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"It is important ... we don't underestimate the acts of goodwill that exist in the communities and between leaders of different faiths" - CRS
DAKAR (AlertNet) – Could peacebuilding efforts by community volunteers help to stem the tide of growing sectarian violence in Nigeria where a northern-based insurgency by Islamist sect Boko Haram is straining relations between Christians and Muslims?
In the mainly Muslim northern state of Kano, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been involved in training over 40 community volunteers as peace monitors and mediators.
The training gives them skills to identify and monitor issues which could escalate into conflict. They are taught to warn community leaders that tensions may be rising between religious and ethnic groups, said Julie Ideh, CRS Programme Officer in Nigeria
“It is important in these times (when) we are concerned about extremism and we are concerned about acts of terrorism, that we don’t underestimate the acts of goodwill that exist in the communities and between leaders of different faiths,” Ideh said.
CRS has provided small grants to the conflict monitors to undertake peacebuilding activities, such as town hall meetings with community members to discuss security, football matches to raise awareness on civil rights, meetings with religious teachers in churches and mosques to talk about peace and cooperation.
Some of the volunteer activities have included Muslims providing security for Christians during worshipping hours and vice-versa, Bishop of Kano, John Niyiring, said.
He was concerned that a spate of bomb attacks in Kano by Boko Haram, which killed 186 people last week, would require a re-think in the approach of the peace-building project since the militants have not been part of the programme.
“The right way forward now is engaging everybody including the militants if they are ready. But you can only do that when there is peace,” the Bishop told AlertNet by phone from Kano. “Maybe when the crisis calms down – we can see what we can do,” he said.
The community peacebuilding project, which has been running for a year, has involved such groups as the Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
CRS says their work helped prevent conflict in some of these communities during Nigeria’s last presidential elections.
“One of the traditional leaders we had trained knew that weapons were being distributed among members of this community and he made an effort to go and collect these weapons to prevent any violence occurring in that community,” Ideh said
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