fbpx
Every dollar matched up to $50,000 until December 31! Give today.
Our SpeakUp® Mechanism
Nonviolent Peaceforce logo with blue dotDonate

A Better World Radio Show Interviews NP's Gilda Bettencourt

Date: September 8, 2024

Press Clip Source: A Better World (WPVM 101.7)
Link to Source: Here

McNair Ezzard, host of A Better World radio show, alongside Gilda Bettencourt, NP US Outreach and Donor Relations Officer. The photo highlights their recent interview discussing Nonviolent Peaceforce’s global efforts in unarmed civilian protection. Both individuals are shown in professional settings, with McNair in the radio studio and Gilda in a portrait photo.

This is the month for peace in the United States and around the world. The International Day of Peace is on September 21st and A Better World is doing a series about peace.  

McNair Ezzard is the radio show host for A Better World at 103.7. Each week on A Better World, Ezzard takes an in-depth look at the people and organizations locally, nationally and internationally who are working to create a world that works for everyone. The show streams on WPVMFM.org and is recorded in Asheville, North Carolina. 

Recently, McNair interviewed seasoned staff member from NPUS, Gilda Bettencourt, Outreach and Donor Relations Officer. As a graduate of UC Berkeley, Gilda brings almost 30 years of study and practice in nonviolence. She was also a board member of Peace Workers USA and the Metta Center for Nonviolence. 

Note: Transcript has received minor edits for length and clarity.  

Can you tell us, what is Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP)? 

In a nutshell, we are a global protection agency. That's one of the terms that we use. We're an international non-governmental organization. We don't belong to any particular government, and we are focused on protecting civilians and interrupting cycles of violence through nonviolent means. Although it’s quite a bit to try to take on, we've been around for about 20 years and we've grown from having one program, which started off in Sri Lanka and now we're in 10 programs around the world.  

We have teams in South Sudan, Mindanao (a region of the Philippines), Ukraine, Iraq, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States, and Sudan. Sudan is the great overlooked conflict at this moment with more than eight and a half million people displaced by the conflict and it’s barely getting any news. We’re starting to see a little bit more [coverage] now since it was on the cover of the Economist. Hopefully more people will pay attention to this conflict. But we're not deterred by challenges. 

A lot of the places where we've started off working have seen some improvements, like in Mindanao, Philippines. We've been there since 2007 and that's another undertold story of a successful peace process. That should get way more attention than it's getting these days. 

MCNAIR EZZARD: I was looking at the map on the website where you folks work and there were a couple of places like where you mentioned the Philippines and I think Guatemala. There wasn’t any recent information, they [the pins] dated back to a few years ago.  

Is the map indicative of conflicts leveling out there or is something else going on? 

It's a bit of both in a way. The map projects where we've been and are no longer and have closed our programs for different reasons. Either we went there with a very specific intent-- Guatemala is a good example. Our staff went there protecting human rights defenders. I believe this was around 2007. The human rights defenders were being threatened and were receiving death threats and it was around the election time in Guatemala. They [the human rights defenders] knew their situation well enough that they felt really that they were most in danger coming up to the election, but they thought after the election had passed, they would be in a better place.  

So, they asked for protective accompaniment, which is basically, you can think of it as having unarmed bodyguards accompanying you for a certain amount of time. NP sent about four people to accompany the women [human rights defenders] while they were doing their work. The women were collecting information on human rights abuses in their history. We had staff accompany them from the moment they left their home all throughout their work, and then we accompanied them back to their homes. This way, they could continue to do their work.  

They [the human rights defenders] did not feel safe doing their work. Their office had been broken into; their records had been damaged. Someone even left a noose hanging on the door, basically telling these women [sending a message to the women], if you keep this up, we're coming after you. Unarmed civilian protection, which is the methodology that Nonviolent Peaceforce uses, kind of actually grew out of a lot of work in Central America and Latin America.  

These women knew who to call, they called us. We did our best to respond quickly and we knew we'd be there only for about six to eight months. Our team knew we would stay if they felt they weren't safer, but the women felt that after the election, they were safer. This is one of our victories, when we can say that nothing happened.  At the end of the day, they were able to continue to do their work and none of them were harmed. 

MCNAIR EZZARD: I will prefer to refer to it as NP.

Can you tell me a little bit about NP's history, how it got started?

