PEACE-BUILDING AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (PACDEF)
Report from 27th August to 12th December 2008
Introduction
This report covers the activities that took place from the 27th August to 12th December 2008, which include public peace-building community meetings, leadership and conflict transformation community training workshops, training of trainers (ToTs), and networking meetings. Some activities were already carried out between January and 21st August 2008, namely publicity/ lobbying campaigns and situation analysis. Other activities will take place in the future like sporting events as resources permit us to acquire the sporting equipment, as well as production and distribution of publicity materials such as flyers and t-shirts. Every time the Field Officers visited the communities, they ensured that each team carried a minimum of 50 brochures for distribution. These were distributed to participants who would carry them away and give others after reading what PACDEF is all about. Follow-up activities are planned for the year 2009, in order to find what became of the plans of actions discussed after every community workshop.
The main fieldwork done in the period mentioned above includes public peace-building meetings. All interested community members irrespective of gender, age, religion, status, and political party affiliation attended these meetings. The response was very encouraging indeed since large crowds were witnessed at these meetings.
Public meetings were followed by leadership and conflict transformation workshops whereby between 35-40 community leaders were supposed to attend. People came to these workshops and they benefited greatly from the discussions. We conducted ten workshops in six wards. We divided our Field Officers into five teams of two, and each team conducted two workshops in one ward, except wards 14 and 35 that had hosted one workshop each. The first set of workshops took place from the 11th to 13th November, and the second from the 24th to 26th November 2008. The fuller impact of these workshops will be known during follow-ups in 2009, but the immediate feedback has shown that attitude changes took place in people who used to be hostile to one another. For example in ward 35 ZANU-PF and MDC leaders agreed to cease hostilities and work together for the development of their ward. The perpetrators of violence admitted guilt and publicly sought the forgiveness of the offended community people.
Other activities were also undertaken to empower our Field Officers through ToT workshops, seminars and to make friends for PACDEF through networking meetings. In addition, as PACDEF looked outside to improve relationships among community members, with other CSOs, we could not ignore the intra-group and interpersonal relationships within itself and among its staff. For this reason a team-building workshop became the concluding activity.
Notes on Public Meetings and Community Workshops
Public Meetings
Having successfully carried out publicity/ lobbying and advocacy campaigns, and situation analysis, all of which provided very crucial information concerning the felt and real needs of the communities in relation to conflict, the next activity was holding public peace-building meetings. The former activities were mainly meant to allow discussion between PACDEF’s Field Officers and the community leaders, especially traditional, religious, and opinion leaders to make them understand PACDEF’s vision, mission and objectives for entering their communities. The major aims of these exclusive meetings were to try and convince the leaders to accept PACDEF’s projects and also for PACDEF to fully understand the needs of the communities in order to design projects that are relevant to the people’s needs. This would enhance acceptability and community ownership of the projects.
After meeting the leaders on a one-on-one basis and as groups of leaders, with an overwhelming reception for PACDEF from all the leaders met, we decided to take the leaders met as a sample to represent the remaining communities. Thus, we reached a general conclusion that the most pressing need for the communities, from the leaders’ perspective, was lack of understanding of the role of leaders in conflict transformation. However, we had also planned that we could not move on and train the leaders in leadership without sensitizing the community members of what PACDEF would be doing with their leaders in their respective areas. For this reason, we had to move to different wards as seen in the summary above and carry out public meetings to sensitize the public of our peace-building work in their areas and the planned with their leadership.
The manner in which the community members at ward levels responded to the invitation to a public meeting was overwhelming. They came in large numbers. At each single gathering, an approximated average of 500 people attended. At times there were over 1000 people at one particular meeting. This was very encouraging indeed. Another encouraging aspect of the public meetings was the openness with which the people accepted PACDEF and its projects. The people were highly enthusiastic and spoke their mind about their expectations from PACDEF in regard to leadership and conflict transformation. Sadly, the people throughout Zimunya area also expected PACDEF to assist them with relief food since they were going without food and their storerooms were virtually empty. They were foreseeing starvation unless there was immediate intervention. To this end we promised to talk to the organizations that specialized in food distribution through our networking strategy. It was good that a few weeks later relief food distribution began in these areas through World Food Programme, working with PLAN International Zimbabwe.
