Photos: © 2016, Peace Dialogue, Armine Zakaryan, “Arena: Leadership Workshop”.
“The Arena project set a goal to create and maintain a peace network. This is a network for exchanging experience when the participants can look at their own situation through the eyes of others, an opportunity to explore peace building beyond their own context and to develop new skills and capacities. This project has met all the mentioned criteria: there are different people involved, with different experience (people who have over 20 years of experience and young peace builders), it is very interesting for all of us and there is no hierarchy, we all respect each other and learn from each other.” – This is how the Ukrainian participant of the project Arena: Community Theatre and Public Art described the peace building network created by the project.
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Arena project has been implemented in the former Soviet Union countries of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia which all have one thing in common: long lasting or recently escalated conflicts.
The apathy, atmosphere of fear, violation of human rights and the lack of critical thinking among vast segments of the society are typical of these societies. As a result, the lack of support from the public makes it harder for non-governmental organizations and human rights activists to work towards peacebuilding and human rights. In fact, peacebuilding organizations and activists are very often cut off and isolated from their own societies.
The first joint meeting of the project for this year was held from April 9 to April 12. The main goal of the project is the development of an effective strategy for peace building on a community level. The trainers for the joint workshop meeting, the main topic of which was leadership, were Marina Grasse and Mirella Galbiati from the German organization OWEN, which is also Peace Dialogue NGOs partner organization in the Arena project. In addition, Goran Bozicevic, a trainer from Croatia was involved in the workshop. This workshop was initiated by the Arena project staff since in the first phase of the project, which was held last year, the network participants expressed a wish to take part in a workshop on leadership.
Photo: Goran Bozicevic,
© 2016, Peace Dialogue, Author: Armine Zakaryan.
Goran Bozicevic, who has many years of experience in peace building in his country, introduced the participants to the Balkan conflicts, as well as to the history of international peacebuilding movements. He focused on numerous peacebuilding initiatives organized by activists starting in 1992 in the small town of Packrats, which was divided into two parts (Serbian and Croatian) as a result of Serb-Croatian conflict.
“Very often people get angry and say “Where were you before the conflict? Why weren’t you doing such trainings before the conflict?” And I answer, we do our activities not after this conflict but before a future possible conflict. The things we say to other people mean nothing and have no effect on them. The most effective method is how we live our lives and how we deal with the things in a given situations: this is what people see and value first of all”. – This is how G. Bozicevic formulated his view on peace leadership.
According to him the participants of the Arena project are already leaders in their communities. Peacebuilding is long and painful work and it requires great will and leadership. Perhaps the network created within the Arena project will not exist 10 or 15 years from now, however the work of these people who build peace in their countries, can have a result in 30 years. Perhaps people will even say that if not for these people or their work they would not have the great situation they may have in the future. The people involved in this network are those who will help create a transition from the culture of war to a culture of peace.”- Concluded Bozicevic.
For more details, please contact Armine Zakaryan at [email protected]
The Project’s German Partner – OWEN – Mobile Akademie für Geschlechterdemokratie und Friedensförderung e.V.
The project “Arena: Community Theater and Public Art” is supported by the zivik (Civil Conflict Resolution) programme of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) with means from the German Federal Foreign Office.
