WUNRN
Teaching
Peace, Making History in East Timor/Timor-Leste
by Sierra James
I came to East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste for a three-month internship in 2004 as part of my Applied Conflict Resolution Course in graduate school at Columbia University. I haven’t been able to pull myself away.
East Timor is a small country (5,376 square miles, with a population of one million) located just 400 miles northwest of Darwin, Australia. It is one of the newest nations in the world, an independent sovereign state since 2002, and it’s still in the process of building its government institutions. East Timor boasts a ravishing landscape, from gorgeous beaches and some of the best diving in the world to beautiful jagged mountains and lush coffee plantations. The people of East Timor, having won their independence, are strong with hope for a better world, but they are struggling to overcome the legacy of centuries of violence and oppression.
New Nation, Old Challenges
I came to East Timor wanting to see how conflict resolution and peace education
could be implemented to assist with post-conflict recovery. But less than two
years after my arrival the country slipped back into conflict. A portion of the
military resigned, sparking a period of civil unrest that included the burning
of homes and the mass displacement of people. The instability of the government
led the Prime Minister to resign. Just around that time, when riots were still
surging, my house was destroyed.
Everything was stolen. Even the electrical wiring was ripped out of the walls. My dog was shot and ran around the house pitifully, leaving blood everywhere, before she died. The worst part isn’t the loss of physical items - I kept trying to convince myself that this was a Zen lesson in the art of letting go - or the loss of my puppy (which still makes me sad), or the cost of fixing up the house and replacing all my stuff. Instead, it is the sense of insecurity and the lack of trust I was left with. The upside is that now I can begin to relate to what so many of my Timorese friends and colleagues have experienced. I can see through the conflict to the insecurity and the desperation. I hope this means that now I have more compassion and can do a better job of helping to build peace.
So, why do I stay? It isn’t the beaches or the warm tropical climate (although they make it more bearable). It is my ability to have an impact; the hope of the people and their desire to build a new country and a new way of life; and the immense needs of this small country, one of the poorest in the world. The IMF ranks East Timor as 173 out of all 181 member countries, with a GDP of 351m USD: about 2 dollars a day per person. Despite the current poverty, the government has funds from oil revenues, so conditions could start to turn around soon. One of the things that draws internationals from the world over is that there is tremendous potential to create change in this little island nation; there is access to those in power, and freedom to get things done.
It is my work that keeps me here. In 2004 I started the Transformative Art and Human Rights Education project (TAHRE) to bring peace education to the children in orphanages, many of whom had lost their families in the conflict. After I came to East Timor I realized there was almost no peacebuilding training taking place, nothing on conflict resolution and nonviolence. Yet it was only five years since the mass violence and destruction of infrastructure that took place in 1999. Violence was still a very normal part of most people’s everyday lives. Teachers beat children, parents beat them as well, and almost everyone used violence to resolve their everyday problems. I could see the conflict factors boiling just under the surface.
East Timor experienced four centuries of Portuguese colonization, then Japanese occupation during World War II (when more than 40,000 people died in just three years), followed by 24 years of brutal Indonesian annexation. The societal trauma from extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual slavery, and disappearances in combination with forced starvation resulted in systematic devastation, a lack of initiative, the erosion of societal norms, and a serious lack of capacity. Levels of professional experience and educational standards both were low.
Transformation through the Arts
To fill the peace education gap and to help those still struggling to overcome the past, I, together with Danielle Lelani Ujvari (an Australian woman with a human rights law background), founded a nonprofit organization called Ba Futuru, meaning for the future. We developed the Transformative Arts and Human Rights Education Guide, a facilitation manual with detailed curriculum and implementation procedures, along with information on effective interactive artistic methods of working with children around the negative effects of conflict. The TAHRE Guide was based on conflict resolution and human rights curriculums from Kosovo and Cambodia as well as materials from various other sources. This manual has been continually revised over the last few years. In 2007 we created an additional version for adult education.
In one lesson students use roleplaying to act out common disputes and alternative means of resolving them. By practicing their responses in a supported environment, they build the confidence to make positive changes to their behavior in everyday real-life situations. Similarly, working through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and discussing how rights and corresponding responsibilities are relevant to their lives brings new understanding and positive visions for their future. The adult manual also includes lessons on mediation, nonviolent social change, decision making, peace education, child abuse, trauma, and counseling.
The TAHRE Guide curriculum uses creative therapeutic techniques, often a more accessible and less threatening way to explore issues than verbal instruction. Artistic expression is available to those who have difficulty discussing their feelings or experiences in words. Creative techniques allow participants to express negative emotions, such as anger, pain, and fear, in positive ways. Self-expression through drawing, painting, music, and movement provides emotional catharsis and imparts skills and values. It provides positive models of behaviour to children who are living in difficult circumstances. Ba Futuru has had excellent results using the new adult training manual with young people, non-governmental organization (NGO) staff, and community leaders, and plans to continue trainings based on this manual into the future.
