The Soul Beat 205 - Communicating for Peace in Africa
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
- Join the online discussion to explore a DEMOCRACY NETWORK FOR JOURNALISTS IN AFRICA...
- Using EDUTAINMENT for peace and reconciliation...
- SOUL BEAT AFRICA GOVERNANCE theme site...
- ICTS AND THE MEDIA for peacebuilding ...
- COMMUNITY DIALOGUES for reconciliation in Sierra Leone and Rwanda...
This issue of The Soul Beat includes a selection of content from the Soul Beat Africa website that looks at the use of communication for peace building in Africa. It includes programme experiences, research reports, and resources that highlight how edutainment, information and communication technologies (ICTS) and the media, as well as interpersonal communication are being used to promote peacebuilding and reconciliation in countries affected by conflict.
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 send information to soulbeat@comminit.com
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JOIN OUR UPCOMING DISCUSSION ON DEVELOPING A DEMOCRACY, GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS JOURNALISM NETWORK IN AFRICA!!
Does Africa need such a network? And if so, how would it function and what purpose would it have?
To participate in the discussion, please join the Democracy and Governance Online Network
(select Join Soul Beat Africa: Democracy and Governance Network) or you can email us on soulbeat@comminit.com
We will send you a notice through this online forum as soon as the discussion is launched.
EDUTAINMENT TO PROMOTE PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION
1. Bana Dukine (Kids, Let's Play!) - Rwanda
Launched in 2010, Bana Dukine (Kids, Let's Play!) is a computer game designed to teach Rwandan school children how to deal with conflict in their lives - what causes conflict and some effective ways to handle it. The game was developed by Search for Common Ground, in partnership with Serious Games, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Rwandan Ministry of Education, and is played on laptops donated by One Lap Top per Child (OLPC) programme. Bana Dukine is set near a water hole and the characters in the game are the animals that use the water hole. The central character is Little Lion, who is in charge of distributing water to the other animals. As the temperature rises, the amount of water in the hole decreases, creating conflict between the animals over diminished resources.
2. Acting Out of Conflict: Using Participatory Theater as a Tool of Peacebuilding in Rwanda
By Sydney Smith and Elise Webb
This article, published in the Africa Peace and Conflict Journal in 2011, shares Search for Common Ground's work using participatory theatre for peacebuilding in Rwanda, designed to help citizens and government leaders take ownership over the process of collaboratively negotiating land disputes. According to the article, participatory theatre can successfully be used to address conflict issues, including land disputes, by enacting dramatised stories gathered from the audience and by asking audience members to inhabit a character in the performance and play a role that may be counter to their own position.
3. Drama for Life Africa Research Conference: Applied Drama as Social Intervention in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts (Nov 16-17 2012) Pretoria, South Africa
The University of Pretoria's Drama Department in association with the University of the Witwatersrand's Drama for Life Programme is hosting the fifth annual Africa Research Conference in Applied Drama and Theatre entitled "Applied Drama as Social Intervention in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts." The conference seeks to engage with the growing trends of global intolerance, conflict, and violence with a view to forging innovative artistic interventions as a form of social activism.
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4. Tabella FC (The Team) Television Series in Liberia - Liberia
Launched in October 2010, Tabella FC is a ten-part television drama exploring issues affecting modern Liberia, including corruption, sexual exploitation, political favouritism, price fixing, tribalism, drug abuse, and the role women play in shaping Liberia's future. The series is a local adaptation of a multi-national television drama initiative, The Team, being undertaken by Search for Common Ground, which is designed to use sport as a unifier to transform social attitudes and diminish violent behaviour.
5. Strengthening Work at the Nexus of Arts, Culture, and Peacebuilding
By Jonathan White and Cynthia E. Cohen
This report shares insights from a meeting to explore how work at the nexus of arts, culture, and peacebuilding could be strengthened. The meeting was hosted in November 2011 by Search for Common Ground, the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University, and the Alliance for Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace. According to the report, arts-based approaches to the transformation of conflict in recent years have gained increased attention and prominence from a range of disciplines.
6. Collective Healing: A Social Action Approach
By Yvonne Sliep
Published by War Trauma Foundation (WTF) in 2011, this resource was produced to develop the skills and capacity of local committees facilitating narrative theatre for healing in communities in Burundi. The material explores five topics that publishers identified as relevant for the Burundian context: (Ubuntu) values, trauma, conflict resolution and mediation, leadership, and development.
7. Tomorrow is a New Day Project - Niger
Tomorrow is a New Day is an 18-month violence-reduction project which seeks to promote stability in the Niger Delta through community reconciliation and the peaceful reintegration of ex-militants. Led by Search for Common Ground, this includes community-level dialogues, facilitating structures that encourage collaborative problem solving and inclusive decision making, using community radio to promote discussions, and a serial radio drama.
SOUL BEAT AFRICA DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE THEMESITE
For more knowledge and resources on Democracy and Governance and communication, visit Soul Beat Africa's Democracy and Governance Theme site.