Nonviolent Peaceforce grew out of a lot of work in which people were noticing people who were traveling to sites where human rights abuses or warfare were occurring. Folks who were mostly from the global north (mainly from North America, and Europe) were visiting. 

7:16 | And in the cases that I know that were early were basically places in Central America, maybe Colombia as well. They were living with communities and documenting their work, but not really thinking that they were doing much. What they did understand is that those communities felt safer with their presence. There was one account I heard about, one specific case in a village: Their car had broken down and they were going to go to town to have it repaired. They told the community that they were going to do this. And the community responded, ‘Oh, that's fine, just as long as one of you stay here.’ They were confused by this request and said, ‘Oh, okay, why is that?’ And they're like, ‘well, they won't attack if one of you stays here. But if both of you leave, then we're much more at risk.’ That sparked a light bulb in people's thinking, as they noticed that the presence of outsiders [non-locals] can offer levels of protection and influence for a community under threat or for activists that might be under threat, like the case in Guatemala.  

After that, the founders started to explore what level of protection could we offer to, say, peace activists or people who are simply working to help their communities?  

8:50 | The idea kind of grew from there and Nonviolent Peaceforce, particularly grew when two gentlemen who did not know what they were doing and did not originally know each other: one being David Hartsough, the other one being Mel Duncan. They met each other at a large event, called the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999. Both of them had a similar idea, but did not know of one another. I believe it was Mel that heard David speaking at this event. It was a really large event-- twice as many people showed up for the Hague Appeal for Peace than had been planned.   

David had been working in nonviolent movements around the world for probably 30 or 40 years. He shared that he believed that a lot of nonviolent movements suffer due to a lack of outside pressure, or enough outsiders witnessing what was going on. 

...This helped David realize that what we needed were trained people to be able to go to nonviolent movements when requested. We needed to train soldiers, firefighters, law enforcement, all kinds of folks and have them on standby as needed. And we would need to do something like that for nonviolent movements and nonviolent activists, people who need help. So, that was what his vision was, and Mel Duncan had a similar vision as well. After Mel heard him speak, he grabbed him by the arm and said, ‘if you're serious about this, we need to start organizing right now.’ That was when a lot of energy started to come into Nonviolent Peaceforce. Mel had the organizing skills, and David had the international connections. 

MCNAIR EZZARD: I was looking at some of the numbers about how many people around the world have been trained in UCP. I think it said more than 700 people across 10 countries trained over 26,000 people in this idea of unarmed civilian protection.  

That seems like an impressive number, but is it enough to accomplish what NP has set out to do? 

12:30 | No, I doubt it’s enough, we would like to train way more people. We need to grow as quickly and as sustainably as possible to meet the need that is occurring in our world right now. I think that is our challenge: how quickly can Nonviolent Peaceforce grow, not for the sake of growth, but because there is such a need. How can we grow in a way that's sustainable that will not undermine the work that we do and in a way that maintains the level of quality that we want? I think that’s probably Nonviolent Peaceforce’s largest challenge right now.  

We've received support from both individuals and governments, but government funding has also become a challenge. Sometimes, we get messages from governments that really appreciate our work, saying they love what we're doing but don't have as much money as they used to and can't provide funding. It's not that the demand is any less— in fact, the demand is growing. 

We need to know how to grow our organization so that it can be in a sustainable fashion. We are working on diversifying our funding so that we're a bit more independent. Since we don't respond to any particular government's agenda. A large amount of our funding comes from large national grants. There's a case of the European Union being one of our largest funders. But the power is in the purse strings. If we don't diversify our support, then we're more sensitive, more vulnerable when people decide to not support us. We have to come up with other means to still do the work. 

15:28 | MCNAIR EZZARD: I wanted to say I was looking at an article that appeared in Meditation Magazine where a couple of people from NP were interviewed about your work in Sudan.  

You mentioned Sudan earlier, about how you NP is working to protect civilians and help reduce violence in Sudan. Is that an example of the UCP in action? 

15:50 | Yes, it's definitely an example of UCP in action. In Sudan right now, there's a high level of violence and conflict that it is an example of UCP in action.  It's one of those examples that you can give people when they say, “oh, you know, there's nothing that can be done in that location for those people.” It's true that I think we're most effective when a conflict really hasn't escalated to the point that it has in Sudan, or when a conflict has sort of exhausted itself and people are not seeing a way out.  

