africa
Launched in March 2009 by the IOM, the One Movement campaign is a social change project that seeks to change negative attitudes and behaviours that perpetuate discriminatory practices related to xenophobia, racism, and tribalism within South African and other societies. The campaign uses mass media, community conversations, youth mobilisation, curriculum interventions, and human rights training, and works with a wide range of civil society partners to promote a culture of tolerance, unity, and human dignity across southern Africa.
Contact Nde Ndifonka nndifonka@iom.int
3. Dialogue Among Civilisations - South Africa
This arts initiative by Art for Humanity seeks to address racism, xenophobia, and the plight of refugees. The project involves collaboration between artists and poets from Africa and from countries that participated in the 2006 Soccer World Cup. Participants are invited to create work on the theme of identity, land, object, and belief. A catalogue based on the project will be published in time for the project launch in March 2010, South Africa Human Rights Day, and the work will be highlighted during a conference and public showings leading up to the world Cup 2010.
Contact Jan Jordaan JanJ@dut.ac.za or Art for Humanity afh@dut.ac.za
4. The Team Television and Radio Series - Kenya
Launched in May 2009, The Team is an edutainment television and radio series produced by the Media Focus on Africa Foundation and Search for Common Ground. Initiated in response to post-election violence in 2008, the series is designed to promote understanding and dialogue amongst different sectors of Kenyan society. The storyline of The Team centres on a Kenyan soccer club whose members must learn to deal with their tribal, ethnic, social, and economic divisions. It tells the stories of seven young Kenyan footballers from different tribes who must overcome their mutual distrust.
Contact Common Ground Productions cgpinfo@sfcg.org OR Susan Koscis skoscis@sfcg.org OR Mburugu Gikunda mburugu@mediafocusonafrica.org OR info@mediafocusonafrica.org
5. Participatory Theatre for Conflict Transformation: Training Manual
By Lena Slachmuijlder and Don Tshibanda
This book, published in January 2009, documents what Search for Common Ground (SFCG) has learned using participatory theatre for conflict transformation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). By using participatory theatre, SFCG seeks to change the way the world responds to conflict, replacing an adversarial approach, where one side wins and the other loses, towards a collaborative approach, where everyone wins.
6. Community Conversations to Promote Social Cohesion - South Africa
Started in 2009, the Programme to Promote Social Cohesion is an initiative by the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) and collaborating human rights organisations to address the root causes of violence and to advance social cohesion between host and migrant communities in South Africa. The community dialogues are preceded by meetings with key stakeholders and culminate in discussions designed to provide an opportunity for the community to create concrete plans to tackle the challenge of violence and xenophobia.
Contact Sello Hatang nmf@nelsonmandela.org
7. Race and Migration in the Community Media: Local Stories, Common Stereotypes
By Anna Lerner, Sandra Roberts, and Callies Matlala
This report, published by Media Monitoring Africa in December 2009, examines how issues of race, ethnicity, migrants, racism, and xenophobia are represented in community and small commercial newspapers in South Africa. This study acknowledges that there are many examples of good practice but point out that newspapers sometimes only present a partial picture and miss opportunities to challenge negative representations of migrants and to address racism. The document offers some practical suggestions which are intended for use by NGOs, media, and other stakeholders to promote and facilitate media's role in preventing and challenging racism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination.
8. Soccer for Re-integration - South Africa
Following xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa in 2008, Sonke Gender Justice, as part of its "One Man Can" project, initiated a street soccer festival in collaboration with Hope World Wide, Western Cape Street Soccer League, and Grassroot Soccer in an attempt to combat xenophobia. The soccer tournament hoped to foster re-integration and dialogue between foreigners and South Africans living in Khayelitsha, a township outside of Cape Town. The event was based on the idea that encouraging communication and shared experiences between foreign nationals and South Africans within a community will help to ease relations within that community and encourage reintegration.
