Notes

Outline

Participatory     Peace Brigades International Peace Education 2006

The Indonesia Project (IP) of PBI has a Participatory Peace Education (PPE) component to its peace-building work with civil society. Since April 2000 the IP has promoted the nonviolent resolution of conflict to accelerate peace-building efforts in Indonesia. This is achieved by facilitating conflict transformation workshops and other alternative peace-building activities.

The PPE programme is based on the needs of local actors that are concerned with peace-building. PBI works with local partners and facilitators to develop strong networks and to build capacity for conflict transformation among local NGOs, authorities, and religious groups. As part of the strategy to maintain the sustainability of the programme, follow up activities are carried out and training for trainers is offered at the request of local partners.

Since 2000 the IP has conducted 24 workshops in West Timor, Flores, East Timor, Aceh, Jakarta, Medan, Sulawesi and Papua, with various segments of the community including religious and traditional leaders, youth groups, women’s groups, PBI client organisations, human rights activists and authorities.

PPE workshops are based on the ‘elicitive method’ adapted from the work of John Paul Lederach, whereby participants form the main resource in creating their own models of conflict transformation which matches their specific local context. Additionally, culture is perceived as the basis of conflict transformation so the facilitator’s role is simply to act as a catalyst for drawing out and emphasizing local wisdom.

In the absence of PPE trained field volunteers, the workshops were initially carried out by members of the PPE committee; PBI volunteers with experience in peace education. Most of them live abroad, flying back and forth to Indonesia to conduct the workshops. With the arrival of an in-country PPE Coordinator in 2004 and PPE field teams in 2006, the role of the committee members in the field decreased, although they continued to provide guidance and support for PPE activities in the field.

The PPE Coordinator is currently based in Yogyakarta, but spends a lot of time in the field to support the work of the PPE teams. The main role of the PPE Coordinator is to facilitate the transition from old style drop-in workshops to long term community building on the ground.

Long before the establishment of PPE field teams, the existing PBI sub-teams started to conduct small scale peace and community building activities to complement the PPE workshops. ‘Peace Discussions’ were organised together with local NGOs to provide a platform for civil society to discuss issues they identified, such as: the role of customary law in conflict transformation and the role of Islam in the Aceh peace process.

The teams also opened ‘Peace Libraries’ to contribute to a broader local understanding of nonviolent conflict resolution. The libraries, which contain books and films on a variety of peace related topics in English and Indonesian, have been continuously expanding, especially in Wamena where access to information is limited and levels of education are low.

The teams responded to local community interest in audio-visual material by organising regular ‘Peace Film Screenings’. The films have proved to be a useful tool for reflection and discussion. Survivors of violence have said that watching films about survivors in other places helps them to deal with their own trauma.