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Posts Categorized: News-and-events

People’s Planning Process – a map

Posted by Amy Czajkowski & filed under Blog, News-and-events, Updates From the Field.

The People’s Planning Process as Fambul Tok has developed it in Sierra Leone works from the village to the district level with extensive meetings, sensitization and the establishment of platforms that will be long-term mechanisms for organizing at the section, chiefdom and district levels. It involves representation of all stakeholder groups and is carried out in partnership with traditional leaders and local government. Throughout the process, Fambul Tok staff compile ….Keep reading this post >

Growing Inclusive Governance – From the Inside Out

Posted by Libby Hoffman & filed under Blog, News-and-events, Updates From the Field.

CFP continues its decade-long partnership with Fambul Tok (FT) in Sierra Leone to support communities in post-Ebola healing that leads to engagement in healthy partnerships for long-term peace and development. The People’s Planning Process places people and communities in the very center of recovery and on-going development. The PPP is growing from village to section to chiefdom to district to, ultimately, the national level. Using an inside-out approach, this process is ….Keep reading this post >

Tribute to Fambul Tok colleague, Sheku Koroma

Posted by Amy Czajkowski & filed under Blog, News-and-events.

This morning 4600 miles away, my colleague Sheku Koroma passed on after a short illness. I didn’t even know he was sick. I was stunned, shocked and in disbelief. I had just emailed him to ask for clarification about content for a manual we are working on together. Catalyst for Peace and Fambul Tok, where Sheku has worked since its inception, have been partner organizations, and the staff of both ….Keep reading this post >

Grateful To Join Catalyst for Peace

Posted by Charles Gibbs & filed under Blog, News-and-events.

“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 >

Joining the CFP Staff

Posted by Amy Czajkowski & filed under Blog, News-and-events.

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 women lead in preventing Ebola

Posted by Libby Hoffman & filed under Blog, News-and-events.

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 >

Ebola Response: Strengthening the local, building strategically

Posted by CFP & filed under News-and-events.

“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 >

Focusing Ebola aid LOCALLY and LONG TERM builds ‘social immunity’, says CFP president

Posted by CFP & filed under News-and-events.

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 >

CFP Senior Fellow John Caulker on Ebola in Sierra Leone

Posted by CFP & filed under News-and-events.

John Caulker, Senior Fellow at Catalyst for Peace and Executive director at Fambul Tok, appeared on MidPoint to give an update on Ebola in Sierra Leone. He discussed the impact of the disease and how groups like his are handling the marathon fight of against it, as well as what’s happening with children orphaned by Ebola.

Blog banner image (c) Sara Terry for Catalyst for Peace

Libby discusses “Forgiving the Unforgivable” at TEDx

Posted by CFP & filed under News-and-events.

In Libby’s TEDxDirigo talk on “Forgiving the Unforgivable,” she describes the values and processes at the center of Fambul Tok.

From her introduction:

“Most of the media coverage we are privy to portrays Africa as a place of darkness, despair, disease, conflict, and  savagery in many respects. On somewhat of a flip-side of that, we also hear a lot about how we have a ‘save Africa.” We see lots of stories about move ….Keep reading this post >