“Sheku IS Fambul Tok,” said John Caulker (the ED of Fambul Tok) when we spoke after learning of the sudden passing last week of one of the founding leaders of Fambul Tok, our dear colleague, friend and brother, Sheku Koroma. And while John’s statement helps explain the depth of the shock and grief at Sheku’s loss, it also illuminates a core strength, promise and power of Fambul Tok, and indeed ….Keep reading this post >
The sudden passing of Sheku Koroma, a founding staff member of Fambul Tok, not only stunned his colleagues at Fambul Tok and all of us at Catalyst for Peace (CFP), it raised the question of how to honor the life of a beloved family member who, in a heartbeat, was no longer among us.
One way is to remember Sheku by telling the family’s story – the larger ‘fambul’ he helped ….Keep reading this post >
“Each of us will die one day –
it doesn’t matter.
More important is to practice living.”
These lines from a poem in my new book – Light Reading: Poems from a Pilgrim Journey – have everything to do with why I feel privileged to join Catalyst for Peace as Senior Partner and Poet-in-Residence.
Why? Because I can’t imagine a better place for me than CFP to practice living. I’m invited to ….Keep reading this post >
by Amy Potter Czajkowski
I am deeply grateful for the invitation to join the Catalyst for Peace staff. I have had a number of consulting and other relationships with CFP over the years, but I’m now officially on board. I love working for an organization grounded in values and led by a strong sense of vision and purpose. CFP embraces whole people and whole systems peacebuilding and has been pioneering in ….Keep reading this post >
Local people – and especially local women – are the real experts in keeping their communities Ebola-free. Fambul Tok’s “Peace Mothers” – local women who have been leading their communities in healing the wounds of Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war – have used their networks, skill and commitment to provide critical leadership in preventing the spread of Ebola. They show how working locally and over the long term helps create resilient ….Keep reading this post >
“We are saying deal with Ebola in a way that structures will be in place to handle post-Ebola discussions because experience or history has taught us that Ebola – there’s always a possibility that it will come again. So how do we put in place structures in the communities, in the districts, in the villages, to ensure that if Ebola comes again, we’ll have structures in place to deal with ….Keep reading this post >
We don’t see sustainable peace being led from the bottom-up, or from the top-down–but rather, from the inside-out.
Making visible the concentric circles of roles in the peacebuilding system, and the international aid system more generally, allows us to see the multiple points of action and impact, and the complete set of relationships, necessary for sustainable peace. Each level is important, and interconnected.
In our approach, we examine relationships between each level ….Keep reading this post >
Why do I tell this story now? Because it shows how creative, expectant, appreciative perspectives from outside a community in conflict can support that community as it works to build peace from within.
It was November 14, 2007. John Caulker and I gathered with a handful of trusted colleagues in the Carlyle Hotel in Washington, D.C. to plan the launch of an as-yet-unnamed program of community reconciliation in Sierra Leone. John ….Keep reading this post >
In her article in the Building Peace Forum, CFP President Libby Hoffman shows how fostering community agency in peacebuilding as well as in national health crisis response (like the current Ebola crisis in West Africa) builds ‘social immunity’, leaving communities stronger for handling the next crisis:
Empowered, trusted local voices and leadership magnify the success of prevention efforts, and they do so while strengthening community capacity for the post-Ebola ….Keep reading this post >
The rural women of Sierra Leone suffered the most during the war. And now they are showing the world that they are so much more than victims ⎯ they are mighty peacebuilders, and mighty leaders. And they are healing their communities, and themselves, in their role as Fambul Tok Peace Mothers.
When the local people and communities most impacted by war are given the chance to lead in building the peace after ….Keep reading this post >
