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by Paul Clifford, Associate of Responding to Conflict and Freelance Consultant in Conflict Transformation
Introduction
I have been visiting Sierra Leone since 1998 to undertake work for various agencies, mainly under the auspices of Responding To Conflict (RTC). The brutal civil war there, which lasted more than a decade, brought untold misery. Large numbers of people lost their lives, countless others (from babies through to elderly people) were left with physical and psychological damage. The infrastructure of the country has been devastated and there is a ‘lost generation’ of children, many of whom were forced to become child soldiers or ‘bush wives’, i.e. sexual and domestic slaves. Many others simply received no education during the war.
Often at the height of a conflict, international agencies and international staff flee the country. What then frequently goes unrecorded is the work that continues to be done by indigenous NGOs and staff. It is my privilege to have worked with many courageous staff members at the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society (SLRCS) and with some of the communities they serve. The aim of this article is to describe some of the peacebuilding work that SLRCS has been doing.
The work of the Red Cross
The Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies primarily undertake humanitarian and relief work. Red Cross Societies in wealthier countries often support those in poorer countries. The British Red Cross Society (BRCS) has a long history of supporting the SLRCS and approached RTC to see if someone could run a workshop for SLRCS to help them think about the work they could most usefully engage in, both during the conflict and, hopefully, in the post-conflict era. I travelled to Freetown in November 1999 to run that workshop.
The work of SLRCS
The staff of SLRCS had been through a particularly traumatic time in 1999. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had invaded Freetown in January and some staff members were killed. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been expelled from the country by the Government for allegedly supporting and running guns for the RUF (an allegation strenuously denied by the ICRC). Some local people took this to mean that SLRCS supported the RUF and attacked and mutilated several members of SLRCS’ staff.
SLRCS was primarily engaged with relief and humanitarian work. What struck me at the workshop was that, despite the ongoing war and the traumatic events that affected SLRCS directly, there was an unquenchable optimism that the war would soon be over and that it would be important for SLRCS to engage not only in its traditional relief and humanitarian work but also in peacebuilding. There was a young field officer from Bo (Sierra Leone’s second city) who was particularly committed to the peacebuilding work.
BRCS decided to sponsor that field officer on RTC’s ten week Working With Conflict (WWC) course in Birmingham. On his return he trained other staff members in what he had learned, and BRCS supported a further five SLRCS staff members to attend the WWC course. They have thus built up a team of staff members trained in working with conflict. These in turn have trained other SLRCS staff members, staff in other agencies, and community members, truly cascading the training in a way that many of us talk about but rarely achieve in practice. The ideas for peacebuilding projects discussed at the 1999 workshop became realities.
In August 2004 I was invited to return to Sierra Leone to help assess the benefits of the RTC training to SLRCS and the communities they serve. What struck me was the excellence of much of the work that SLRCS is doing, and that people in other areas could learn much that could be useful to them. I will describe (largely in SLRCS’ own words) the work of two of the peacebuilding projects.
Community Animation and Peace Support (CAPS)
The goal of this project is to strengthen the capacity of war-torn communities for poverty reduction and post war reconstruction.
These communities are faced with:
- Little or no post-war support from other agencies or the government
- High levels of destruction in property and lives
- A high level of division and acrimony (especially occasioned by the war)
- A high level of poverty (especially where capacity has been undermined by the war).
CAPS employs a holistic approach that combines post conflict recovery and traditional development practices which empower communities through cross-cutting activities. Community leadership and stakeholders are trained in peace building and conflict transformation skills. Structures are strengthened for mediation, advocacy and better understanding and respect for Human Rights. Community radio listening is promoted to enhance access to information. Awareness and sensitisation campaigns are carried out on peace and development through community theatre.
To facilitate community healing and cohesion there are fora for sharing war experiences; communal cleansing ceremonies that lead to forgiveness and reconciliation; community festivals, and sporting activities involving collective participation.
Community groups including ex-combatants, war widows and single mothers are trained and supported in income-generating activities. Food security is strengthened by providing community groups with seeds and tools. The groups are trained in Community Based First Aid to prevent casualties and fatalities in a situation where there is limited access to health services. Adult literacy is supported to accelerate development processes. Communities that lack water and sanitation facilities are assisted with the construction of wells and latrines. Communities are also provided with construction kits for the rebuilding of individual houses and other community infrastructure like feeder roads.
Each District has a front line staff of six Animators who are located in the communities where they live, and facilitate the project activities. They are trained to articulate the community’s peace and development aspirations. There is also a Project Supervisor in each District, and a national co-ordinator.
Child Advocacy and Rehabilitation (CAR)
It is estimated that 19,000 out of the 75,000 who actively fought in the war were children, most of them forcibly conscripted. In addition to those who fought, over 100,000 children suffered rape and sexual assaults and witnessed the brutal killings of loved ones and neighbours. Thousands of children lost one or both parents. SLRCS started the CAR project to assist in the rehabilitation of children affected by the war, and reintegrate them into child-friendly communities.
The project is directed at children aged 10-18 years who:
- Participated in war-related violence (e.g., as child soldiers)
- Were subjected to war-related violence (e.g., abducted, forcibly conscripted, raped)
- Witnessed extreme war-related violence (e.g., the death of family members).
The project runs rehabilitation centres which children attend weekly from Monday to Friday. A daily meal is provided for the children, which for many of them is the only meal of the day. The children stay for 10 months but their progress is then monitored for a further 6 months to ensure their proper reintegration. Each child is assigned a Care Giver who becomes an ‘uncle’ or ‘aunt’. The Care Givers, who are trained counsellors, give the required psychological support to the children both at the centre and at home.
Each child is also enrolled into a skill of choice, ranging from brick building, concreting and carpentry to tie-dyeing, soap making, catering and tailoring. They attend weekly classes in literacy and numeracy, health and hygiene, physical education, and sexual and reproductive health.
A health clinic is run twice a week at the centres where the children are treated for minor ailments. Some of the beneficiaries are child mothers whose babies receive care at the centre.
The beneficiary communities are sensitised in child protection to enhance their understanding of the issues faced by their children, in a bid to foster their assistance in rehabilitating and reintegrating the children. Income generating activities are also supported as a way of building the economic capacities of communities ravaged by war.
Each centre has ten Activists, who are a direct link with the beneficiaries. Some of them are responsible for imparting skills, others for community sensitisation activities. They are each assigned fifteen beneficiaries to whom they provide psychosocial support throughout the project cycle. Each centre has two advocacy officers, one responsible for Skills, and one for Community Sensitisation. Each centre is managed by a Project Supervisor and there is a national coordinator.
Conclusion
What particularly impresses me is the holistic approach of both programmes. The CAPS projects take into account the fact that for peace to be sustainable there is a need not only for people to have conflict transformation skills and awareness of Human Rights issues, but for there to be community healing and cohesion, for the means of income generation to be developed, and for people to receive practical assistance in physically rebuilding their communities. The CAR projects recognise that the young people in their care need both psychological support and the basic education and skills they can use to generate income. Also of vital importance is the work to help communities accept the return of the young people and to recognize that they will continue to need support in the future.
The work continues in Sierra Leone and meanwhile other West African countries such as Liberia and Nigeria are seeing what they can learn from the Sierra Leone experience that may be useful in their own countries. |
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