USAID/OTI DROC Success Story
February 2006
Learning Facilitators Learn About Themselves
The Synergie d'Education Communautaire et d'Appui (SE*CA) ) program promotes improved stability in war-affected areas by facilitating the reintegration of war-affected youths into their communities and increasing local, regional, and national understanding of issues that are key to the political transition. To support these objectives, SE*CA uses three tools: 1) a Youth Education and Skills (YES) program to train war-affected youths in agriculture, civic education, health, conflict management, reconciliation, personal values, numeracy, and literacy; 2) a media program that supports access to information concerning issues key to the transition; and 3) an in-kind small-grants program that supports information dissemination projects and community-identified activities that are a priority for the economic, political, and/or social revitalization of the community.
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| Future Learning Facilitators in class with SE*CA master trainers. |
The SE*CA program engages community-based Learning Facilitators (LFs) to bring life skills training to participants throughout vast geographic target areas in eastern Congo. Recently, we discovered that the process of training the LFs itself has helped to overcome tension and stigmatization that emerged during recent conflicts. One of our LFs had previously been a victim of two fellow Facilitator's rage, and their training proved a valuable forum for addressing past abuses and identifying common goals for the future.
Luvangire was the director of a primary school for 19 years in Mandro, a community in Ituri District. In addition to holding this prestigious position in the community, he also owned a lot of livestock, a source of jealousy. During the 2003-2005 conflict in Ituri, Luvangire was pillaged by his fellow tribe members and told to leave his village or be killed. In a somewhat ironic twist, Luvangire was elected by his community to become a SE*CA Learning Facilitator along with Kagwahabi and Ndjaba, two of the men who beat and threatened him in years before. LFs are members of the community who participate in the SE*CA "life skills" (YES) training and then present the modules to the program participants.
Kagwahabi and Ndjaba were very affected by the 'Reaffirmation of Values and Conflict Mitigation' training module in which they discussed forgiveness, tolerance, mutual respect and conflict mediation. Moved by the content of the lesson, the two former pillagers walked over and stood before Luvangire to ask his forgiveness. They said, "Pardon us brother Luvangire for the evil things we did to you during the war. Our values were very mixed up and we were overtaken by hatred and jealousy. We ask your forgiveness in front of God and all of the Learning Facilitators present here." Luvangire listened to them and responded, "I feel better that you, yourselves, have spoken about what you did to me. I forgive you and I will forget what happened in the past. From now on, we are as one and each of us must respect his values and the values of the community."
The three men are now all Learning Facilitators in communities in the SE*CA site Iga-Barriere. The communities were selected for the program because of the high concentration of ex-combatants who returned there after the war. They openly pass on the lessons they learned about values, conflict management and leadership to former combatants and others affected by the war. All of the 1,063 participants can also benefit from one of nine income generation activities YES offers.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C.: Wendy Henning, Program Manager,
e-mail: whenning@usaid.gov; telephone: (202) 712-0102
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