Fambul Tok International

Programs: Fambul tok (krio for "family talk") facilitates post war community owned reconciliation, with long-term processes led by each community. The national and district fambul tok staff work with communities to create opportunities for confession, forgiveness, and ongoing reconciliation. Our biggest accomplishment has been to initiate reconciliation processes through reconciliation ceremonies. We have successfully initiated these ceremonies and follow up activities to sustain the reconciliation process in four war-torn districts in over 120 communities in sierra leone. These reconciliation ceremonies have involved over 35,000 participants and hundreds of perpetrators offering confessions and seeking forgiveness and victims forgiving them. The reconciliation process continues with several kinds of activities:the creation of gender-balanced, volunteer community reconciliation committees to deal with local conflicts as they emerge; the launch, growth, and prosperity of community farms called "peace farms"; and youth soccer matches between villages and sections. Our staff works to train and support the local volunteers to lead these efforts in their own communities. We share the stories, processes, and lessons of this community reconciliation work with the world, to illuminate the universal values behind them, and to encourage people to examine their own lives and communities in the light of these values. In the service of these goals, we have maintained an active blog and other social media tools, published and distributed high quality printed reports/booklets, and produced audio and video pieces of the stories of the work. We also completed a book on fambul tok telling our story.