Archive
Israel & Palestine
From 2003-2010 RTC ran a programme of conflict transformation capacity building in Palestine and Israel. The programme worked in partnership with civil society organisations on both sides of the conflict to build their capacity for effective, strategic and coherent work for positive change within their own communities.
Phase one
During the first phase of this programme Conflict Transformation Resource Groups (CTRGs) were established in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. The CTRGs are made up of key members of civil society who have become competent in conflict transformation skills and recognise the importance of handling conflict by non-violent means. The members of the CTRGs are able to contribute to the resolution and management of conflict at the community level within their own constituencies.
Phase two
The second phase involved working with the CTRGs in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel to support them with their ongoing programmes. Having worked with our partners to develop their skills in conflict transformation, RTC maintains regular contact with them and makes frequent visits to the region in order to give professional support and supervision [accompaniment]. Members of the CTRGs are now developing their own programmes to incorporate conflict transformation into their ongoing work and also cascading their new skills to other staff in their organisations and their partner organisations.
"A major achievement has been the growth of confidence of CTRG members to intervene directly in conflict. A recent example of this involves a CTRG member facilitating dialogue between the Hamas government and a number of community organisations they had raided on suspicion of links with Fatah."
From mid-term monitoring report, Professor Andrew Rigby, Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies, Coventry University
Applied Conflict Transformation Studies
ACTS is a Master's programme for peacebuilding practitioners offered in parts of the world affected by conflict. It was initiated by RTC and developed and implemented with a consortium of partners: the Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT) and Pannasastra University in Cambodia, the Nansen Dialogue Network and Novi Sad University in the Balkans, and the Coalition for Peace in Africa (COPA) in East Africa.
Since 2005 ACTS has been offered in two regional centres: one in Cambodia for participants from all over Asia, and one in Serbia for participants from the Balkans and the Middle East.
ACTS aims to:
- develop the capacity of peacebuilding practitioners to engage in their work
- develop theory and new knowledge about peacebuilding processes from the perspective of those who are engaged in the actual work
- support and promote effective and strategic peacebuilding work
To do this ACTS focuses on practice-based learning within an academic framework to offer a programme suited to the needs of practitioners.
Action research (AR), which focuses both on people's work and their own role within it, is central to the programme. The underlying idea is that by using action research methodology in their own work environments, and comparing their findings with existing thinking in the field of peacebuilding, the participants not only become more effective in their practice but also contribute to global theory development from a Southern, practitioner perspective. In this way the programme aims to bridge some of the divides in the peacebuilding field between universities and the field, and between North and South.