Contact Bafana Khumalo bafana@genderjustice.org.za or Dean Peacock dean@genderjustice.org.za
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MORE INFORMATION ON CONFLICT and PEACEBUILDING ON THE SOUL BEAT AFRICA WEBSITE
If you are looking for more information on conflict and peacebuilding in Africa, go to the ALL SECTIONS page on the Soul Beat Africa website. This page gives you the full range of summaries on the Soul Beat Africa website from all knowledge sections e.g. Programme Experiences, Evaluations, Strategic Thinking documents, Materials, etc.). Under Regions, choose Africa (or a country/countries of your choice), and under Development Issues select Conflict and then submit.
The search results will include all summaries on the Soul Beat Africa website that deal with conflict and peacebuilding.
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9. Women in Post Conflict Situations (WIPCS) Radio Project - Rwanda, Burundi, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Launched on International Women’s Day, March 8 2008, Women in Post Conflict Situation (WIPCS) is a project by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) that works to provide a platform, via radio, for women in post-conflict Rwanda, Burundi, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to share their stories of survival. The purpose of the project is to restore hope to other women across conflict affected areas in the region.
Contact dr_mccreery@hotmail.com OR Charles Ntiryica chntirc@yahoo.fr OR Fabien Bakundukize bakunda2003@yahoo.fr OR Theogene Rudasingwa rudasingwatheogene@yahoo.fr
10. Women’s Crossroads - Chad
Launched in 2009, Women’s Crossroads is a radio programme by Internews that seeks to address the information needs of women refugees from Darfur living in camps in eastern Chad. The programme, aired by Radio Sila 89.9 FM, focuses mainly on women’s health and rights issues. As part of the project, wind-up radios were distributed to women who were put in charge of the radio in order to ensure that the whole community, especially women, have access to radio.
Contact Internews Network info@internews.org
11. Because I am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls 2008 - Special Focus: In the Shadow of War
This report is the second in a series of eight reports published by Plan International examining the rights of girls throughout their childhood, adolescence, and as young women. This 2008 report examines the state of girls in conflict situations around the world and looks at what happens to them before, during, and after war is over. It intends to show how conflict affects girls differently from boys and how their rights are ignored, their responsibilities changed, and their lives altered by war. It describes how discrimination against girls is in place before the fighting begins and remains after it is over. The report also examines the implications of conflict for girls' health, girls' education, gender roles, and relationship dynamics.
12. Nobody Is Immune: Gender Against Men [Documentary]
Produced by the Refugee Law Project, this documentary explores "the hidden world of sexual and gender-based violence against men in the conflicts of the Great Lakes region." According to the producers, it is a movie about men, violence, and the inability of society to recognise or address male vulnerability in times of conflict. The movie is intended to raise as many questions as it gives answers in its quest for an honest examination of the gender stereotypes underlying mainstream approaches to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The film considers sex-selective massacres, which target all the men in a particular town for extermination. It looks at policies, which intentionally or otherwise, undermine men’s traditional role as protectors and providers.
MEDIA AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION
13. Interactive Radio for Justice - Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
This is a radio project designed to encourage dialogue between people in regions where the International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. The project seeks to improve the local population's general understanding of national and international judicial systems that can serve them. It also has the potential to improve authorities' understanding of issues important to the average citizen, and the problems people face attaining justice and rebuilding their lives post-conflict. The project started operations in the Ituri region of the DRC, where the ICC began an investigation in 2004. In January 2008, the project was also launched in the CAR.
Click here to contact Wanda Hall through the online contact form.
14. Assignment Justice: A Practical Guide for Sudanese Journalists
By Janet Anderson, Lisa Clifford, Peter Eichstaedt, and Katy Glassborow
This manual, produced by Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) Netherlands in April 2009, is designed to increase the capacity of Sudanese journalists to report on issues related to international justice, the courts, and local trials. According to the publishers, reporting on international justice is one of the most important and challenging assignments that journalists will encounter in their careers. It is a sensitive topic that requires informed, responsible, and objective reporting. The manual supports journalists to understand international justice and produce balanced, accurate stories on the subject and related issues.
