User:Qpnwa

Background and origin of Quaker Peace Network West Africa.

Quaker Peace Network West Africa (QPNWA) is an offshoot of QPN Africa. The Africa Network was born out of a worldwide Quaker and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) initiative for consultation around the question of the prevention of violent conflicts. After two early consultations in the United States and the United Kingdom, a third consultation was held on the African continent. This was in recognition of the importance of reflection by local people on violent conflicts in Africa, as well as the potential role of African Quaker agencies in conflict prevention. At the end of 2001, Quakers in the United States and Europe came together, because of their joint concern regarding the need for conflict prevention. The gathering was dubbed The Quaker Prevention Network (QPN). This meeting was convened in London but was notably lacking an African representation. The second meeting took place in Washington, D.C. with 3 African participants. The third meeting was convened in Africa.

In August of 2002, the third meeting was held in Bujumbura, Rwanda. Quakers from all over the world were invited (including Sri Lanka, Colombia). In this meeting, however, there was a loud and unanimous cry for an all-Africa meeting. Hence, the first all-Africa meeting in Kibuye, Rwanda, in 2003. Following the success of the Kibuye meeting in 2004, another international meeting took place in Kakamega, Kenya. Another meeting in Gitega, Burundi, followed in October 2005.

The October 2005 Gitega meeting became a landmark because it was one of the first meetings with an all-Africa focus. It was realised that, especially with meagre resources, it was very difficult and expensive to move African participants from across the continent, such as a participant coming from Liberia to Burundi. It was not easy to get a direct flight from a West African country to East Africa: If the possibility ever existed, it was far too expensive. It was therefore decided that decentralizing the meeting into its already distinct regional divisions i.e. West, East, South and North Africa, would not only be cost-effective but provide the dimension the organization required in addressing specific regional issues. The regional meetings were held in West, East and Southern Africa in 2006. Following these meetings, the name was subsequently changed to Quaker Peace Network Africa (QPN Africa).

It is worth noting, however, that these were not intended to be open meetings, but were based on selecting people who were engaged in active Quaker work, because the rationale was to share ideas and help each other out. Incorporation of QPN West Africa Quaker Peace Network West Africa (QPNWA) is a company limited by guarantee, incorporated in the UK on 28 April 2008, number 6577931. It was set up with charitable objectives, as shown above. The charity is currently seeking registration with the Charity Commission of England & Wales.

Philosophy and Policy The main aim of QPNWA is to prevent conflicts, thereby preventing the need for peace building. The occurrence of conflict leaves a legacy of fear, hostility, and trauma both within and outside the affected country. This is so because a conflict in one country directly or indirectly affects the wellbeing of a neighbouring country. We have seen so many conflicts spill over to another country. By virtue of this parameter, QPNWA gives a regional dimension and outlook to peace-building and conflict management in West Africa. Therefore, QPNWA works with local partners to address the legacy of violence through activities such as support to local and regional peace processes, restorative justice programs, ethnic dialogue, inter-faith peace building, and grassroots reconciliation. Centre for the Prevention of Violent Conflict

CPVC PNWA proposes the establishment of a West African-based Centre for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, to be headquartered in Sierra Leone. The centre, which will also serve as a topic-related research centre, will seek to promote inter-faith, inter-racial, inter-political and inter-state understanding, while providing a neutral ground for the resolution of disputes arising within communities in West Africa. Goals and Objectives The main goal is to monitor and/or intervene to stabilize a potentially violent conflict before it escalates, by initiating activities that address the root causes as well as the triggers of the dispute. OBJECTIVES

To achieve the projected goal, the main objectives are:

• Providing training for peace and conflict resolution workers in activities and functions relating to peace. • Promotion of inter-faith, inter-racial, inter-political and interstate understanding. • To provide a drop-in centre and activity for unemployed youths. • To provide a drop-in centre for women. • To provide a healthcare centre. • To help educate the community by providing a primary school. • Future projects may include the provision of micro-credit and other initiatives. • To help promote employment and sustainability in the local community. • To build a Quaker Meeting House. • To develop of an office in Bradford U.K. to oversee the work and raise funds.

The Solution…

The proposed construction of a West African-based Centre for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, strategically located in Rokel Village, near Freetown, Sierra Leone. This centre will provide the necessary support for monitoring conflict-related indices, resolving conflicts, providing both physiological and psychological support to victims or endangered (that is vulnerable) groups. Last, but not least, it will provide adequate training to transform idle lives to ones of resourcefulness and activity.