Then [in these situations] you see a lot of people turning to Nonviolent Peaceforce because our three main principles are nonviolence and non-partisanship [meaning] we don't take sides during conflicts, we speak to all the actors and try to help them find a path forward. You know, the violence isn't getting them anywhere and there are certain points where people finally realize that and are looking for a way out.  

Our third principle that we like to point out and stress to people is that we believe in the primacy of local actors. We believe that local communities should lead their peace process. It's not our job to go anywhere and to tell people how to build peace. But we do try to create that safe space so that the local communities, local people, those who are most affected by the violence, are making the decisions about their future and how they can reach more safety and more peace. 

17:30 | I wish I could tell you that things were better in Sudan. When we started that program, the Civil War had not broken out. We were there about a year before that occurred. As painful as it is for me to see what's going on in Sudan, I’m grateful that our team was at least there early enough to train many people, many of them women, in how to better protect themselves and not being reliant on weapons to do that in organizing.  

I like to think that they're in a better position because of what we helped them prepare for, than if we hadn't been there at all. I know that we have helped them move to safer locations. Our team even helped keep a clinic going, in addition to other work. Everywhere we work is an example of what UCP looks like, but our support doesn’t always look the same. NP responds to the context of each conflict, which demands different tools and strategies in different places. 

18:55 | MCNAIR EZZARD: You mentioned that in Sudan, the conflict is pretty far along and there's been some struggles accomplishing some things there.

I think that's what I'm talking about in a place like Ukraine, which you [NP] has also have been involved in. Can you speak to that a bit?

19:03 | GILDA BETTENCOURT: Yes. A lot of people questioned whether Nonviolent Peaceforce could really be very effective in Ukraine when that conflict started, particularly because our previous work was very much on the ground being with communities that were under threat.  

While they [civilians in other countries] were facing threats, it wasn't from being shelled from above, so, what could we do? What could our strategies do to prevent a rocket from hitting a building? I have to say, we took that very seriously, but we also saw some gaps in security that we thought we could fill.  

Following an initial assessment, we were invited to support in Ukraine. One of the things that we could do for Ukraine is that we could help provide a lot more support to the Ukrainian volunteers that were already responding to civilians’ needs.  

20:30 | Ukraine had a remarkable response when they began being attacked. A lot of civilians, you know, dropped their day jobs and just started filling in the gaps of what was needed because so many people were being called to the frontline. However, there was no support for volunteers. While they were being given aid, they weren't being given, say, gas money or transportation to deliver that aid. They were not being given protective gear, such as flat jackets or helmets when they’re in very dangerous areas.  

Ukrainians were at great risks even though support was coming from everywhere. We began a Protective Equipment (PPE) lending program, in which Ukrainian volunteers going to risky places can request protective equipment, such as, helmets and flat jackets. Essentially, the program allows organizations to borrow gear so that they can feel a little safer while doing this important lifesaving work. We lend this equipment out because it’s very expensive and people need to do their best to protect themselves. I was so incredibly proud that we were doing that.  

22:10 | It's always seemed odd to me that as a society, we’re always ready to give weaponry, but we don't seem to be so quick [or eager to] share protective equipment that could save someone's life. We know that the equipment has saved lives. One volunteer told us that he not only survived an attack, but he was able to jump on [and shield] his partner and protect that person through his gear. We have a saying at Nonviolent Peaceforce: if you stay creative and stay humble, you can do really important work. I think that's an example of it. When we address these gaps, we can really help protect people. 

Are there resources on the NPs website for people who are interested in learning more about the unarmed civilian protection program? 

23:10 | GILDA BETTENCOURT: Yes, I'm so glad you asked that, because we do try to make everything that we can about unarmed civilian protection available on our website.  You can find our UCP manual, our feasibility study, which is what we created before we started even any of this work 20 years ago, and lots of other resources. There are a ton of resources that people can learn from and perhaps apply them in their own world within their own conflicts. This is part of our approach to helping the field of unarmed civilian protection grow. We're not interested in being the only organization in town [that uses UCP].  