The themesite has the following focus areas: Civic Engagement; Rights and Justice; Media and D & G; Gender Empowerment; Conflict and Peace; Anti-Corruption; Freedom of Information; Elections; and Parliaments.
ICTS AND MEDIA FOR PEACE
8. Video Advocacy and the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice
WITNESS is working in partnership with the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice and their grassroots partners in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and Uganda in a campaign focused on ending gender-based violence in armed conflict and post conflict situations and on increasing access to justice for survivors in countries under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC). WITNESS, an organisation specialising in video advocacy for human rights, is supporting partners through training and production assistance, to use video to tell the stories of women who have experienced gender-based violence.
9. DRC Speaks - Democratic Republic of Congo
In September 2010, more than 4 million Congolese received an SMS message asking them to take part in the largest mobile polling ever conducted, asking for their input on the current situation in DRC and their ideas for change. With mobile GeoPoll technology powered by Mobile Accord, the responses to weekly questions allowed the Congolese people to tell the world their thoughts, opinions, and even their hopes for a better Congo.
10. Learning to Live Together: Using Distance Education for Community Peacebuilding
Edited by Rawwida Baksh and Tanyss Munro
This book, published in 2009 by the Commonwealth of Learning, includes a range of community peacebuilding experiences from across the Commonwealth that have been applying open and distance learning (ODL) approaches. The case studies are organised to provide insights into the challenges as well as the kinds of interventions that have worked and how they can be built upon. They are intended to demonstrate that ODL can be an effective and efficient way to involve many of the people most affected by conflict in being part of its prevention, mitigation, and resolution.
11. Strategic Communication for Peacebuilding - A Training Guide: How to Use Strategic Communication on Development Objectives as a Tool for Peacebuilding
By Oscar Bloh
Published by Radio for Peacebuilding Africa in 2010, this guide is designed for trainers of media workers and government officials in strategic communication related to major development objectives. The training guide seeks to: improve the skills of policy makers and media practitioners, with a particular emphasis on radio, in the effective communication of major government reform policies to citizens; and increase the skills of policy makers and media practitioners in generating information (concerns, needs, etc.) from citizens, and in communicating those needs to the government.
12. Uniting Communities to Mitigate Conflict (UCMC) - Somalia
Launched in June 2010 by IREX, this project engages women and youth to address clan differences, which can serve as a driver of conflict in Somalia but can also serve as a source of conflict mitigation. Working with local partners, the programme provides training on conflict transformation and the development of media products, including newspaper articles, radio debates, public service announcements, and documentaries, to promote positive approaches to resolving conflict and promoting mediation to avoid conflict.
13. Human Rights and Peace Building: A Media Toolkit for Journalists
Published by Panos Eastern Africa in 2010, this media toolkit is designed to support and build capacity of journalists to disseminate information and promote debate on human rights and peace building issues.
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COMMUNITY DIALOGUE FOR PEACE
14. Fambul Tok Reconciliation Project - Sierra Leone
Launched in 2008, Fambul Tok (Krio for "Family Talk") is a face-to-face community-owned programme that brings together perpetrators and victims of the violence in Sierra Leone's civil war through ceremonies rooted in the local traditions of the villages that were affected.
15. Youth for Change: Building Peace in Rwandan Communities (Y4C) Programme - Rwanda
A programme of IREX, Y4C works to empower Rwandan youth from diverse backgrounds to lead their communities in designing and implementing small grant projects that will bring tangible benefits and provide opportunities for communities to work together. The programme seeks to mobilise youth leaders as catalysts for change, develop a culture of peace through community projects, and sustain peace building through exposure to successful examples of community partnerships.
16. Building Paths to Peace: Bo Peace and Reconciliation Movement
By Rosalind Hanson-Alp
This report, published by Conciliation Resources (CR), reviews the work of Sierra Leone's Bo Peace and Reconciliation Movement (BPRM) in post-conflict reconciliation and peace-building following Sierra Leone's civil war. Through a partnership with Conciliation Resources (CR), BPRM identified and trained voluntary peace monitors, or community leaders perceived to be sensitive and neutral intermediaries. According to the report, BPRM has helped to prevent and transform conflict into opportunities where peace, reconciliation, human rights, and participatory governance can be established in order to stimulate social and economic development in communities.
17. Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Course (Nov 12 - 23 2012) Arusha, Tanzania
According to the organisers, MS Training Centre for Development Co-operation (MS-TCDC), by the end of the course, participants will have enhanced their skills in conflict resolution, crisis prevention, and peace building for the promotion of safe and just communities.
SOUL BEAT E-NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES
See these previous e-newsletters related to Democracy and Governance:
The Soul Beat 190 - Citizen Action and Government Accountability
The Soul Beat 199 - The Role of the Media in Promoting Democracy and Governance
The Soul Beat 174 - Media Freedom and Development in Africa
The Soul Beat 154 - Anti-Corruption and Accountability in Africa
The Soul Beat 144 - Communication for Peace and Conflict Prevention
To view ALL past editions of The Soul Beat e-newsletter, click here.
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