Entrants's Name: Ahmad Rashed Wassif

Country: Afghanistan

Field: Community Development

Innovation - idea: Community Based Peace building is primarily concerned with strengthening the role-of local people and their institutions for the promotion of socio-cultural resources for peace In other words socio-cultural resources for peace means generating a widespread sense of shared responsibility to constructive transformation of conflict to prevent violence and sustaining peace at the community level

Innovation - why it is pioneering: The widespread use of violence over the past two and half decades in Afghanistan has caused extensive physical, political, economic and social upheavals for the Afghan people. Years of violent conflict and warfare have shattered the lives and livelihoods of the population, and have severely destroyed the social fabrics of society. the Strong social and community cohesion have been weakened.

Strategy - how it achieves impact: 1-Selection of the villages to establish, Peace SHORA ( community based independence, non profit, volunteer institution to deal with community conflicts) within targeted area through close coordination of the community 2-Selection of the community representative and some local governmental officials as Peace SHORA members in male and female Peace SHORAs through close coordination with targeted community people 3-Establishing of 11(10 zonal +1 central) Peace SHORA in each district of a province of Afghanistan 4-Conduction of Human Rights, Peace Building Introductory and Refresher training workshops to build the members capacity on how to receive, assess, analyse, constrictive transform / resolve the referred conflict cases, using proper methodology (Negotiation, communication, Mediation) 5-Develop and include a peace education curriculum to Afghanistan National Education curriculum 6-Dissemination of the peace education messages through media and broad casts(Magazines,Movies).

Strategy - growth plans: 1-The initiated efforts has to be promoted /developed further to make the community institution able to stand on their own 2-To extend the program in new communities in whole Afghanistan after receiving new peace building projects / funds 3-To include peace education curriculum (which has already been developed by the SDO peace building department and approved by related organizations) to National Education Curriculum of Afghanistan. 4-To develop more peace education materials,Publications (Magazines,posters, booklets, films etc) to be used in schools, communities. 5-To conduct specific research on the conflict at community level in Afghanistan 6-To integrate the national efforts on the peace building into regional (South Asia) peace efforts to share the lessons learned and to use the regional network as a platform for more peace building interventions globally 7-To integrate the peace building interventions as crosscutting issues in any governmental and national development

Impact to date: 1-The violence (verbal, physical) rate, wedding expenses is decreasing, in target communities 2-Deferent ethnici group are living together with sound acceptance and respect the rights, regardless of the race, religion, social condition, when they interact with each other on water, land, ceremonies, using resources, as reports and according to both male and female Peace SHORAs members, the relationships are much improved comparing last year 3-On any conflict people refer the case to the Peace SHORA (PS)to approach a satisfactory solution even some times some conflict cases have been referred by local governmental officials to the PS for resolution

4-Now people and governmental officials have accepted that the PS can play a significant rule on the conflict transformation as they declared the points in district and national level meetings

5-Productive interaction between PS and local governmental officials has been built

6-Human rights and gender awareness improved

Future impact: 1-The conflicts / violence rate will still be decreased 2-The skills of the community to deal with conflicts will be getting stronger 3-The skill of the conflict resolution will be propagated to new communities 4-The human rights and gender awareness and democracy values will be improve further 5-The peace and peace building knowledge will be valued by deferent sectors in the community and schools.

Sustainability - resource base: After the project life period the community is supposed to keep the institutions and its system functional voluntarily, and use the skills the community acquired during the project, community contributions, and governmental support. The Peace SHORA members and community have committed to support as much as possible to continue the system

Major challenge for the field: Security can be a major barrier for t his program. Afghanistan security situation is delicate now.

Contact Information:

Name: Dr Ahmad Rashed Wassif - Peace Building Program Officer
Mailing address: sdfpbd@yahoo.com
Country: Afghanistan
Email: sdfpbd@yahoo.com
Tel: 0093 799201038 OR 0093 799325171
Fax: N/A
Website: www.sanayee.org // www.nawidefarda.com

Bio: SDO www.sanayee.org has been working in the sector of peace building from 1998 -2001 in Peshawar, Pakistan for Afghan refuges and from 2002 – present in different provinces of Afghanistan. SDO’s approach to peace building has been focused mainly at grassroots. However, we have also targeted high ranking government authorities and official in different provinces and the capital.

During Taleban SDO was active in Peshawar, Pakistan where millions of Afghan refugees were living there. In 1998 SDO started teaching peace education subject in many Afghan Schools in Peshawar. We targeted schools because during years of Russian occupation of Afghanistan, books the were taught in these schools were especially designed to teach children and youth violence. As an example “If on Mujahid kills two Russian soldier a day, how many soldiers will he kill in five days”. “How much is four Kalashnikovs plus six Kalashnikovs?” and many more examples like these. There was a cautious effort to teach structural violence to children as to make them ready to fight against Russians.

Considering this serious problem SDO targeted schools and started to build structural peace and spreading culture of nonviolence and peace among school children. The result of our project was so positive and appreciated both students and administration of the schools. Besides, one of the by products of our work was the introduction of participatory (student-centered) teaching methodology in schools where the peace education subject was taught.

When Taleban regime collapsed late 2001 and the new government was in place, SDO shifted its peace building program to Afghanistan. We started working with communities in different provinces of Afghanistan. Years of war, drought, return of refugees etc poses many challenges for people in Afghanistan particularly in rural areas. Communities are in conflict with each other due to several reasons caused by war, drought, immigration, poverty.