If people would learn from whatever they find useful from us and see how they can apply it in their own work. There's the saying, ‘it takes a village’. Well, I think it's going to take a planet. I think it's going to take a lot of people in this world for us to get to a safer place. Since it seems that it's becoming less and less safe. We're putting so much money into weapons and into arming ourselves, thinking that it's going to make the world safer and it seems to just be doing exactly the opposite. That’s why, at NP, we're focusing on what improvements and security are possible without weaponry. Because it just seems like the proliferation of weaponry is just what's actually making us less safe. The United States has more guns than people. Are we really safer because of all of these guns? 

25:00 | MCNAIR EZZARD: Right, and is there less violence? Yeah, it's interesting. I was looking at your website noticed that there’s a section about declining global peace and that about 2 billion people live in conflict affected areas of the world. It mentions that while conflict is inevitable, violence is not.  

Can you speak to that idea of declining global peace and what is meant by that expression, ‘conflict is inevitable, but violence is not’? 

25:25 | GILDA BETTENCOURT: Conflict has always been with us, [it occurs whenever] people see things differently and there's a disagreement. One thing I think we can agree upon is, when people lack the imagination, they lack the ability to try to resolve their conflicts in a nonviolent manner or some other way, that’s when violence begins to rear its head. But do we really benefit from that in any way? You end up leaving more, more damage, more scarred people, dead people. I mean, people are going to have to recover from all of that trauma. How does that improve anything?  

26:11 | I don't think anybody argues that violence doesn't prove anything, but it just seems to be the knee jerk response to when you're not getting your way. Like, ‘oh we'll show them.’ If you can think back on times of conflict when people said, ‘Oh, we're going to have this attack and it's going to be over quickly and then we'll get what we need or we'll do what we need to do.’ How often do those conflicts really end quickly?  

26:44 | And in [following] violent conflicts, [sometimes this leads to] seeds sewn for even more resentment, hatred, revenge. I just don’t see violence resolving anything. Nonviolence may take longer, it may not be as sparkly and impressive as explosives or whatnot, but whatever is built, is built to last.  

27:15 | We believe that if you’re going to improve things, you need to build relationships. Sometimes violent conflict comes around because there was a relationship holding a community or country together and somehow it has disintegrated and now you're seeing more violence. So we're taking a different approach to try to create something that's more lasting.  

MCNAIR EZZARD: Yeah. And as you're talking, I'm thinking, well, what you're saying applies not only on the individual level, but also among, among countries, which you've pointed at. 

GILDA BETTENCOURT: Well, what are countries if not a bunch of individuals? 

MCNAIR EZZARD: Yeah. Let me ask you about another area that NP is involved with, and that is advocacy.  

Can you talk about how that [advocacy] takes shape and perhaps share an example of how it works? Perhaps with the Association of Southeast Asian nations or with engagement with the United States. 

GILDA BETTENCOURT: Advocacy is a very important part of our work. We do our best to demonstrate how things can be done, as we're advocating to the world to see a different approach to conflict. But, we're not interested in being the only folks who do this work. We are encouraging other people to take a look at what we're doing and if they think that they can also use it, please do.  

Our advocacy work is actually growing. We advocate at the United Nations, at the US government, at the European Union, at ASEAN (we're actually going to be doing more of that), and we’ve also been advocating at the African Union. At each of these locations, we're pointing out our work, or offering it as possibly something to be explored.  

When I say that we need to be invited somewhere before we start a program? Well, there are a lot of communities under stress that have no way of observing what other people are doing around the world. Out of necessity, they're so absorbed by the challenges and danger that they're facing. It can be difficult for folks to consider the possibility of alternative approaches or what can be done. These agencies can help civilians understand our work.  

I was really pleased to learn that we began our program in Myanmar because they learned about our ceasefire monitoring in the Mindanao region of the Philippines. We had staff from Myanmar travel to Mindanao so they could see that work up close up. There's a lot of exchange between our different programs. It’s been incredible to see what different communities learn from one another. I was really touched when I learned that our team in Ukraine provided some psychosocial counseling and support to our team in Sudan, when the Civil War broke out in Sudan. It was amazing to think that people in Ukraine who have so much to deal with (facing dangers, stressors, etc.) also had the capacity and the energy to reach out to people in Sudan and tell them what worked for them and what they could do to help keep their psyches and selves safe as best as they could.  

It wasn't just our teams, but also the community-led teams that they were working with. So the team in Ukraine trained our small team in Sudan, but also hundreds of people that they were working with as well.  

