Local Correspondents.

Our research is carried out by ‘Local Correspondents’. We take considerable time and care choosing a person with excellent knowledge of the local organisations and their work; who is enthusiastic about the aim and potential of Insight on Conflict; and who is as reasonable, impartial, and dispassionate about the conflict as possible. We ask for measured views of the conflict and a selection of initiatives representative of the range of work being done by organisations or individuals of different political, religious, or ethnic affiliations.

Local Correspondents may be able to provide bespoke services to users, for example commissioned research, interviews, and fixing services for media. Contact the Project Manager for further info: ruairi@peacedirect.org .

Ian Bancroft, Serbia

Ian Bancroft is the co-founder of TransConflict, an organization undertaking conflict and post-conflict transformation projects and research throughout the Western Balkans. Ian is also a columnist for The Guardian on Western Balkans affairs, with a specific focus on Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Prior to founding TransConflict, Ian worked as a consultant to the Democratization Department of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, specialising in several aspects of good governance, particularly local government reform and civil society development. Ian completed his undergraduate and post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics, focusing primarily on democratization and development in deeply-divided societies.

Hasan Dodwell, Colombia

Hasan is a member of the International Peace Observatory (IPO) in Colombia. IPO offers physical and political accompaniment to non-violent organisations involved in processes of resistance and the protection of human rights.

An advocate of international solidarity he has spent time working in London and Washington on projects for the advancement of human rights and social justice in Nicaragua and Colombia respectively. He has travelled across Latin America.

In June 2007 he graduated from King’s College London with a BA in War Studies.

Rasha El Fangry

Rasha El-Fangry, Sudan

Rasha El Fangry is 32 and from Khartoum. She has been involved with peacebuilding since she was a university student, and became involved with Insight on Conflict through her work with Peace Direct. Rasha is the cordinator for the Collaborative for Peace in Sudan, a group that brings together peacebuilding organisations from North and South Sudan.

She attended university between 1997 and 2002, three years before the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed. Sudan was still a volatile country and there was a lot of tension and conflict between students. She joined the Voluntary Body for Youth which ran initiatives to bring students together for peaceful discussion and debate and to build relationships between diverse groups. When she left university, Rasha worked voluntarily for 2 years for SUDO – the Sudan Social Development Organisation, a local Sudanese NGO, before working voluntarily for a further 2 years for the Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa (YALDA).

In 2006, Peace Direct and 17 member organisations set up the Collaborative for Peace in Sudan – a movement of peacebuilding organisations working across the North/South divide. Rasha has been the co-ordinator of the project since its inception, and has seen it grow to over 30 organisations. She is also the Sudan local correspondent for Peace Direct’s Insight on Conflict website.

Apart of her work as a coordinator, Rasha seeks on her own to mobilise women, individually and in groups, to help them set up bodies to unite them and assisting them voluntarily to develop their own ideas into small projects. Most of these run along the theme of Women & Environment. Currently, she is helping several women groups in the rural regions of the Sudan to diversify their sources of income by processing wild fruit, jointly producing handicrafts, and pooling small-volume funds by subscribing less than 1 USD a week. She hopes this endeavour will stop the devastating impact other means of livelihoods are exacting on the environment; and help to mediate the fierce competition over natural resources which is a major cause of conflict.

Rasha speaks English and Arabic.

Harsha

Buddhika Harshadeva – Sri Lanka

Located in Colombo, Harsha is our Local Correspondent in Sri Lanka. Harsha speaks English and Sinhala.

“It was a midday in Colombo. I was travelling to Kurunegala, my home town by train. Suddenly the sun was blocked by black heavy smoke with an unbelievable sound. I was running for my life with others who had blood spread on their body. After, it was reported that there was a suicide bomb attack in Colombo railway station. On that day, I was a helpless human being in front of dying and crying men, women and children. I did not know what to do but I realised just one thing: I can not be a person who remains silent, simply witnessing an inhuman war. In my journey of life I have met many others who are trying in different ways to bring peace to the world. For me, being a part of Insight on Conflict means that I am supporting the work for peace, connecting people, networking them and forming cross cultural-ethnic-religious bridges based on a fundamental desire for a more humane world. When I think of that, in the middle of all the turmoil around me, I am able to look upon the world with a smile, with hope.”

Ashima Kaul

Ashima Kaul – Kashmir

Ashima Kaul is a Consultant on Kashmir with Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP). She coordinates WISCOMP’s Athwaas initiative in Jammu and Kashmir. An independent journalist by profession, she has participated in a number of national and international conferences and training programs related to women’s leadership, peace and security, conflict resolution, intra-Kashmir dialogue and peacebuilding. She has an active interest in interfaith dialogue and is a founder-member of Yakjah Reconciliation and Development Network – a network of Kashmiri professionals working on reconciliation and youth and women’s empowerment. As a founder member of Control Arms Foundation India she is also working on gun control, proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Jammu and Kashmir. Her interests include making films and photography. She has recently completed a documentary film ‘Athwaas –The Journey’ on the Athwaas initiative and its unique and sustainable peacebuilding efforts in Jammu and Kashmir. Currently is working on ‘In Pursuit of Change’, a film on Kashmiri women’s political participation in Kashmir.