Our public meetings were a success because the government lifted the ban and restrictions imposed upon field operations of civil society organizations. This took place in the end of August 2008. We conducted public peace-building meetings for the following reasons: firstly, to make sure that the whole community is aware of what is happening in their areas. They should hear themselves firsthand information from PACDEF staff than hearing from what their particular leaders tell them. The second reason was that when people are gathered and have an opportunity to ask their own questions, answers are given directly and openly. Thirdly, one of the objectives of PACDEF is to develop the community’s capacity to demand democratic and accountable leadership from their leaders. That is why it was proper to have some time with the people to make them aware of the goings on in their communities. Finally, the communities needed to know what their leaders would be doing when they attend workshops. This knowledge is crucial to create accountable leaders and enlightened followers.
Community Workshops/ Trainings
The overwhelming reception PACDEF received from the leaders first and then the public at large encouraged us to move on to organize and facilitate community workshops with the leaders. The focus of these workshops was “Leadership and Conflict Transformation”. This was meant to address what the leaders had agreed as the major need in their areas, that of leadership and understanding their role in conflict transformation. Some of the reasons that made them identify this as a need were the numerous development projects that had failed to take off because of seemingly unnecessary conflicts. For example, in some areas a community dam construction project had to be withdrawn because the people could not agree on the name of the dam. Other projects that had failed to take off include community clinics and schools as well as rural electrification projects.
Ten workshops in total were carried out, five in mid-November, another five at the end of November 2008. In order to ensure that we make a deep impact through these workshops, we had to hold the second set of workshops in the same ward in which the first were done. At every workshop the number of participants was between 35-40 people. These people came from community leaders that included traditional, religious, community groups, as well as ward political leaders. Our entry point was always the elected Councillor, who was supposed to invite the rest of the leaders.
In order to remain true to PACDEF’s non-partisan strategy, we worked with both ZANU-PF and MDC Councillors. However, it was easier to find open arms in MDC wards than ZANU-PF. For example in one ward, after the public meeting the Councillor refused to allow us to hold workshops. It became clear to PACDEF that the reason for this scepticism was that him being a war veteran, he had initially (prior to June 27th presidential run-off vote) propagated the idea that civil society organizations were agents of the MDC party, as a propaganda meant to restrict their operations in the communities. The same applied to another ward where even a public meeting could not be allowed. Interestingly, other ZANU-PF Councillors willingly accepted to work with PACDEF and they did not regret that decision since they benefited greatly from the trainings. Thus, in some wards traditional leaders and war veterans all attended the workshops and never intimidated anybody. They at last appreciated having received the training from PACDEF.
The immediate impact of these workshops was highly encouraging. The first positive feedback was the welcoming of the second workshop in the same ward. This could not have happened had the leaders been disappointed by the first one. The second and most dramatic, even encouraging took place in a ward that had experienced severe political violence, as ZANU-PF ward leaders unleashed violence against MDC supporters, forcing them to flee their homes and spend the cold winter in caves and under trees on mountain tops. The ward party (ZANU-PF) leadership did not accept that people had voted MDC.
During the first workshop, out of fear, the MDC leadership did not invite ZANU-PF key leaders for fear of being victimized again. They mostly invited their own supporters leaving out ZANU-PF members, who began to assume that PACDEF was a MDC sympathizer. When the second workshop began, the facilitators insisted that ZANU-PF people be also invited before the training resumed. When the invitation was extended to the ZANU-PF ward Chairperson and his supporters, they came immediately.
When the training proceeded and they realized the significance of the training, the ward chairperson’s conscience bothered him greatly. MDC people told him how much they feared him and how much they were hurt because of his intimidations and violence against them. He immediately and sincerely apologized to them for his wrong actions and promised to seek the forgiveness of all the people in all the villages in this ward. A week after the workshop had concluded he travelled on foot to each and every village apologizing to the village members for his wrong actions. At times he removed his shoes as a sign of his deep remorse and repentance. At yet other occasions he knelt down, with tears running down his cheeks, pleading with the village members for forgiveness. The following week on the 6th December 2008, the ward leadership organized a feedback and coordination meeting. They wanted to celebrate the impact that PACDEF’s workshop had brought about in their ward, leading to the unity of purpose between ZANU-PF and MDC leaders. As a way forward, at the second workshop, a ZANU-PF/ MDC joint committee was formed comprising of six people, three from each party, to work for the good of the ward. Attempts had been made unsuccessfully before through the Headman, village heads, and the District Administrator, before PACDEF came into the area with a breakthrough. From that day henceforth, ZANU-PF and MDC equitably share whatever goods are brought into the ward. Before this, whatever assistance such as food and agricultural inputs were brought to the ward from ZANU-PF would benefit only its supporters. The Councillor invited PACDEF staff to the 6th December 2008 meeting, and we attended it with great encouragement. The happenings showed PACDEF the need for a Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Healing project that needs to be implemented.
