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Content: Peacebuilding, an introduction
The Parable of the Quarry.
One day, a woman walked through a quarry and asked three different workers what they were doing. The first worker responded, “I am here breaking stones.” The woman walked on through the quarry and asked a second worker the same question. The second responded, “I am earning a living.” She walked further yet and asked a third worker the same question. The third responded, “I am building a cathedral!”
Note for the trainer: After having read the parable, you can engage participants by aking them to elicit its meaning. You can use questions such as: "Who are the characters of this parable? What are they doing? What is this parable talking about? what is the difference between the three workers? What can we learn here?"
All three of these answers from the quarry workers help us understand our work in peacebuilding. Sometimes we are just breaking stones, and we are focused on the immediate task, which is very hard work. Sometime we are focused on earning a living, which is important for our survival and our family’s survival and health. Sometimes we also understand that our work is part of a much larger vision that involves many other workers; hewing stone is part of building a beautiful cathedral, and working on local relationships and programmes is part of building long-term peace for many to enjoy.
They say that astronauts get “instant global consciousness” when they go into space. Looking down on the earth, they see the intimate nature of the world and our global connectedness. This is the same concept as building the cathedral. How do we achieve that? This is the challenge for peace workers: to see the larger vision as well as focus on immediate tasks.
Peacebuilding refers to the long-term project of building peaceful, stable communities and societies. This requires building on a firm foundation of justice and reconciliation. How we build on that foundation is very important. The process needs to strengthen and restore relationships and transform unjust institutions and systems. The focus on relationships and the process of how we achieve justice and build peace is unique to peacebuilding. In development work this requires looking at how relationships and decision-making in projects are done. Rather than just looking at the specific ways to improve food production or build new houses, peacebuilding emphasises building right relationships with partners and programme recipients as an integral part of establishing lasting peace in violence-prone areas. Understanding peacebuilding in this way allows us to take a new lens to development projects and programming (Lederach, J. P., Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, United States Institute for Peace, Washington, DC, 1997).
Grounding peacebuilding in relationships means that we engage in a process that respects the abilities and talents each person brings to projects and programming. Relationships are built on trust amongst staff and partners, and the groups in conflict. Relationships also help fortify and sustain people in the process of social change. To fully respect those with whom we are working, we need to engage with them in the process of programming, and identify the goals, means to achieve those goals and ways to evaluate them together. Participation naturally flows from being relationship-centred.
To be fully present in relationships we need to bring our knowledge and talents into the interaction as well as eliciting and building on the knowledge and talents of those around
us. It requires that we respect and listen to those around us and incorporate their feedback as well as sharing our own insights.
To help focus our understanding of peacebuilding, and how it relates more directly to thinking strategically about programming, several useful frameworks are presented in this module. One framework looks at where we can intervene and the other looks at the timing of interventions in situations prone to violent conflict, or when we can intervene. This is followed by analysis of possible peacebuilding activities.
Source: Adapted from Neufeldt, R., Fast, L., et al., Peacebuilding: A Caritas Training Manual, Vatican City, Caritas Internationalis, 2002, pp. 80-81. The manual is avialable in a free pdf file at www.caritas.org.
One day, a woman walked through a quarry and asked three different workers what they were doing. The first worker responded, “I am here breaking stones.” The woman walked on through the quarry and asked a second worker the same question. The second responded, “I am earning a living.” She walked further yet and asked a third worker the same question. The third responded, “I am building a cathedral!”
Note for the trainer: After having read the parable, you can engage participants by aking them to elicit its meaning. You can use questions such as: "Who are the characters of this parable? What are they doing? What is this parable talking about? what is the difference between the three workers? What can we learn here?"
All three of these answers from the quarry workers help us understand our work in peacebuilding. Sometimes we are just breaking stones, and we are focused on the immediate task, which is very hard work. Sometime we are focused on earning a living, which is important for our survival and our family’s survival and health. Sometimes we also understand that our work is part of a much larger vision that involves many other workers; hewing stone is part of building a beautiful cathedral, and working on local relationships and programmes is part of building long-term peace for many to enjoy.
They say that astronauts get “instant global consciousness” when they go into space. Looking down on the earth, they see the intimate nature of the world and our global connectedness. This is the same concept as building the cathedral. How do we achieve that? This is the challenge for peace workers: to see the larger vision as well as focus on immediate tasks.
Peacebuilding refers to the long-term project of building peaceful, stable communities and societies. This requires building on a firm foundation of justice and reconciliation. How we build on that foundation is very important. The process needs to strengthen and restore relationships and transform unjust institutions and systems. The focus on relationships and the process of how we achieve justice and build peace is unique to peacebuilding. In development work this requires looking at how relationships and decision-making in projects are done. Rather than just looking at the specific ways to improve food production or build new houses, peacebuilding emphasises building right relationships with partners and programme recipients as an integral part of establishing lasting peace in violence-prone areas. Understanding peacebuilding in this way allows us to take a new lens to development projects and programming (Lederach, J. P., Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, United States Institute for Peace, Washington, DC, 1997).
Grounding peacebuilding in relationships means that we engage in a process that respects the abilities and talents each person brings to projects and programming. Relationships are built on trust amongst staff and partners, and the groups in conflict. Relationships also help fortify and sustain people in the process of social change. To fully respect those with whom we are working, we need to engage with them in the process of programming, and identify the goals, means to achieve those goals and ways to evaluate them together. Participation naturally flows from being relationship-centred.
To be fully present in relationships we need to bring our knowledge and talents into the interaction as well as eliciting and building on the knowledge and talents of those around
us. It requires that we respect and listen to those around us and incorporate their feedback as well as sharing our own insights.
To help focus our understanding of peacebuilding, and how it relates more directly to thinking strategically about programming, several useful frameworks are presented in this module. One framework looks at where we can intervene and the other looks at the timing of interventions in situations prone to violent conflict, or when we can intervene. This is followed by analysis of possible peacebuilding activities.
Source: Adapted from Neufeldt, R., Fast, L., et al., Peacebuilding: A Caritas Training Manual, Vatican City, Caritas Internationalis, 2002, pp. 80-81. The manual is avialable in a free pdf file at www.caritas.org.
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