A Summary of Peace Bridges' Approach to Community Peacebuilding
Originally conceived to help pastors and churches provide mediation and conciliation services, Peace Bridges’ vision has deepened and expanded over the last six years. We have now provided long-term training and partnership/mobilization services to over 100 community peacebuilders. Our partnership projects include peace education in prisons, schools, churches, NGOs, and other community organizations. Today, Peace Bridges is a capacity building organization dedicated to helping others develop peacebuilding and the necessary organizational skills to design, deliver and evaluate peace programs.****
Context is always important, even more so when you are integrating peace programming into a variety of contexts with a diversity of partners. The following articles helps explain the background and context of our work. These posts are followed by detailed information about our Programme Design.
CONTEXT:
The Wider Context
Cambodia is a country that has rarely been without significant armed conflict and upheaval since the 15th century....
The Immediate Context
Christian churches and development organisations in Cambodia provide the immediate context for our peace programming.
Background and Objectives
In 2002, the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia (EFC) appointed three task forces. One of them was assigned to issues related to "Unity" and a sub-committee was appointed to develop specific and concrete strategies for dealing with conflict within the Cambodian churches....
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Note: You can also download Peace Bridges' External Evaluation (February 2009)
For a better glimpse at Peace Bridges' programming and effectiveness, please take a look at our most recent external evaluation. It includes over 40 stories of significant change illustrating how peace education can impact our lives, from living peacefully with ourselves, our families, our communities, and institutions.
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PROGRAMME DESIGN:
Problem Identification and Selection
The broader conflict context in Cambodia undergirds Peace Bridge’s belief that sustainable peace and development in Cambodia requires changes to systems of domination and violence within families, religious institutions, communities and larger systems of governance. This requires transformation of a critical mass of people within various systems to a vision, values, knowledge and skills of non– violent peace making practices.
Primary Stakeholders
Beneficiaries of the program are generally of four types, based upon the formation of the values, vision and skills of peace builders and Peace Bridges' strategies to mobilise them to transfer these values, vision and skills to others.Ensuring Participation with Vulnerable and Marginalised Communities
Peace Bridges works to ensure participation of the most vulnerable and marginalised in communities, as well as develop methods for program information to be shared with the community.
Other Stakeholders
Peace Bridges tries to cultivate awareness of the skills and resources the local community brings to this project, as well as other stakeholder involvement in our projects.Projected Affected Persons
Peace Bridges recognises the potential of mediation, conciliation and peace education to transform conflicting partes to more sustainable and fairer agreements than arbitrated or advocacy based agreements in many instances. Yet it is also appreciated that these same processes can lead to the abuse of power especially among the vulnerable when seeking fair outcomes from people in strong positions of power.
Impact and Sustainability
Peace Bridge’s vision for lasting impacts is to gradually reach into the intra-personal, inter-personal and organisational domains of peace builders who will model and envision non-violent conflict transformation practices. Through mobilising peace builders in their circles of influence, peace builders will spread impacts to families, communities, churches and governing bodies in the wider society....
Building Peaceful Families, Project Summary
This is a summary of the Building Peaceful Families program, including the background, justification, timelines, and anticipated activities. You can also download this document in word.doc format HERE.
