Peacebuilding
World Vision sees peacebuilding as an integral element in the process of transformational development.
"Our experience has taught us that violent conflict is not inevitable. World Vision speaks out on our observations in violence-prone areas and resilience of victims of violence," says James Odong, World Vision's peacebuilding coordinator for eastern Africa.
"In our peacebuilding programmes, World Vision works across all levels of society, with a particular focus on long-term commitment to grassroots partners".
As diverse groups and organisations in society raise concerns and express different interests, peacebuilding is a process which can address these differing interests in ways that can lead to positive change.
Peacebuilding in practice
World Vision's peacebuilding efforts in Cambodia have focussed on the empowerment of children as peacebuilders, transforming relationships between different ethnic groups and transforming systems and structures that have perpetuated injustice.
Other examples of World Vision's peacebuilding experience from around the world include:
- Kosovo - World Vision founded an inter-ethnic peace council in the divided city of Mitrovica, which has now become its own peace organisation.World Vision has also supported children's peace clubs bringing together Serb, Albanian, Ashkali, and Roma children who would not normally meet.
- Colombia - World Vision has supported the Children's Peacebuilders Movement, which strengthens peacebuilding and civic participation by children and youth.
- Indonesia - World Vision has delivered assistance to divided communities in a way that promotes connections between religious groups, as opposed to inflaming existing tensions. World Vision has also developed training materials for teachers as well as children's textbooks and curriculum materials that promote peace, understanding and tolerance between Indonesia's many religious, ethnic and linguistic groups.
- Sri Lanka - World Vision has organised a Sports for Peace programme, inter-ethnic peace camps for children, inter-ethnic exchange visits and joint work projects based on shared cultural traditions and exchange of labour.
- Uganda – World Vision is working in partnership with other civil society organisations to advocate for peaceful resolution of the violent conflict in the north, and has been facilitating capacity building among intenally-displaced people living in camps, and local communities, in skills for peacebuilding and reconciliation.
Working with others
At the international level, World Vision is an active member of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and, in July 2005, participated in the GPPAC conference at the UN headquarters in New York together with about 1,000 other civil society delegates.
In the European Union, we play an active role in the European Peacebuilding Liaison Organisation (EPLO).