Workshops provided a crucial platform for the community leadership to learn from each other and reflect on what their role as leaders was. They also had the opportunity to learn from one another and reflect on their past behaviours. The methodology used to empower them was facilitation instead of lecturing. The facilitators ensured that the people participate fully in all the discussions going on. They used role plays that the participants acted on a real life experience in order to illustrate their understanding of some concepts. They demonstrated deep understanding of the key concepts being taught. For example, the letter m means different things to different people depending on where one stands in relation to the letter. To one it is a 3, to another an m, while to another a w, 2cs to yet another person. This realization enables to demonstrate how perception is a function of one’s personal experiences and background. Such an understanding calls for tolerance among people than forcing one another to see things just in the way another sees.
Other Activities Undertaken
17th – 19th September 2008: Leadership Workshop
In preparation for the leadership workshops, PACDEF organized a Training of Trainers three days’ workshop. This was purely focused on leadership, so that the Field Officers would appreciate the need for leadership training and the role that leaders play in community development and conflict management.
At the same time, PACDEF had the privilege of hosting a Master of Arts student from Africa University studying at the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance. In order to achieve mutual benefits between him and PACDEF he became a co-facilitator with the Programs Manager.
The leadership training covered the following topics: definition of leadership, the need for leadership, models of leadership, communication, personal leadership and leaders’ powerbase. This workshop was of great value to our Field Officers who knew that they were soon going to be facilitating in the communities. As a result they took it seriously and their participation was highly encouraging.
This workshop was very beneficial to the Field Officers who had not attended a leadership workshop before. They were not sure what to do and how it would be possible to talk about leadership for a day or even three days. After the workshop they asked that the notes be printed and be given to them. The facilitators did this and the Field Officers were very happy. This benefited them greatly in that when they attended the Chikukwa workshop they learned more to do with conflict transformation and were able to combine it with leadership. The community leaders, where they went to conduct workshops, benefited as well because they even asked that they all went around telling other community members about the need for peace and good leadership.
2nd – 7th November 2008: Chikukwa ToT Workshop
Knowing that our community training workshops would not be complete without enabling the participants an opportunity to understanding conflict, we agreed with a Chikukwa based project called Building Constructive Community Relations (BCCR), to that they would train our Field Officers on Leadership and Conflict Transformation. This training was based on their publication entitled “The Three Circles of Knowledge”. The gist of the publication is to give people skills in conflict analysis that combines three bases of knowledge, namely traditional/ indigenous, analytical and spiritual knowledge. These three sources of knowledge work in a complementary manner with one another. Just one circle of knowledge is not sufficient to deal with human relations and conflicts. Both sources need to contribute something in order to have a complete understanding of ways and means of dealing with conflicts.
The ToT started on 3rd November 2008, in Chimanimani, Chikukwa area and ended on the 7th. This was of great value in boosting the confidence of our Field officers who were preparing to enter the communities as facilitators from the 11th – 13th November 2008. Before leaving Chikukwa, the workshop enabled each team to develop a tentative workshop schedule that they would follow from the 11th November. They presented it for assistance and they showed great understanding of both the content and the methods of presentation. Chikukwa workshop gave PACDEF staff an appreciation of community ownership of projects since the facilitators were mainly local people of Chikukwa community. Three workshops went on ahead simultaneously at Chikukwa, that of PACDEF, TSURO farmers and Chikukwa village participants.
At the end of the workshop, PACDEF and BCCR agreed to work together in 2009 for mutual benefit. Another need was realized of developing mutually a training module on Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Healing. PACDEF will send some of its Field Officers to participate in BCCR workshops and vice-versa.