If you give the world an opportunity to exchange safety advice and share tools that have worked for them, it can be very impactful. It can at least do something, especially in places where people think nothing can be done. I think Nonviolent Peaceforce has a pretty good record of showing people that there's always something that can be done, maybe it’s not always what people expect, but in the worst case scenarios, we can help people evacuate more safely than they would have otherwise. In many places, families are broken up, people lose track of one another in all the stress and violence, and then there's that problem where you have families scattered not knowing where to find one another. 

Does the team here in the US office go to other countries to train people, do you bring people to the US for training, or do you already have people living in those other countries that do the trainings for local people? 

The team in the US is really one of our newest teams and did not exist before 2020. We have never brought people to the US to be trained. We have always had our trainings done as closely as possible to the sites and where people will be working. We have a team of trainers that we have trained over the years, and they've gone to the different sites in doing that training, and we are investing more in that as well. So we're having to have a steady group of lead trainers that can go rotating to the sites where we work as needed. 

MCNAIR EZZARD: I didn't even know this existed, but there's a day in August called World Humanitarian Day, where the work of humanitarians around the world is celebrated. But the work of humanitarians is certainly not easy. They're quite often putting their life on a limb or in harms way. I saw a piece from NP which says that “2023 marked the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers with figures continuing to escalate this year in 2024.”  

Can you speak to this situation and what do you think needs to be done by governments of the world to protect humanitarians to address this issue? 

36:40 | Well, something needs to be done differently, because something's clearly not working, something's not in place.  I think we're too quick to sort of say [rationalize], that the death of these people were unavoidable, that this is the result of war, and we should expect loss of life. It may make a person think twice about taking on a career as a humanitarian. If we were to allow our firefighters and our medical staff to just go and say, ‘there's nothing we could do about that,’ I don't think you'd have a lot of people wanting to take on those careers.  

So I think more needs to be said about this. I do think it's a good thing that humanitarian day exists and it brings attention to what's going on in the world. Here are people who are doing everything they can to protect other people and their lives are being treated as if they have no value. You know, there's just too little care for the loss of human life.  I think that a lot more concern needs to be placed on how we can protect people and not just win a battle [less emphasis on winning battles].  

I wish I knew the answer and if I did, I wouldn't keep it a secret. But I think that we can tell governments that they have to take things more seriously [hold governments accountable in acting]. Yet, they seem to be doing a good job of ignoring these pleads, or saying that they can't respond to them.  

I think that's one of the reasons why I was drawn to Nonviolent Peaceforce. Before I joined the organization, I, like many other people, was someone approaching my government saying, please, ‘look at the loss of human life. Please do things that can protect people and deter these deaths and killing.’ But I just felt so frustrated that I didn't think I was being listened to. I felt powerless in being able to change anything. When I learned that Nonviolent Peaceforce was working on the ground with the communities that are under threat, actually playing a role in trying to improve their safety, then all of a sudden I felt, okay, maybe I can make a difference. Maybe I can influence the way that things are going. What I really like about this approach is that it starts at the grassroots. It starts, you know, we have very direct contact with the people who are experiencing the violence and trying to improve things for them. Because, you know, when you're talking to governments and asking them to change, when you're asking for the change to come from the top down, it sometimes feels like you're trying to, you're kicking a dinosaur trying to get its attention, you know, you're like a gnat you know, buzzing around their ear, but that's about it.  

But if you can go more directly to the people who are under threat and help them, then I felt like that's, there's something we can do about that. You know, and we can help humanitarians try to be safer. For example, like the protective equipment lending, you know, I wish that people would share as much protective equipment as they're willing to share weaponry. I mean, it only makes sense. You know, it's like giving everybody a sword, but nobody gets a shield. Where's the logic in that?  

Are there particular people or events that have had an influence on your work or your desire to be involved in working for peace and nonviolence? 