Land Acquisition and Site Location

A 1.6 acre site has been procured at Rokel Village in Sierra Leone, as the ideal site to construct the proposed centre.

Projected Project Completion Duration

It is estimated that when the estimated project cost is realised through donations, the construction of the centre will be completed and operable in three (3) years: commencing this April to April 2012

The Premises

The West African sub-region has always witnessed and suffered conflict. The underlying motives for trouble in West Africa have been tribal, religious, clannish, sectarian or rebellious in nature. The West African sub-region has always and incessantly witnessed and suffered so many conflicts─tribal, religious, clannish, sectarian and rebellious motives have mostly under toned and characterized conflicts in West Africa. Nearly ten of the sixteen states in West Africa have experienced militant unrest, civil war, ethnic and/or religious conflict(s). Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal, Gambia and Nigeria have all experienced brutal conflicts in one way or the other. The other West African states, which often are referred to as relatively calm and peaceful, have also experienced - or are even currently experiencing - some form of conflict tension (eg. Ghana has seen numerous coups since independence).

What is discomfiting about these conflicts is that, even though they could have started with so-called skirmishes and clashes, the lack of attention and understanding about their causes, nature, history and traditions and the motivations of the parties involved has, in almost all cases, allowed these skirmishes and clashes to degenerate into brutal tribal, clannish and religious conflicts or even civil wars.

What remains pitiful about these conflicts, that have produced needless massacres, destruction, devastation and resulted in hunger, poverty, disease, unproductivity, waste and misplacement of resources, human degradation and immoral vices, is that they are often preventable, manageable and even resolvable. The missing link is the lack of effort to respond by investigating, understanding and giving them due and adequate attention.

It is for these reasons that Quaker Peace Network West Africa (QPNWA) has seen a need and seeks to establish a Centre for Research to help investigate and prevent all ongoing, pending and future conflicts in West Africa. Quaker Peace Network West Africa is of the firm belief that, if brewing conflicts are investigated early and in good faith, their detonation ‘slide’ might be better into major conflicts can be prevented and their resolution made possible. It is therefore paramount ‘important’ might be better to consider an establishment such as we have proposed that will provide the tools necessary to investigate pending, ongoing and future conflicts in West Africa. Timely prevention, management and resolution would minimize security risks, political instability, human massacres, suffering and the resulting poverty, hunger, disease and dehumanization.

The centre will also serve as a research coordinating and supporting centre, to assist student researchers in universities and institutions in the Diaspora more usually single who might come or (unnecessary) want to come to West Africa to do research on conflict and peace studies. It is intended that the centre will also forge collaborations with universities and other academic bodies to share information via research and related work.

SITE DESCRIPTION QPNWA has purchased a 1.6 acre land at Rokel, a village on the outskirts of Freetown, for the location of the proposed centre. The Rokel Village-based location of 19,000 inhabitants is strategic to the Freetown/Waterloo Highway. It is often argued that “until there is peace and security in Rokel, Freetown cannot be that safe". It could be noted that the community became popular when for several years it played host to one of Sierra Leone’s strategic and most dreaded security posts, the Rokel Checkpoint. This checkpoint was heavily guarded by both police and military personnel, who provided round-the-clock security ‘security’ is not countable during the civil war. When the war was officially declared ended in 2002, the checkpoint was dissolved and, since then, criminals have moved in, taking advantage of the situation to once more create mischief, using the village as an entry point to Freetown.

Choosing Rokel as the ideal location is strategically tantamount to tackling the agents of conflict at their core.

A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO CONFLICT PREVENTION For the past three years, QPNWA has pioneered a pilot programme at Rokel to test a number of approaches to the issue of conflict prevention. These holistic approaches have sought to create an opportunity where the community can see a future for themselves through co-operation and through belief in a shared future. The pilot programme has sought to encourage conflict prevention through:

• Increased knowledge of ways to resolve conflict; • Facilitating positive interaction between victims and perpetrators of the ten years’ conflict; • Promoting discussion and sharing experiences of dealing with conflict; • Assisting victims and perpetrators to settle and meet their basic needs; • Supporting economic development by cash injections through TWPs; • Improving sustainable livelihoods options; • Rebuilding social infrastructure; • Enhancing social stability.

