Peacebuilding & Citizenship

Angola’s history of chronic conflict dates back to the beginning of the 1961 liberation war through to the ceasefire in 2002. In an effort to minimize potential social conflict prior to the 2008 and 2009 elections, Development Workshop together with its civil society and church-based partners developed a series of programs aimed at encouraging dialogue and tolerance among local actors and war-affected communities in each of Angola’s 18 provinces.

Development Workshop’s peacebuilding programme was launched in December 1998 during the same month that the Lusaka Peace Process collapsed and Angola entered its final destructive phase of conflict. DW hosted a meeting of the major civil society and religious institutions including CICA, CEAST, AEA and FONGA resulting in the founding of the Angola Peacebuilding Programme (PCP).  In the post-war period the PCP focused its energies on reconciliation of communities and reintegration of demobilized soldiers and their families. The PCP partners joined forces in the period leading up to elections in order to ensure that the democratic process would not provoke local conflicts and lead to a breakdown in the peace process as had the last elections in 1992.

In 2005 Development Workshop and its former PCP member institutions, mounted a renewed partnership focused on Civic Education. Via electoral training, education, adult literacy, conflict resolution and instituting organized participative planning at the local community level, DW  has successfully supported its partners’ work of preparing Angola for elections.

In February 2007 DW’s Peace building and Citizenship Program started PECE II, the next phase of their Civic and Electoral Education Project.

The importance of the Civic Education for Elections Project is very much connected with the consolidation of the Angolan Peace Process. There remained up until the 2008 elections, in some parts of the country, a fear of returning to conflict. The only previous experience that Angolans have had with electoral processes dates back to 1992 when, what had been a successful electoral process, broke down when the losing party chose to return to armed combat rather than taking their places in the opposition benches of parliament. In 1992, the Angolan population had put their faith in democratic elections to end the previous years of civil war. An over 90% turn-out to vote was an indication of this buy-in. The post-electoral violence and the failure of the international community to back-up and quickly endorse the electoral results, lead many of the electorate to lose faith in the democratic process and even fear the up-coming electoral process.

The slow electoral registration in 2006 and 2007, even in urban areas where logistics problems are few, is an indication of the initial lack of confidence or interest in the electoral process by some segments of the population. It became a challenge for the Civic and Electoral Education Project to help overcome this inertia.

The Angolan civil society and churches mobilized during the last years of war, to build an effective and broad-based "peace movement". Much of the peace movement's platform was incorporated into the Luena Accords that were drawn up to end the war in 2002. Development Workshop and NiZA, with funding from the EU, the Dutch Embassy in Angola, Novib and others, helped support the Angolan peace movement in building a post-conflict network of local organizations to build national reconciliation and consolidate peace. Development Workshop and NiZA have built the current civic education for elections program upon this same civil society and church network to renew confidence in the democratic process and to use civic education for elections to further consolidate the peace.

The legislative elections, held on the 5th of September 2008, were the first ‘free and fair’ elections in Angola since 1992. This was also the first time since the independence of Angola, that elections did not lead to large scaled outbursts of violence or return to a civil war.  
We strongly believe that this is in part the result of the relentless struggle of the Angolan Peace Movement and all our partners, committed to our common goals.

Link to our Baseline

Our Objectives are:

The prevention of return to violent and conflict, through the consolidation of the peace process and the democratization process in Angola, 

The preparation and improve knowledge on civic and electoral education of Angolans with the least access to information for future legislative, presidential and municipal elections through a process of civic and electoral education. 

Target Group

Angolan citizens, especially women, youth and children who are in and out of school in 1700 communities of 6 provinces (Huila, Kunene, Namibe, Kwanza Norte, Luanda, Zaire), estimated total of 68,000 adults, 10,000 children directly reached. 36 Peace activists in each of the province, totaling 216. Civil society and church- and community-based organizations connected to the 7 national network organizations working together in the National Steering Committee.

Cooperation & Partnership

We are working together with different institutions, governmental and non-governmental to reach our goals. Provincial Nuclei, Civil Society Organizations, Churches, Church based organizations, national and local representatives of the Government, Ministries of Education, Family and Youth & Sports, and many Peace Activists, volunteers, teachers, promoters, traditional leaders, all work together to support local initiatives that help implement our activities.
The umbrella organizations CEAST, CICA, AEA, FONGA, ADRA, MOSAIKO and DW constitute the steering committee.

OUR ACTIVITIES

Build, expand, and establish the existing partnership at national and provincial level by training 120 representatives of provincial coordination committees, including provincial Nuclei.

Training of 216 peace activists on Civic and Electoral education, gender equity and women’s rights. After they have been trained they engaged in the community by replicating their knowledge back in the community.

Development and disseminate civic and electoral education materials.