IOC Local Correspondent Flory

Flory Kazingufu – DR Congo

Flory has worked for Insight on Conflict since 2007. His has a background in social sciences and theology and a strong interest in grassroots peacebuilding. He is the founder of the Foundation Chirezi, a group working on several peace projects in east DR Congo.

Flory speaks English, French, Swahili, Mashi, Lingala and also some local African dialects.

Landry

Landry Ninteretse – Burundi

Landry is Insight on Conflict’s Local Correspondent for Burundi. Landry is an active member of the Amahoro Youth Club, an organisation set up to increase the participation of young people in the social and political life of Burundi. He has a particular interest in environmental issues.

Landry speaks English and French.

Stephen Oola – Uganda

Stephen Oola is an MA Candidate at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. Oola is also an Advocate (Attorney) in Uganda and worked with the Refugee Law Project, and the Faculty of Law, Makerere University as Transitional Justice Lawyer for the Beyond Juba Project from 2007 -2009. Oola graduated with a Law Degree at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda in 2006. He obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (PGD. LP), Law Development Centre, Kampala (2007). In 2008, he acquired a Post Graduate Diploma in Conflict Management and Peace Studies (PGC) from the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies (IPSS) Gulu University, Gulu, Uganda.

Before that Oola also worked with the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC) Makerere University as a Research Assistant on social, economic, cultural and land rights for conflict affected northern Uganda. Oola continues to be a strong voice for peace and justice in northern Uganda and participated in consultation and grass root mobilization during the Juba peace talks. He led the drafting of the proposed National Reconciliation Bill for Uganda. Oola served as the technical and policy advisory committee of the Northern Uganda Transitional Justice Working Group (NUTJWG) and is a member of the Northern Uganda Monitoring and Evaluation Network (NUMET). He also works with a group of peacebuilding youths –the Alliance for Community Support Organisations promoting peace and facilitating reintegration and reconciliation with former child soldiers. Currently Oola is a Research Intern with the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), Cape Town, South Africa.

Ambika Pokhrel

Ambika Pokhrel – Nepal

Ambika Pokhrel is our Local Correspondent in Nepal. Ambika has significant experience in the field of conflict transformation through her work with her organisation, the National Peace Campaign.

Ambika speaks Nepali, English and Hindi.

Siatta Scott Johnson – Liberia

Siatta Scott Johnson was born in Buchanan, Liberia in 1974 and raised in rural Grand Bassa County. She fled Grand Bassa in the early 1990s with the outbreak of war and eventually settled in Monrovia, where she was living during the end of the civil war in 2003.

Scott Johnson earned her B.A. in mass communications from the University of Liberia after the school re-opened following the war. She holds certificates in political reporting from the University of Liberia and in media from the Press Union of Liberia/UNMIL, and a diploma in journalism from the Liberia Institute of Journalism. She has five years of experience as a reporter and producer at DCTV, one of Liberia’s only broadcast television stations, and is a founding member of Omuahtee Africa Media.

Siatta served as media and communications outreach person for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Gender Based Violence project. She is presently the creative director for Smart Media Liberia, a local media group that engages in community awareness on GBV, Peace Building, Environment, ETC through television productions.

Zahid Shahab Ahmed – Pakistan

Since June 2008, Zahid has been a PhD scholar at the University of New England (Australia) specializing in the area of political and international studies. Prior to this, he worked for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) as a Programme Officer. At the FES, Zahid was responsible to develop tools and guidelines on peace and conflict impact assessment (PCIA) and also insure the implementation of PCIA in development projects across the Asian region. He also offered workshops on PCIA in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. He joined the FES Pakistan office, soon after completing a Masters in Peace Education from the United Nations accredited University for Peace (UPEACE), Costa Rica in August 2006. Zahid has done MA in Sociology and BA with Journalism & Economics.

During studies at the UPEACE, Zahid went to Sao Paulo (Brazil) in July 2006 to offer a workshop on “Youth Cooperation in Peace Education”. He also participated in the UNESCO Chair on Human Rights conference (USA) and also in a summer course “advanced study of non-violent conflicts” from the Fletcher School, Tufts University (USA). He was also involved in the UPEACE project “Peace Education in the Muslim Context”.

Zahid has travelled to over 15 countries across the world to promote peace and human rights through collaboration with international organizations, lectures, workshops and paper presentations. In February 2009, he was invited to the World Conference on Humanitarian Studies in the Netherlands to present a paper on PCIA in the Pakistan context. Zahid has been conducting researches and publishing on issues of peacebuilding and conflict in South Asia. He co-authored the following study in 2007: Attitudes of Teachers in India and Pakistan: Texts and Contexts, Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), New Delhi.

We are looking to expand Insight on Conflict to other regions in the future. If you are based in a region affected by conflict and would be interested in being a Local Correspondent, please contact us. In particular, we are looking for new Local Correspondents to cover out-going Local Correspondents for Lebanon and Thailand.

Other Thanks

Since relaunching the site, we have had a number of contributors to the site. Montserrat Chivite contributed much of the information for the background conflict profiles. Daniel Pardo also helped with conflict profiles and researching peacebuilding organisations in Colombia, his home country.

Some book recommendations have been taken with permission from the Traveller’s Handbook.