Conflict Prevention Centre

Violence exacts a high cost on world development. Over the last ten years, violent conflicts have significantly and directly reduced economic growth in about sixty countries and have hampered poverty reduction efforts and limited progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. About half of these 60 countries currently experience violent conflict or are in post-conflict transition. The other half experience high levels of violent crimes, street violence, domestic violence, and other kinds of common violence. “Common violence” is defined in opposition to politically motivated violence. It is often, though not always, related to personal and property crime. Common violence has often increased significantly in post-conflict countries after large-scale politically motivated violence ends. While all our programmes will have the prevention of conflict as one of the key components of our activities, we shall also set-up a new team that will work on conflict, crime and violence. Its aim is to prevent the violent escalation of a dispute. Conflict Prevention may be described in the context of: • Monitoring and/or intervening to stabilize a potentially violent conflict before its outbreak, by initiating activities that address the root causes as well as the triggers of a dispute. • Establishing mechanisms that detect early warning signs and record specific indicators that may help to predict impending violence. • Institutionalizing the idea of preventing conflict at the local, regional, and international levels. Conference and Retreat Centre

The centre and retreat centre will serve two purposes: first, it will act as a meeting point for Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Governmental organizations and Community Based Organizations working towards the prevention of violent conflict; and second, the centre will also provide a venue for communities that are in disagreement to meet in a friendly and non-hostile environment, to iron out their differences.

The centre shall be operated exclusively for charitable and educational purposes, in particular the following:

• To educate individuals, groups, and the general public in such knowledge areas as peace and conflict prevention, religious and spiritual traditions, ethnic, racial, and gender identities and values, ecologically sound living, the significance of diversity among peoples, cooperative living and working, and inner peace and peace in the total society; • To encourage and develop study and research programmes that relate to the programmes of the Centre, and to make that information available to the general public.

Library Projects

As part of efforts to encourage reading and education, QPNWA proposes to build both a static and a virtual library at its centre. It is hoped that the libraries will have Internet connections and will serve as enlightened educational information centres for communities in Africa lacking such institutions. Building these will enable African communities to achieve higher standards of education in their immediate communities.

Peace Media

Through our peace journalistic programme, QPNWA aims to shed light on the structural and cultural causes of violence bearing upon the lives of people in a conflict arena. It aims to frame conflict as consisting of many parties pursuing many goals, rather than a simple dichotomy. We wish people to understand that conflict involves many parties pursuing multiple goals, rather than simple ‘them and us’ situations. An explicit aim of our peace journalism programme is to promote peace initiatives from whatever quarter, by allowing the reader to distinguish between stated, but possibly misleading, positions and the real goals. Specific tools used for this include websites, newsletters, radio stations, film and television programmes, and presentations using projectors and documentaries.

Drop-in Centre for Youths

The primary objective of this centre is targeting young people/offenders at the outset of a career of crime, aiming to “nip the career in the bud”, and transform a potentially negative role model into a positive one. By targeting both youth involved in violence and youth that are about to take up a career in crime, the chances of changing attitudes are enhanced. Moreover, the project seeks to build foundation structures that will facilitate constructive dialogue between the youth, academics, policy makers, politicians and the media in the context of peace.

Education/School Facilities

The education programme at both the primary, vocational and adult level will be administered by the drop-in centre staff. Almost all primary and secondary school facilities around Rokel and surrounding villages have been severely damaged. Roofs of buildings were often ripped off and their doors and windows forcefully removed. At present, many schools are housed in temporary shelters as their buildings have been destroyed. All schools are void of furnishings such as desks, benches, tables, cupboards, etc., and teaching and learning materials. While all the schools in neighbouring Waterloo and at Rokel are government-approved, it is estimated that only 66% of teachers are qualified. The QPNWA drop-in and retreat–centre programme intends to get involved in educational service delivery, as well as to bridge the gap at primary through to vocational level. The centre will also run an adult educational centre.

UK Education Programme

A limited number of scholarships are offered by QPNWA to West African students wanting to pursue a master’s program in Peace and Conflict Studies at the UK. These programs aim to reinforce and connect the capacity of individual and institutions through further training.

Health Facilities

As with educational facilities, Public Health Units (PHUs) have been affected throughout Sierra Leone. Although not all PHUs have been damaged, the dispersion of staff and the poor accessibility due to the status of the road infrastructure results in most units being non-functional. The QPNWA programme, therefore, hopes to get involved in health delivery or services only at our village. At the same time, it will also liaise with other agencies which are providing, or willing to provide, longer-term support to health services and the repair or rehabilitation of buildings around our target area.

