How to Reintegrate Girls Through Participation
The reintegration of former child soldiers in their former communities poses challenges. SFCG attended a performance by former child soldiers who formed a dance troop.
Next Friday, October 7th, Search for Common Ground is hosting a discussion with the Washington Network on Children and Armed Conflict (WNCAC) on Participatory Approaches to Girls’ Reintegration – Lessons from Participatory Action Research in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and northern Uganda.
Efforts to reintegrate war-affected young people often aspire to enable ‘participation,’ yet most initiatives fall short of achieving meaningful participation. read more…
Search for Common Ground at the Zimbabwe Film Festival
“Finding Common Ground” is this year’s theme of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival (ZIFF), which runs from Friday, September 30 to October 7. SFCG has been working with ZIFF to support this platform for dialogue through entertainment.
Besides showing films in numerous locations, ZIFF is also putting on workshops to train young filmmakers. In these workshops ZIFF will use extracts from The Team and SFCG’s country director Eunice Njovana has been invited to speak on the work of Search during one of the training sessions. In addition, ZIFF is showing the trailer of The Team at their screening locations including those outside of Harare.
The focus of the film festival is Finding Common Ground within the African continent and 60 films featured tell many stories through fiction and documentary. read more…
The Common Ground Awards are coming up (October 27) and if you’d like to come get your tickets now!
Leading up to the event we’ll be showcasing each of our exceptional 2011 awardees. This week the spotlight is on Emmanuel Jal.
A former child soldier in Southern Sudan, Emmanuel Jal is far more comfortable holding a mic than a gun. He’s dedicated his life to building peace through music, media and his organization, Gua Africa. Jal was born on January 1, 1980, the date every child soldier claims as his birthday because all records have been lost in the tragic events of the wars. He spent the early years of his childhood in the midst of Southern Sudan’s long running civil war. After the death of his mother at the age of 7, he was recruited as a child soldier for the Rebel army (SPLA). The training was hard, the food scarce and the fighting fierce. Jal and his comrades stole cows and chickens from the villagers and sometimes burnt their houses. They fought on the front lines for Sudanese independence. “There are no happy memories — everything was just violence, trauma, and war. That’s what I remember”, Jal says.
After the SPLA started to break into factions Jal was able to escape together with 300 to 400 other child soldiers. Their escape turned into a nightmare as they trekked three months through the desert, losing one friend after the other to famine and thirst. Only a few of the former child soldiers survived and made it to the refugee camp at Waat. read more…
The Common Ground Awards are coming up (October 27) and if you’d like to come get your tickets now!
Leading up to the event we’ll be showcasing one of our exceptional 2011 awardees each week and we’ll kick it off with Rais Bhuiyan.
Searching the internet for Rais Bhuiyan is overwhelming – this brave man’s story about love and forgiveness has inspired so many and been retold over and over again. His life had come close to an end after being shot in the face, but Rais Bhuiyan never gave up forgave and even went on a judicial quest to save his aggressor from the death row.
The Team, already playing in countries around the globe is readying for its Zimbabwe premiere.
The Team Zimbabwe airs tonight at 7:30 pm. The 13 episode series will run for 13 weeks. The Team Zimbabwe is an exciting and humorous new football drama that follows two Zimbabwean youth, Pablo and Beans, in an ethnically diverse mining town, as they strive to work together and pursue their football dreams. read more…
SFCG Rwanda staff walk in the Peace March. Country Director, Rebecca Besant is in the center.
Every September 21st, the UN General Assembly invites all members to observe the International Day of Peace by commemorating and promoting the ideals of peace and unity. In Rwanda The National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) has been preparing for the day all month. This is the first year that a government institution has organized the day’s festivities, rather than the UN. In addition to other government agencies, non-governmental organizations have also been brought in to help collaborate on the day including, Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, Imbuto Foundation, Right to Play Rwanda, Profemmes Twese Hamwe, La Benevolencia, Friends Peace House, Fawe Rwanda, Prison Fellowship Rwanda, Shalom Education for Peace and Search for Common Ground!
The theme for 2011 is ‘Make Your Voice Heard,’ and it is the hope of all involved that all Rwandans will use the day to share their ideas and experiences to strive for a more peaceful Rwanda.
There were media campaigns and a peace march in Kigali followed by a concert at Amahoro National Stadium. Search for Common Ground was supporting the day’s activities, focusing on support to the moto riders who were mobilizing participants. Staffers joined the march and also participated in some of the radio programs on the day as panelists.
Additional photos from the event:
Hundreds turned out for the march.
SFCG supported the moto riders who helped mobilize participants for the Peace Walk on 21st of September in Kigali, Rwanda.
