On September 18, three communities in North Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated the successful completion of the first round of Living Peace program groups.
Living Peace is an initiative developed by Promundo that seeks to prevent violence in post-conflict contexts, through psychosocial support and evidence-based group education for men and their partners, along with campaigns and other community outreach actions. The program helps participants develop positive post-conflict recovery strategies and rebuild peaceful relationships with partners and the community.
The cities of Goma, Ndosho and Sake in Eastern DRC hosted events to celebrate the end of this first round, with the participation of hundreds of men and women living in the communities.
In Goma, participants from the Living Peace groups and their partners gathered in the morning at Camp Katindo wearing program t-shirts, starting the ceremony with a parade to the event site. More than 300 guests and local officials from North Kivu province greeted program participants as they arrived. The celebration included a welcome speech, skits with messages of non-violence and equality, testimonies of positive change from group participants and their partners, and a dance celebrating joy and peace.
In both Ndosho and Sake, program participants performed skits around the themes of recovery from trauma and restoring peaceful relationships with partners. The wives and their husbands shared stories about how Living Peace participants challenged and changed gender-inequitable attitudes and behaviors during the program. Attended by hundreds of guests and local dignitaries, the ceremonies in Ndosho and Sake also included dancing and celebrations.
Local and national media covered the three community celebrations in French and Swahili on channels such as Radio Télévision Nationale Congolaise (RTNC), Hope Channel TV, Radio RTCT, Radio Mushwira de Sake, Pólo FM and Radio RSI de Sake. News of the celebrations reached more than 40,000 community members through a total of 28 broadcasts.
The living peace project was launched in 2012, and expanded in North and South Kivu in 2015 in partnership with Institut Supérieur du Lac (ISL), Benenfance, and HEAL Africa. The initiative in North and South Kivu is expected to directly reach up to 9,000 young adult men and women, and indirectly up to 300,000 community members in 2019.
Through training the health sector and public security officials to restore peaceful relationships with partners, institutionalizing the Living Peace approach, the program is expected to contribute to reducing gender-based violence, promoting and ensuring sexual health and rights and reproductive health, promotion of gender equity, and a sustainable situation of peace. Initially financed by the World Bank's LOGiCA Trust Fund, the initiative and scale-up is now supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Find out more at: https://promundo.org.br/programas/living-peace/
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