Programs: The african great lakes initiative responded to the conflict in north kivu, congo, with humanitarian relief and listening sessions. The program continued its work with rape survivors. The kamenge clinic in bujumbura has continued its activities, particularly with hiv positive women, including a micro-credit project with them. The bududa vocation academy concluded another successful year including raising funds for a two story classroom block. Orphan and scholarship programs continued with child of bududa supporting 175 orphans and the rwandan scholarship program with 12 students in middle and secondary school and 4 in college. In kenya work began in hot-stop areas for the prevention of election related violence including the training of 1204 citizen reporters attached to a call-in center. In rwanda two more children's peace libraries were launched, and an international hroc training was successfully concluded. In burundi, the hroc program continued their work with bio-sand water filters, a goat program, the democracy and peace groups, and trauma healing in peace villages established by the government. Hroc workshops were slowly introduced in the united states. Two issues of peaceways-agli were produced and mailed out; reports were sent out regularly on the agli listserve which has grown to over 850 people, and two speaking tours of the us by agli's african partners were concluded.
local and international volunteers with peacebuilding en las americas (pla) offered over 50 alternatives to violence project (avp)n and community based trauma healing workshops in colombia, honduras, el salvador and guatemala in 2012, serving ~400 people. Most participants seek alternate ways to deal with the violence in their communities--and many are young people. A honduran speaker spoke in new york, connecticut, and indiana about her work for peace and the challenges she faces in her work, and was invited to testify in 2013 at the un commission on women's rights as a result of her presentation. New, local facilitators were trained in all the countries where pla works. Currently we work with 35 facilitators in colombia, 10 in honduras, 8 in el salvador and 10 in guatemala.
team members of friends peace teams to indonesia visit with people in places challenged by war and violence and participate alternatives to violence project, trauma healing, conscience, discernment and developmental play workshops and transfer knowledge necessary for local production of essential supplies not generally available, such as ceramic water filters, developmental toys, children's story books and reference materials. The indonesia initiative after five years under the care of friends peace teams, in january 2012 expanded to become the asia west pacific initiative and added seven australians to the working group membership, which includes members from ny, me, pa, de, fl, tn, tx, ca, norway, aotearoa/nz, australia and indonesia. Peter watson, from aotearoa/nz, spent a month at peace place in central java working with the woodworkers making developmental toys for young children and the preschool teachers and students using them. Two peace teams visited aceh, north sumatra, central java, jogjakarta and jakarta and alternatives to violence project facilitators came down from sumatra to help the teams train facilitators at peace place. Over three hundred dolls, hand sewn in the us, were delivered to children in sumatra and java through our two main training sites and a library of developmental story books was established. Peace place and the friends guest house construction were completed, joglo preschool, to be smart after-school program, parenting classes and community workshops were established in java, which welcome both christians and muslims. The militant village head of tondomulyo, after two years of bi-annual visitation, in 2012 asked for our prayers, "each according to our own faith," as he was seriously ill, stunning people throughout the conservative islamic network. Preschool teachers at tunas baru (new sprouts), in north sumatra, are becoming sought-after resource people for educational development in langkat, north sumatra, where literally hundreds of people show up when workshops are announced. We connected barak induk residents with amnesty international to secure the release of their village secretary, pak yatno, and then delivered detailed accounts from barak induk to five embassies and three un offices, including the world heritage committee in paris, ending the human rights abuses against the former refugees in barak induk. In aceh, this was the first year we were permitted to travel in aceh without a military permit and therefore began visiting numerous remote and rural communities, supporting young children and their families through training in half a dozen preschools. We initiated regular workshops in jakarta and began developing two young women to translate materials, which is a persistent burden in indonesia. Exodus friends church of indonesia yearly meeting in the north of jakarta, which primarily serves refugees from the violence in ambon working in the factories in n. Jakarta, welcomed the team in february 2012. Nick and sarah rozard served as long-term volunteers for one year in jogjakarta where nick established a ceramic research lab and made the micro-biology lab operational. The addition of regular contact over skype expanded our working group monthly calls and regular calls among team leadership.