14th November 2008: Seminar on Church’s Role in Conflict Management
PACDEF is not alone in its concern for peace-building in Mutare district. There are other actors as well, one of which is the Churches in Manicaland. In response to the political violence that severely affected the whole country since 2000, the church leaders in Manicaland came together and formed a group of like-minded leaders, uniting churches of all denominations. Out of the meetings and press reports and pastoral letters to different churches about the political happenings in the country on how to respond, the leaders agreed to produce a document called “The Truth Will Make You Free: A Compendium of Christian Social Teaching”. This document covers different topics and is very good for workshop organizations. The topics include Values and Principles, Community, Governance, Economy, and Responding to Crisis. PACDEF organized a one-day seminar and invited two representatives from the Churches in Manicaland to come and facilitate this seminar so that our staff might appreciate some of the concepts and role of the church in conflict management. This was crucial because the influence of the church in the communities we work with cannot be ignored. The songs people sing at our workshops are Christian, and they insist that a day begins and ends with a prayer. In addition, some of the venues of these workshops are church buildings. Some of the key participants are religious leaders.
The workshop was a success, although only one person, the Coordinator of the Churches in Manicaland, came. He presented the compendium in summary form. He promised to work closely with PACDEF in the distribution of this essential publication. The books are distributed free of charge.
21st November 2008: Networking Meeting
PACDEF believes in interdependence as a means of achieving lasting results in the work of peace-building. As a result we seek to work in cooperation with all nongovernmental organizations in Mutare urban and rural areas for the benefit of the beneficiaries. To this end, on the above date we organized and held a one-day meeting with different organizations. The following were the organizations represented at the meeting: the National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations (NANGO), the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), the Zimbabwe National Association of Student Union (ZINASU – not invited), the Zimbabwe Student Teachers’ Union (ZISTU – not invited), the Environment Service Learning Board (ESLB), the Centre for Research and Development (CRD), Environment Africa, the Kellogg Foundation, the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF – Mutare), and the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP). As a requirement such meetings have to be made known to the police and as usual they send their own representatives. At this meeting there were two Zimbabwe Republic Police representatives and two persons from the President’s Office.
The main purposes of this meeting included introducing PACDEF and its work to other NGOs in the area with the aim of seeking cooperation. PACDEF presented itself to the invited organizations first spelling out its mission, vision, target group, objectives, and strategies. All the other organizations had an opportunity to present their work as well. At the end PACDEF posed a question about the way forward. After a time of deliberation we agreed that PACDEF becomes the Secretariat for coordinating all peace-building organizations in Mutare/ Manicaland so that they increase their networking together.
Manicaland does not have many peace-building organizations but there are many organizations dealing with human rights and governance that have a peace-building component in their programming. For this reason PACDEF will be in a position not only to assist many grass roots communities but to develop the capacities of many organizations in peace-building through which they will benefit community people.
PACDEF is now a registered member of the National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations (NANGO) in Zimbabwe. Therefore, the two organizations will work together in identifying organizations that might participate and be affiliate members to the proposed network of organizations. A stakeholders meeting will be organized early in 2009 to consider this matter and find the way forward.
6th December 2008: Feedback and Coordination Meeting
The above meeting was held in ward 5, one of the wards that hosted our Field Officers for the two November 2008 Leadership and Conflict Transformation workshops. The first workshop was held at Matika Secondary School, but the group’s composition was mostly in favour of MDC. The main reason for this was that there was deep hatred and divisions between MDC and ZANU-PF because of the violence perpetrated towards and after June 27th. The victims were mainly MDC people who had managed to vote for an MDC candidate as councillor in the March 29th 2008 elections. Now that the MDC man had been officially sworn in as the ward councillor, the development programs coming to the area would only come through him. That is why his supporters could not invite ZANU-PF supporters. The danger was that PACDEF would be seen as a partisan or pro-MDC. On the second workshop held from 24th – 26th November 2008, our Field Officers insisted on having ZANU-PF representatives. They invited them and they willingly came to attend the workshop.
As the workshop discussions progressed, the ZANU-PF representatives and MDC representatives had an opportunity to discuss what happened towards and after June 27th presidential run-off, that is, the violence. The ZANU-PF chairperson was seriously bothered by his conscience and sincerely apologized to the people gathered there. As a way forward they agreed to form a six-member committee, three from each political party who would ensure that all goods and services brought to the ward would be shared equitably among supporters of either party. They also agreed to speak about this during the feedback and coordination meeting to be held on the 6th December 2008.
