PREP’s Reflection From The Field series started fourteen years ago as the first students in the Workshop in Applied Peacebuilding came back from their summer consultancies. Every year, students share their experiences working with local organizations and reflect on the work they have accomplished with them. The students panel was followed by a practioners panel and a reception.
On the theme of Turning Decolinization Rhetoric Into Action, students shared the practical steps they have taken before and during their consultancies to avoid replicating some of the paterns they have been learning about and ‘do no harm’. A recurent topic in the conversation was the ability to listen to the others and learn from them while conducting the different projects. Whether they were in Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Liberia, Jordan, or Iraq, students all agreed on the necessity for more localized peacebuilding which centers more on people than project.
After the students panel, Gulalai Ismail (Aware Girls Pakistan), Tala Bautista (Coffee for Peace), Grace Boone (CDA Collaborative Learning Projects) and Vahe Mirikan (Peace Direct) took the stage for a discussion moderated by Professor Thomas Hill. The practioners shared their organization’s approach to decolonizing peacebuilding. Funding was an important topic of conversation, and Gulalai argued that peacebuilding needs to reflect the needs of the communities rather than respond to funding opportunities. Indeed, Tala explained that understanding what peace means for the community by asking them is a necessary step to peacebuilding which generates rich answers that are not the text book. Both Gulalai and Tala insisted on accountability towards the communities rather than solely towards the donors and the importance of not getting trapped in one or two years projects. A language shift that was deemed necessary by all panelists was replacing the terms ‘recipients’ and ‘beneficiaries’ with ‘partners’, which they all do in their organizations.
On the relationship between CDA Collaborative and its partner organizations, Grace told the audience that these must be rooted in asking questions to be led by contextually grounded knowledge. While Vahe recognized the difficulty of changing funding culture, he explained that Peace Direct tries to push back on donors rather than communities, by shifting the funding model and transforming partnership reporting. Both Grace and Vahe insisted on redefining who is the expert and co-authoring with community members. Grace and Vahe also recognized the existing push backs around the term decolonization, and explained that it is sometimes more efficient to use other words such as localization with donors.
A conclusion that emerged from both panels was the importance of relationships in peacebuilding work and the necessity to enter into partnerships where learning and listening are central.