What exactly IS #insideoutpeace? And what does it mean for leading transformational social change in the world?
We are happy to announce the release of our new publication Building Peace from the Inside Out: A Transformational Approach to Partnership, which traces the emergence-in-practice of #insideoutpeace as it has been embodied through the decade+ partnership of Catalyst for Peace and Fambul Tok in Sierra Leone, the partnership at the heart of it ….Keep reading this post >
“Imagine a community as like a bowl. Humanitarian aid, whether for peacebuilding, health, education, economic development or any other purpose is like a bottle of water. When there is a crisis, resources get poured into the bowl — but they just go right through. The bowl is cracked. And if you keep pouring water into a cracked container, it widens the cracks and can damage it further — while also ….Keep reading this post >
How can government and funders support community healing and people-led planning and development? That was our focus at planning meetings at Ulster University in Belfast in mid-November. Senior government leaders from Sierra Leone gathered to focus on the planning and rollout of the flagship Wan Fambul National Framework for Local Governance and Rural Development, along with partner organizations (I was there representing Catalyst for Peace and John Caulker from our ….Keep reading this post >
Our thoughts are with Sierra Leoneans as they hold their national elections and await the outcome. You can read below the full statement to press that we issued yesterday together with our Sierra Leonean partner Fambul Tok, calling for peaceful elections and cohesive work to fulfill the nation’s promise after the elections. You can also listen here to the jingle we produced that is now airing across the Sierra Leone, ….Keep reading this post >
Thank you for your leadership.
These words, spoken by a Kenyan woman peacebuilder, both gladdened and surprised me – gladdened because it’s always nice to have someone affirm a positive contribution they feel I’ve made; surprised because my focus had been on serving, not leading.
She spoke at the conclusion of a five-day retreat whose theme was Celebrating and Nurturing Women as Peacebuilders. Co-convened by Catalyst for Peace and Green String Network, ….Keep reading this post >
Catalyst for Peace’s work with Fambul Tok in Sierra Leone has shifted from its initial focus on post-war community reconciliation. As we have written about elsewhere, building on the lessons of that work, we are focused now on creating spaces for communities to lead in their own development, supported by an inclusive governance infrastructure. Simply stated, the work has moved from peacebuilding to development (and inclusive governance) – while still ….Keep reading this post >
In the last week of March, Catalyst for Peace and our partner Fambul Tok moved further towards partnership with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in Sierra Leone to help grow inclusive governance throughout Sierra Leone. Together with Ulster University, CFP, FT and the Ministry convened a gathering in N. Ireland to imagine and think through how to design and operationalize a national policy that would support a truly ….Keep reading this post >
In November, Catalyst for Peace and Fambul Tok hosted an Inter-District Learning and Sharing Conference – Growing Inclusive Governance in Moyamba, Sierra Leone. The conference consolidated learnings from the People’s Planning Process (PPP). The PPP started as a post-Ebola recovery and planning initiative. It soon became the foundation of District-wide efforts to put communities at the center of peace and development with support from local and national government and organizations. The conference created a ….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 >