PACDEF received an invitation from the councillor to attend this crucial meeting. The Programs Manager, two Field Officers, who had facilitated the workshops, and three other Field Officers attended the meeting. Both ZANU-PF and MDC leaders announced the cessation of hostility between their parties in the ward and asked the members to do likewise. The chairman of ZANU-PF reminded the people how he had asked for their forgiveness when he visited all the eleven villages one after another on foot, sometimes bare-footed and at times kneeling down to seek their forgiveness. They ascribed this change of heart to the work of PACDEF, especially the workshops, saying that the traditional leaders and the district administrator had all attempted to reconcile the two party leaders but had failed, till PACDEF appeared on the scene.
9th – 12th December 2008: Teambuilding Workshop
Coming from the successful work that had been done from the 27th August till 6th December 2008, it was now time for PACDEF staff to consider their relationship with each other. To this end, we organized a teambuilding workshop beginning on the 9th of December to the 12th. The purpose of the workshop was to instil a team spirit within the team in order to enhance our effectiveness in our peace-building and capacity development work. There was nothing really seriously bad about the interpersonal relationships of PACDEF’s staff. But it was seen fit to be proactive so that if there is anything that might lead to breakdown of relationships, it might be dealt with as early as possible and prevent a major disruption of the organization.
The workshop gave an ample opportunity to every staff member to openly communicate with each other concerning areas they think might prevent teamwork and what needs to be done in order to be in good relations. Some described the experience as a time of real social, emotional, psychological and spiritual healing. The facilitator was happy that the workshop had ended very well with people accepting one another without a break up. She said that other workshops fail to end well because of the deep levels of hate, resentment and anger existing among workers. It was not for PACDEF. This should enable the organization enter the year 2009 on a clean sheet as far as interpersonal communication and relationships are concerned.
Conclusion
The year 2008 was a difficult one for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Zimbabwe. This was because of the limitations imposed on their field activities towards the March 29th 2008 harmonized elections, and the general ban announced towards the June 27th presidential run-off elections. PACDEF managed under such conditions to work in the field empowering both leaders and communities to understand democracy and human rights through which conflicts might be transformed from being negative to being positive.
Towards the end of August 2008, the ban was listed allowing PACDEF to earnestly re-enter the communities with public meetings and community workshops. The reception by which the communities welcomed PACDEF and its projects was exciting indeed. The levels of attendance during public meetings were more than expected. People walked from far and wide to attend these meetings, some of them on empty stomachs. When they heard about the mission and vision of PACDEF they were highly excited although they were hungry for food. When the workshops began to take place, the leaders responded with excitement and genuine commitment to tolerance and harmonious coexistence with those they assumed as their enemies before.
As we prepared to enter the communities, we also vehemently sought to empower our Field Officers so that their level of confidence rises and be able to represent PACDEF fully in the communities. This entailed organizing a number of Training of Trainers workshops in areas of leadership and conflict transformation. At the same time we realized that the work of peace-building requires that we work in consultation with other actors in the areas of both peace and other areas. The reason we work with other outside the area of peace-building is that they need to realize that whatever development project they might want to implement and whatever amount of money they might pump in, if the people are without peace among them the project is bound to fail due to conflicts and the money wasted.
Two major limitations are observed for PACDEF from the experiences of 2008. The first one is that when we were facing limitations of entering the communities we did not intensify our Training of Trainers workshops for our Field Officers. The time we were unable to enter the communities because of the limiting political milieu was supposed to be a time we were to have a serious look within. This limitation will not be allowed to happen again in 2009 and the years to come. However, in the time being our focus will be community workshops because the community’s response has been highly encouraging as shown by the ward 5 workshop impact.
The second limitation was that we did not respond well to the violence of 2008. There were a number of injuries and displacements to the people from areas. Some of them were admitted at the nearest hospital to our offices. We had no strategy of responding to such eventualities. This found us totally unprepared to deal with such a situation. This time we need to strategize on how to respond to emergencies. This might mean continuing to look for more funding partners who will fund emergencies such as relief food aid and assistance to victims of political violence.