15. Ready to Talk About the Past: A Survey of Knowledge and Attitudes toward Transitional Justice in Burundi
By Julia Crawford and Ed Pauker
This report, published in December 2008, presents the findings from a survey on public knowledge and perceptions of transitional justice in Burundi. The survey was carried out in Burundi in October 2008 by the Research and Learning Group of the BBC World Service Trust and Search for Common Ground. The survey (of 1,648 Burundian adults across 10 of Burundi's 17 provinces) aimed to explore a number of issues around transitional justice, as well as to explore patterns of media consumption and key information sources for what is happening in Burundi. This survey is part of the Communicating Justice project, which aims to raise levels of public awareness and debate around transitional justice issues in 5 post-conflict African countries - in part by training groups of journalists.
16. Radio for Peace, Democracy, and Development in Sudan
Launched in 2006 by Internews, the Radio for Peace, Democracy, and Development in Sudan project works to support the creation and development of community radio stations in South Sudan. The aim of the radio stations is to provide news and information about the peace and reconstruction process and to give voice to thousands of Sudanese who live in remote areas of Sudan and who have little access to media following the end of the 22 year civil war in 2005. Through programming and journalist exchanges, the project also seeks to contribute to the reconciliation process.
Contact Gordon Mangum info@internews.org
17. Why and When to Use Media for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding
By Vladimir Bratic and Lisa Schirch
From the civil society-led network Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, this issue paper, published in December 2007, describes media’s impact on peacebuilding and examines why and when to use media for conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The document describes the media's orientation toward conflict as a focus on immediacy, drama, simplicity, and ethnocentrism. What do not receive media focus, according to the authors, include long-term processes; moderate people participating in dialogue; complex opinions or explanations, root causes, multi-sided conflicts; and the beliefs, myths, and symbols of the 'other', as well as their suffering from 'our' brutality.
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Share your Story of how Soul Beat Africa has Influenced your Work
Soul Beat Africa has a new feature on the Soul Beat website called "CI Stories". It is an online place for Soul Beat network members to share details of any collaborations or interactions that have been sparked by an item which was featured on the Soul Beat Africa website or in our e-magazines. Click here to view existing stories and to submit your story.
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EVENTS
Go to the Events page to view the full listing which include these related to peacebuilding:
18. Peace Building and Conflict Management 2010 (May 17-28 2010) Arusha, Tanzania
Organised by MS Training Centre for Development Co-operation (MS-TCDC), this course is intended for middle to senior level practitioners from development organisations working in conflict and post conflict contexts. According to the organisers, by the end of the course, participants will have enhanced their knowledge and skills in peace building, crisis prevention, and conflict management for the promotion of social justice.
19. The Drum Cafe 2010 Peace Festival (Sept 19-25 2010) Nairobi, Kenya
The Drum Cafe 2010 Peace Festival will be a seven-day celebration presented by and for the various Kenyan ethnic subgroups and communities living in Nairobi. It will include performances, presentations, workshops, displays, and demonstrations of music, theatre, dance, storytelling, food, films, traditional medicines, and crafts at various venues in Dandora, Kibera, Kawangware (slum areas which all experienced violence following Kenya's 2008 elections). The festival is designed to create a safe place for all Kenyans and their international guests to value the importance of culture as a tool in conflict resolution and culture's vital role in maintaining peace in local communities, nations, and throughout the world.
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Related previous issues of The Soul Beat newsletter include:
The Soul Beat 99 - Communication for Conflict Prevention and Resolution
The Soul Beat 74 - Communication for Peace and Reconciliation in Africa
The Soul Beat 49 - Journalism: Rights and Peace
The Soul Beat 41 - Communication in Post-Conflict Situations
Click here to view all archived editions of The Soul Beat Newsletter.
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