Our Director of Programmes and our Programme Manager were recently in the Central African Republic to train and recruit a team of Project Officers. Hear more about our work from Peter Marsden, Director of Programmes:

Sending greetings from the Central African Republic! We have just finished training our amazing team of project officers. They are nationals who are really experienced in mediation and facilitation of dialogue and we’ve been training and equipping them, giving them a few more skills that they need to be the core of our team here in CAR for the next three years of our program.

It’s such a privilege to spend time with people who are so committed to peace and peace building in their own country. It’s a core tenet of Concordis‘ methodology, we believe in working with local people and equipping local people to be peace builders where they live. Because of course it’s the local people who really really understand the nuance of the conflict, the dynamics of the conflict.  They really get all of the complexity that is sometimes lost on we strangers who come along to the country. 

So we’ve been training them and the next stage for them is that they are going to go out and work with a number of different communities to get a proper understanding of seasonal migration (the migration of the herds of livestock). What are the barriers to stop that happening? And how can we facilitate that happening smoothly again? And the key, of course, to this program, is that if herders and farmers can work together to manage the migration smoothly, then that could be a process that works for mutual benefit as they trade with one another, as they exchange goods and services with one another. And actually, everyone’s prosperity and livelihoods could increase. It’s great to get the next part of the program launched, the team is going out over the coming weeks and we will report back with more news on their progress. Thanks a lot.