Create and expand resource-centres/mini-libraries. This action will establish and whenever possible, upgrade 60 mini-libraries in the six target provinces. Each mini-library will initially be provided with a civic and electoral education kit that will serve as the basic resource material for teachers, peace activists, and students.

Each province has been equipped with computers connected to the internet to create access to information resources for the nuclei, other interested parties, and give to access to the Angonet website and the WWW.

Reach the media, so they can assist in spreading our information. Media coverage is a vector through which information and awareness is passed to the community in the easiest way.

Promote electoral education awareness to our communities on democracy, free and fair elections in order to prevent any community violence.

Educate the youth and children in schools. Support the Ministry in the further inclusion of Civic Education in the school curriculum.

Organise and facilitate Open Space Sessions to our communities with the least access to information, done with the support of the projects provincial promoters. These Open Space Sessions contain information about Elections, Elections Code of Conduct, Human Rights, Gender Issues, Democracy, Civic Education, Conflict Resolutions, Conflict Prevention, the importance of the Parliament and awareness raising for HIV/AIDS. We use debate, speeches, cartoons, brochures, leaflets, drama, music, song, storytelling and poetry to disseminate the information and encourage a more open discourse in the communities.

The project also provides the networking and experience sharing at national and international level and Capacity building through knowledge exchange, learning from M&E and reporting, technical support to the project structures in the PCM, M&E and reporting and external audit and evaluation.

The meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Family, Ministry of Youth and Sport, our Partner Organisations, more than 50, at schools, and other NGO’s such as IDD, gives us an opportunity to share our ideas and strengthen our network and influence.

Gender is a cross cutting issue in all our activities. But  we also give specific Gender training that will be replicated in special Open Space Sessions on Gender Issues.
Individuals are trained and explained to consider that man and women are equal and can be assigned responsibilities as long as they are capable of doing them. The traditional and domestic obligations should not be a barrier to reach ones full potential, male or female.

Stories of change

A community member said: ``If I knew all this information before I would have treated my family and my wife better.``

More stories will follow shortly!

All these stories of change happen as result of the ongoing project awareness activities and training.

This program is funded by:

This program has been made possible through the funding of our long term supporters:

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/

This publication has been produced by Development Workshop Angola with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication is the sole responsibility of Development Workshop Angola and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

http://www.niza.nl

http://angola.nlembassy.org/

http://www.oxfamnovib.nl

The Civic and Electoral Education Project has its roots in PEC (Civic Education Project) which was originally conceived post the ceasefire to work with ex-combatants. The Civic Education Project evolved into the Civic and Electoral Education Projects I and II (PECE I & PECE II) which were specifically designed to prepare provinces for the 2008 elections and prevent conflict.

JEPC is a partnership between the various youth institutions of the civil society, churches, Government and political parties. JEPC was created in Luanda 29th April 2005 and ended April 2007.

The Directive Committee was consisted of members from the partnership and played an important role on:

Achieving the objectives of the project,

• Promote a sustainable peace "post-conflict" for youth in Angola
• Strengthen peace, democracy, justice and reconciliation among the youth;
• Strengthen the institutional Capacity building of our partners; 
• Promote events that develop Skills and knowledge on leadership, conflict resolution, conflict management, civic education, human rights and financial management of the projects.  
• Create networking experiences at local, provincial, national and international level;
• Promote the constructive consensus in the base of the dialogue to reach a common agreement and achieve national reconciliation;
• Promote a culture of peace among the youth within their communities.

Planning initiatives that aim to strengthen the engagement of youth within the civil society, national organizations, Government, churches, non-governmental organizations and political parties to the challenges of the Angolan youth.

The project targets youths from the age of 14 to 30.

Areas of intervention: 

Promotion and constructive consensus for national conciliation; Promotion of human rights; Support initiatives that strengthen transition for an inclusive, sustainable and mature democracy in Angola; Promotion of debates, discussion in matters concerning peace and citizenship; Social justice, Poverty reduction, and others related issues; Promotion of civic education, create space for dialog, forums, talks and respect for diversity and differences; Promotion of gender equality;

Promotion of related activities that may bring about the restoration of lost culture and values by making use of ondjango, theatre, tournaments, music, dances, youth camp, field duties, data collection documentation, hospital visits, street clean up, tree planting, all under the header of peace initiatives.

Provinces of Intervention: Luanda, Huíla, Moxico, Kuando Kubango, Huambo and Bié

Managed by 12 different community groups, Development Workshop founded a peace project that promotes open dialogue at the local level to encourage peaceful conflict resolution. Finished in 2009.

The ONDAKA project, a monthly bulletin published with DW’s support, has been a cornerstone in increasing adult literacy among communities. We started production in 2007 and will continue to do so. This bulletin is produced with funding from the EU.