Yes, yes, it's true. I don't think it's a complete coincidence that I joined Nonviolent Peaceforce shortly after September 11th. It was also about the time that Nonviolent Peaceforce was starting. They started in 1999 and 2001 is actually when I learned about them. And I thought, ah, you know, yes, you know, because I had just seen one of the most horrible attacks on civilians in my own country. And I just thought like, you know, civilians have become. It's open season on civilians. No one seems to respect civil society. I think we're all in for a great bit of risk. And so, you know, that that is actually when I started volunteering. I volunteered with Nonviolent Peaceforce for about three years before I became staff. I think, though, also one of the reasons that I've always had this hatred of for is that I saw it in. I saw what it did to people. My, my uncle lost a leg in one of the colonial wars when Portugal was part of fighting its former colonies Angola.  

As a small child, I wondered why my uncle had a doll's leg, because I could see he didn't have a real leg. My mother turned to me when I asked her, and whispered, ‘it's because of the war.’ So from early on, I received a message that war was something horrible that eats people up. I had a family that avoided, tried to avoid war. And violence as much as possible, like most people, you know, but I had this real distrust of people saying that war was needed. And so yeah, that always stuck with me. But yeah, before 9/11, I thought I was going to travel the world and promote sustainable tourism, because I thought, you know, and I still think that's not necessarily a bad thing as long as it benefits the communities that are receiving guests. After 9/11, I kind of thought, well, there might not be a world to promote if we don't get violence in check, you know, and we're not going to reach anything of value unless we get violence in check. When I think of space exploration, I'm not against it. But if the earth is not safe, if there's no home base that's watching out for those space explorers, how do we plan to advance at any real level if the earth isn't safe, and most people on earth aren't safe? When you brought up that figure of 2 billion people, that's about one in every four people on this planet that are on the move, because of violent conflict. They're not at home, they're not learning, they're not receiving medical care, they're barely feeding themselves (if they even are). This is all because they don't have the peace that is needed to live a life. 

When one considers the idea about how to bring peace to the world. Do you think there are multiple answers or is there one paramount idea that needs to be accepted by all people and in doing so will lead to peace? 

GILDA BETTENCOURT: There are multiple answers to that, because I don't pretend to know that we know everything that's needed for this world to be at peace. I think, having this understanding that violence isn't going to advance anything would probably be helpful. But, the world is so diverse and this framing is not necessarily going to be understood by everybody in the same time in the same way. People are experiencing so many different things in different ways. There are a lot of traditions in humanity that understand the value of peace, of forgiveness, so maybe we can lean into these [shared] traditions and [values]. Most people do want peace. Most people just want to live their lives and don't want outside forces destroying it. Maybe, you know, if we rely a little bit more on that, we could achieve peace. We could definitely do better. All I ask for is that we try strive for some improvements, that we try to reduce violence, and to try to strengthen local peace structures (what people are doing to keep the peace to give some support to that).  

You know, we're always so ready to assist in attacks or what people say they do in the name of safety. If we put just as much energy, effort, and resources into keeping peace and helping people focus on their security without weapons, I think we could get somewhere.  

Women play an important role at NP. A lot of women around the world are treated as something that needs to be protected, people say like, ‘well, we got to watch out for the women and children.’ As if [women and children] are one in the same, as if adult women don't have the means or ability to protect themselves.  

When our teams expand awareness around the agency women can have in protecting not only themselves, but others in their community as well, it’s transformative.  Women develop a different vision that is of the world. I'm really very proud of the women's protection teams and women’s peace teams that we have formed in different locations of our work. I think the largest example might be in South Sudan. Women in South Sudan have told us that they are considered to be less valuable than cattle, like that the hierarchy is men [top], then cattle [middle], then women [bottom]. Right.  

Women are now playing these roles in fighting domestic violence and discouraging young men in seek revenge when sometimes their society or culture is expecting it. They have a role in this. There are so many people who could be more involved in security, but aren't because they've been told that that's not their place, or traditionally they're not seen as valuable in that role. Having more inclusion could be an incredible force in helping stabilize this world.  

I'll just finish with a really quick account of a chief in South Sudan. Typically, chiefs in South Sudan are the people who distribute justice. When there's a dispute in the community, they [community members] go to the chief to learn what should be done. For example, when someone attacks someone else, the chief might say, ‘okay, give them a cow and this [dispute] will be resolved.’  

Recently, we received an account that a chief had been approached by two families that were often being told that they would never be able to get along. The chief told the families, ‘if you really want to end this fighting, I think you should go talk to members of the Women’s Protection Team (WPT). I've noticed that when people talk to these peace women, conflicts end.’ The families took the chief’s advice to get help from the WPTs and the fighting stopped.  

