PEACE VILLAGE

Peace Village initiative aims to tackle the threat of radicalism by empowering communities, one village at a time, through cultivating social cohesion, community resilience, as well as promoting societal equality and respect for diversity.

This initiative puts Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) strategic vision into very concrete action. It employs a well-crafted approach combining three vital components in building enduring resilience in the community: economic improvement, peace building social mechanism and women empowerment.

Through the initiative, several women’s groups who are willing to take on the role of agents for peace were established. Next to economic empowerment component, women peace agents received regular training on conflict resolution and how to locally prevent, detect and address early signs of violence. Women’s groups approached their village leadership to explore ways to promote tolerance abd sustain peace within their communities. As a result, in its two years of implementation between 2017 to 2019, with the support from UN Women, ten village leaders committed to pilot the Peace Village concept. A Peace Village Declaration signed by involved partners, is based on specific commitments, captured in nine indicators that measure progress in efforts to prevent violence, promote tolerance and advance social justice.

Peace Village purposefully places women as the main actors in building peace in the family, community and local governance. Women are engaged to foster their abilities to become economically independent, to be actively participate in communal decision making and to creatively develop peace narratives.

At the same time, the village government is encouraged to integrate peace values into its policy. These concerted efforts are strengthened further by connecting significant stakeholders from grassroots leaders, local government, regional and national governments as well as international agencies.