Sports and Community Centre

Research has shown that sports help rehabilitate young people who have been involved in armed conflict, by drawing them out of violent routines and offering them socially-acceptable and structured patterns of behaviour. Research on the reintegration of former combatants in Sierra Leone has shown that participation in sports helped to make a shift from a social context in which violence is ‘normalised’ towards one in which working together as a team is recognised and acknowledged in ‘peaceful and socially-accepted ways’.

During the war period, the only attractions able to bring people together were sports. It is astonishing that participating in sports continued in Freetown, even in between battles and bomb shelling. Such sports helped to a large extent in preventing Sierra Leone from experiencing the genocide that occurred in other countries. ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS The Eco-village project will seek to address the issue of sustainability, not only in the environmental sense but also in social, economic and spiritual terms. It will comprise the following projects:

Ecological Buildings

This project, in collaboration with a local construction firm, will embark on the building of Eco-friendly houses using available natural materials that are environmentally friendly. This will be for the benefit of ex-combatants and others affected by the war and in dire need of housing. The houses will be built using clay bricks, for their ability to maintain cooler indoor temperatures. The buildings, which will incorporate a Low Cost Housing approach, will feature rainwater harvesting and storage facilities.

Renewable Energy Systems

The organization will provide solar panels to produce electricity in an environmentally friendly and non-polluting way, utilizing the abundant sunshine in the tropics. In addition, more efficient technologies, such as low-energy lighting, will be used to reduce consumption and electricity bills.

Waste Management

Sierra Leone faces serious waste management problems, particularly in the capital, where waste matter is normally dumped in and around residential areas, posing environmental and health hazards. The practice where most households burn their waste has similar consequences. The proposed project aims to introduce environmentally friendly ways of waste disposal and recycling. It is hoped that the success of this project will be representative of a model for the entire country and elsewhere. All household waste within and around the village will be collected at a central point on a weekly basis, with a strong emphasis on households separating their wastes─putting organic wastes like food separately from bottles, tins, paper etc. The organic waste materials could be used to produce compost for agricultural purposes.

Biological Wastewater System Project

The project aims to reduce water consumption by recycling waste water. The main source of water within the village is wells, as the area lacks pipe-borne water. Water would be pumped using either a hand or a solar-powered pump. A special concrete storage facility would be constructed to store all wastewater from domestic activities and bathing. This water, collected at a central point, could be treated and filtered and used to flush toilets, etc.

Organic Food Production

This project will see the introduction of organic methods of food production using natural fertilizers in the form of waste processed as compost to maintain a healthy soil, which is the centre piece of organic farming. Products from the farm would be used to sustain members in the village and the remainder sold in the local market.

Eco-village Education

The eco-village education project will support the move to a more sustainable eco village environment. The QPNWA education team will visit schools, colleges and communities to help children, adults and businesses understand the issues of climate change and other ecological issues. In-house seminars and lectures will take place at the Education Centre. This will be an on-going activity and not limited to the eco village alone. Essentially, this should make participants environmentally responsive.

Sustainability

Once the project is completed it is hoped that it will be self-sustaining, with the beneficiaries providing most of the labour that would be needed in the village. Our aim is to achieve sustainable development by enhancing the economic, social and physical environment for community benefit.

QPNWA hopes to develop a sustainable economy within the village, where beneficiaries would be able to grow what they eat, engage in income generation activities, gain knowledge and be self sufficient.

Transportation

Lack of transport is a key constraint to both developmental and economic activity. The provision of two mini vans, two motorcycles and ten bicycles could help facilitate movements.

Reporting and Accountability

Narrative and financial reports will be prepared by the QPNWA Organizing Committee and its Trustees. All original receipts will be collected at the time of the funded activity. At present, only a minimum level of confidentiality is prescribed. However, this could change depending on the content of matters discussed during the actual gathering. Photos will be taken by designated photographers assigned to record our events.

Follow-up

Anticipated follow-up activities will include meetings of QPN Commissions, and the annual meeting of the regional QPNWA and QPN groups (West Africa, East Africa, Great Lakes Region, and Southern Africa). Other follow-up activities will include a range of joint activities to be defined during the actual consultation, but will almost certainly include planning and preparation of the next QPN-appeal in 2010.