When I learned that story, I think my jaw dropped, because that's the last thing I ever expected to hear from a chief in South Sudan—they don’t praise women very regularly. But, they noticed that these women from the Women Protection Team were doing something differently. They’re doing the kind of [impactful] work it takes to end the cycles of violence. That's what NP is trying to do — interrupt cycles of violence. 

Were these women part of Nonviolent Peaceforce? 

Yes, these were women that we trained. They are independent of us, but we've given them training and provide them with support. There are more than 2000 women [WPT leaders] in South Sudan [that NP has trained]. They’re located all over the country, not just in the capital of Juba, but also in some of the most rural parts of South Sudan. Everyone is of value, and we have to band together and work with each other.  

For years now, the WPTs have been meeting once a year to talk about the work that they do, and how they can learn from one another and what they're doing in their particular communities. I’m very, very proud of the work that the Women's Protection Team has done in South Sudan.  We also work with women in Iraq and Myanmar. 

When I look at the countries around the world, particularly, those that are the most powerful countries- like the United States and China and other countries- I feel like they have a special responsibility to be advocates for peace and nonviolence and can carry possibly even more influence than other countries around the world. What are your thoughts about that? 

Well, you won't get any disagreement for me on that. I think everyone does. I don't think that we should just rely on the powerful, but they could make the biggest difference.  

I think if more people [came together] in unity and said, ‘enough, this [violence] is going to end us, we need to take this seriously. The UN did make a global appeal, global ceasefire was the call that came out of the UN, it occurred in March of 2020. However, it kind of fell on deaf ears because everyone's attention was, understandably so in a global pandemic. 

And it was kind of funny, not in a literal way, but actually some fighting did stop during the pandemic because there were groups, armed groups that were afraid of getting sick. They were hearing that everybody's getting sick and all kinds of things are happening. So, for their own safety, there was this sort of a pause. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, fighting did start up again.  

But gee, yes, it would be very, very good if the most powerful countries in the world would become the champions of peace. I think people would get behind it. I imagine that there's probably too much money being made in warfare [amongst the countries] who aren't experiencing direct violence. Sadly, this is a rather short-sighted response to conflict.  

Warfare not only harms the people who are directly experiencing it, but it creates a lot of hatred and more appetite for violence and it just spreads.  I hope that the UN will again take up the call for a global ceasefire and put more attention on whoever does not honor it.  

I do understand that people feel that they're being attacked and if they were to do nothing, they would be eliminated.  But, I think as a society, we have to start asking different questions, like: What can we do to interrupt that flow of violence? How are weapons getting into the hands of people who are using them? Can we interrupt that flow of armory? What can we do?  

The media doesn't seem really to be capable of following one major conflict for very long, but, conflicts don't go away when the media stops paying attention to it. We need to have people who are committed to interrupting the cycle of violence. It's easy to continue to do what you've always done. It's much more challenging to try something different. So that's what it would be required. 

 At the moment, governments may not have the willpower, means, or the desire (of course, this varies from country to country). This is why I like the approach of Nonviolent Peaceforce and other organizations that work on a grassroots level--we have some means to influence [or make an impact amid conflict], even when governments might not be listening to us. There are governments on the Security Council that are engaged in violence right now.  

When you look at a conflict, you have to ask who are all the players that are involved in this conflict. Like when you, when you look at a particular conflict in the world, you might think, ‘Oh, it's between one group and another group.’ That's rarely the case, conflicts are often a lot more nuanced. The parties are being supplied with weapons and receiving support.    You also have to consider what/if parties have something to gain from conflict or even who benefits from two groups fighting endlessly.  It is really time for humanity to move in a different direction. 

How can people find out more about Nonviolent Peaceforce? 

Other than checking out our website, you can sign up for monthly email updates or follow us on social media (Facebook; LinkedIn; Twitter/X; Instagram). We also have a good collection of videos that will give you a bit of understanding of the work that we do. And of course, feel free to reach out to us. 

I believe that there's a role for anyone with Nonviolent Peaceforce. It's just a question of you finding exactly what it is. NP is an organization that anyone can put a lot of support behind because it’s time for humanity to move in a different direction.  

You can protect civilians who are living in or fleeing violent conflict. Your contribution will transform the world's response to conflict.
arrow-right