Ba Futuru’s Peace Building Support Project aims at building trust and strengthening community leadership and cohesion. This project supports Timor-Leste’s National Recovery Strategy by providing skill development on conflict mitigation for hundreds of at-risk young people, teachers and community leaders. This project builds on Ba Futuru’s prior success working with at-risk populations, including children and youth living in high conflict areas, prison, transitional shelters and IDP camps, as well as engaging teachers and community leaders in seminars enhancing their understanding of conflict mitigation, human rights and child protection issues.
Peace Building Support Project assisted the MSS-led dialogue process by furthering the abilities of community leaders, Child Protection Focal Points, teachers, youth and martial arts members to constructively engage in the reintegration process by increasing their understanding of conflict transformation and protection issues. In this program, Ba Futuru uses a two-pronged approach: trainings using the TAHRE manual are conducted with target groups; and children and youth are provided activities and support at the Seroja Youth Center. Ba Futuru has been able to affect a wide cross-section of the most vital populations in Timor-Leste, from kids to youth to community leaders, who are most able to affect change in their communities. The central pillar of Ba Futuru’s work is the TAHRE curriculum, which is used for all trainings and serves as the foundation of work at the Seroja Center. The TAHRE curriculum teaches participants about their own rights and the rights of others, and how to reduce violence in their everyday lives. Additionally, the TAHRE Program curriculum promotes conflict resolution, conflict management and coping skills through the use of psychosocial education workshops. Interactive role-playing and trust-building exercises serve to equip participants with the skills needed to create a more positive and peaceful life.
Using these proven methods, Ba Futuru’s Peace Building Support Project has successfully contributed to sustainable peace through augmenting the capacity of the Timorese people and providing youth with employable and productive skills. As evidenced by post-training surveys and interviews conducted with participants and community members, Ba Futuru’s programs are successfully strengthening community capacity for building sustainable peace and breaking cycles of violence, contributing to a safer environment for women and children returnees, and providing positive engagement opportunities for young people. The post-training observations and surveys have revealed that the majority of participants leave Ba Futuru programs with a feeling of improved knowledge of human rights, conflict resolution, alternative dispute resolution, and children’s and women’s rights and protections. Further, it is clear through observations and interviews with Seroja Youth Center participants that the trainings and activities provided at the Center have assisted with overcoming negative emotions from trauma and have further provided employable skills training that participants are using to create a brighter future.
Post-training interviews and follow-up meetings have revealed that Ba Futuru is achieving the desired change in attitudes and understandings among participants, and reductions in violence and animosity in target communities also suggest the success of Ba Futuru’s programs.
For example participant Petronila de Sousa Guterres gave the following comments regarding the training in her post-training interview in January:
“This training has been very beneficial and the material we learnt has been helpful. The training developed my ability, knowledge, understanding and skills in how to assist internally displaced people who are reintegrating intro the community from IDP Camps. We need to avoid discrimination occurring between families in the community and manage any conflicts that occur in our families and communities. I have practiced what I learnt from the training to help resolve my neighbours’ problems. They were fighting for property (land and house) in my village. Both parties wouldn’t accept the others claim and were judging one another. We explained to them the law and in the end both parties were satisfied with the decision and results. I myself did not run this process, but I consulted constantly with the Chefe Aldeia and Village story teller. We sat together and solved it through cultural means. I also incorporated methods of solving conflicts from the training. I often act as the moderator in the conflict solving process. In this case the conflict was solved successfully, and now the neighbours live in peace with no outstanding animosity between them. I also try to collaborate with other women, share information about child protection and provide support when we meet. I would like Ba Futuru to run the same training in my village because in my opinion a lot of families are not watching over or showing proper care and support for their children which may lead to greater problems including an increase in drug and alcohol abuse in the future.”
Through these post-training meetings and interviews done with prior training participants, Ba Futuru has also learned best practices as well as ways to mitigate unforeseen problems, thereby empowering Ba Futuru to further its effectiveness in the next phase of the Peace Building Support Project.
