Peacebuilding Workshop

This initiative in Damazin provided training in how to be effective at resolving conflicts. This included practicalities such as setting up projects, proposal writing, and fundraising.

Description

The workshop ran from the 20th to the 30th of April, with about 30 participants, mostly young people. They were selected as the most effective and active people in the community. During the ten days the workshop leaders try to provide youth with actual ways of resolving conflict and development issues, which is really what needs to take place instead of the damage of war. AZZA plan to repeat this workshop many times to increase the number of young people trained in development and peace work.

Aims / Objectives

The aim of the initiative is to provide youth with useful knowledge: about the conflict and how to resolve it; how to prevent the damage that appears after war in their areas; how to work effectively in their community; how to establish societies from the community which will register with the Humanitarian Affairs Commision (HAC); and how to get funding to these societies.

How it is Articulated

The initiative starts by teaching youth about AZZA (the implementing organisation). Then the timetable of the workshop over ten days includes the following topics:

• How to prevent conflict;
• How can I be the third party neutral (TPN) in dialogue?;
• How to prevent even a small conflict in your home (the teachers of the workshops are from the local community so they can use examples of this from local habits and tradition);
• How can you deal with conflict in a way to decrease not to increase it;
• How can we work together and what we will gain from working together;
• How to establish a new organisation, how to write a proposal to get funding and how to write a report;
• How to implement a project; and
• How to choose a development project that your area actually needs.

During lectures there is fun and drama which serves the purposes of the workshop. These drama sections fully involve the participants and let them feel that they are a part of the workshop not just a listener.

Achievements / Learning points

• Those youth collected money from themselves to organise the celebration of graduates after the workshop ended, and they learnt in an office for ten days without a fan although it was hot. They came an hour before the start of the workshop and they stayed after the workshop until the teachers left, and kept asking all this time about the best way to achieve peace.
• Some participants chose to get trained for three additional months to be ready to participate in the development of their society.
• The teachers are very friendly; they use an ideal way in dealing with them. In future if you learn from them you will have good community leaders.

Geographical Area of Operation

Damazin –Hay Alsika Hadeed, Sudan.

Funding Resources

AZZA

Organisations Involved

AZZA's offices in Damazin and Roseras Two Twon in Blue Nile State)

Stories

One uneducated man saw how his friends participated fully in the workshop, making him want to attend for 5 days. He became one of the active members of the workshop. He asked the teacher to give him a way to understand, and the teacher helped him in understanding what all the terminology meant with simple language, which created great love from him to the teacher. He then from his simple wage bought sweets for everyone on graduation day as a celebration. He shared some words on the final day of the workshop, and all people came to him. He said (translated) “Yes this peace gives the chance to unknown people to participate fully, so believe me we can also help the peace process.”

A young 17 year old lady wrote the introductory word of the youth. (She has not entered the university yet.) She wrote “My teachers my colleagues, hello and welcome to our village. We really enjoy this workshop of peace building and I hope we manage to be real TPNs who are effective in the society.”