After the crisis of 2006, which displaced more than 150,000 people (including me), Ba Futuru began the TAHRE trainings in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Now more than 15,000 children and youth, NGO staff members, and community leaders in schools, camps, and communities have received the benefits of this training.
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Joana dos Santos Camoes, Program Manager/Director |
Feedback: Transformation in Action
After participating in Ba Futuru’s TAHRE training, Juvita Perreira Faria, a 16-year-old resident of St. Bakhita Orphanage, where Ba Futuru has been working since 2004, reported: “I can see many positive changes in myself. After attending the training I can reduce my sad sentiment and start to resolve my problems in positive ways.” With Ba Futuru’s support, Julvita is currently one of the child representatives working with the government and various UN agencies and NGOs to develop a system of juvenile justice law for Timor-Leste.
Julvita reports, “The objective of this process is to create a new law for Timor-Leste that will better defend the rights of children. First, we analyzed the current child rights situation in Timor-Leste, then we started the process of working to create new laws, as Timor-Leste’s constitution doesn’t fully respect the rights of children.” In the future, it is Julvita’s vision to make a center for children experiencing difficulties due to their experiences with conflict.
In 2007 Ba Futuru began programming focused on local community leaders. These leaders have a large impact on the well-being of women, children, and other members of their communities. They often serve as judges in Timor-Leste’s traditional justice system, making decisions that impact people’s everyday lives. Many of these decisions go against human rights principles. To counter this trend, Ba Futuru works with community leaders to enhance their understanding of human rights and provide them with improved conflict-resolution skills and a venue for sharing best practices on conflict management.
Mr. Anis, a Chefe de Suco (head of village) in Manu Fahi District, had attended three human rights trainings before the Ba Futuru-led training, but he found the workshop based on the TAHRE Guide curriculum the most helpful because it enabled him to “more deeply understand about human rights and conflict resolution.” He explained, “I feel really happy with Ba Futuru as an organization because they came and shared information that can help me to increase my capacity and through which I can implement peacebuilding training for my community.” He added, “Usually when I attend trainings about human rights and democracy I feel bored and I decide to discontinue the training after the first day. But when I attended and listened to the information which was shared by Ba Futuru, I felt happy and decided to attend the program until it finished.”
Laurindo R. Fernandes, another Chefe de Suco in Manu Fahi District, said, “I am happy with the TAHRE program, especially the conflict resolution lesson. In this lesson I got information about how to solve conflict creatively, without violence, and how to solve it with a win/win solution. This method is new for me, but I would really like to implement it in my village. I am interested to try it out because I think that the win/win method can bring about peace for all individuals involved.”
Many community leaders are relatively traditional men. Ba Futuru has found that their comprehension and retention of gender equality education comes not only from the content of the training but also from the way in which the training is carried out.
Laurindo, the village head of Babulo, Manu Fahi district, said “First, I saw that the facilitators were young women, and I thought that they could not facilitate this program well. But after they had run their facilitation I was surprised with their methods and their ability to guide and give good responses for participant questions. Then, in the end I realized that for any training we do not need look at the facilitator’s status, but the more important thing is how they manage the training.”
Today, Tomorrow, the Future
As part of our initiative to build peace, Ba Futuru has done trainings across
Dili District, which houses the capital of Timor-Leste, and Baucau, a district
in the east where many of the displaced people resettled. We also established
the Seroja Youth Center in a high-conflict area near the Dili International
Airport. The Seroja Center has skillbuilding courses as well as community-built
spaces for sports (a skateboarding park, basketball courts, and a volleyball
court), dance, art, music, yoga, and peace education. This center provides a
positive, self-esteem-enhancing educational environment for learning individual
independence and collective interdependence.
We expect the TAHRE program to endure and grow as children, youth, child caregivers, community leaders, and Ba Futuru staff gain increased understanding through the trainings. Their knowledge of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and human rights as well as civic education will inform their lives and work in the future. Ba Futuru will continue to bring the TAHRE program to more people and communities in 2008.
The Ba Futuru staff is 80% women and 100% dedicated peacebuilders. So it was a logical connection for us to join Peace X Peace. We have recently become part of a Circle and have just begun sharing our stories.
What can you do to help?
- Volunteer in East
Timor–work with Ba Futuru; in the schools, with the Ministry of Education;
or with civil society organizations.
- Send support for Ba
Futuru programs – In the US you can donate to our project through the Austin
Community Foundation. Select East Timor Development Fund from the
drop-down menu and specify in your comments that the funds are for Ba
Futuru.
- Set up an exchange
program for Timorese people to receive peace education or vocational
skills in the US.
- Support the Gardeners
of Eden East Timor Seed Project or buy free-trade
Timor Coffee online.
- Contact Lucy Heffern, Peace X Peace Liaison
in Timor Leste, to learn how to connect directly with women there.
- Contact Sierra
James - sierrajames@hotmail.com
for questions about Ba Futuru, or visit the website.
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