Empowerment of civil society for non-violent conflict transformation in local communities

Project duration:  June 2018 – December 2019 (with possibility for extension)

Project aimed at:

• empowerment of local communities;
• development and spreading new models of nonviolent conflict resolution by informal and formal actors of civil society (social movements, citizen groups and/or NGOs and local self-government) and strengthening these actors

Expected results:Ukrainian examples of conflicts settled successfully with non-violent means (the stakeholders) will be collected, researched and disseminated as ‘success stories’

Target audience –communities of Druzhkivka, Oleksievo-Druzhkivka, Kostjantynivka in Donetsk region and  Severodonetsk in Luhansk region of Ukraine with particular focus on youth, activists and local self-government bodies.

Keymessage of the project: “Nothing about and for us without us”

How we understand nonviolent actions?

• Creative and active actions for social changes;
• Analysis of inter-personal, collective and global relations and actions within frame of oppression, injustice and power misbalance
• spreading information about conflict, strengthening positions of the oppressed parties in conflict and creating power balance
• analysis of the conflict situation helps to understand people needs and interests andcan be considered a possibility for non-violent changes.

New social practices we promote in this project:

• needs – ability to identify and communicate own needs on the personal level and level of organization and community;
• Participation – civil activists consult with members of local community before developing and implementing their projects and do evaluation of the project results  together with local community;
• Participatory decision-making – consensus and participatory approach are widely used in decision making on different levels in the community by local activists and self-government bodies;
• Strong horizontal network: civil activists take into account needs of different members of local community and have high level of trust and support of the population, including local self-government that actively involves in their activities.

Format of project activities:

• Forum theatre workshops and performances;
• Trainings for gender equality and non-discrimination.

From July to December 2018 four 3-day forum-theatre workshops were organized in Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka, Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka Donetsk region and Severodonetsk, Luhansk region, 1-day workshop on gender and equality in Druzhkivka and 1-day workshop for staff members of the Donetsk Institute for Post-Graduate Education in Kramatorsk city. Two of them were organized in partnership with Network of Responsible people targeting youth and representative of the Theatre for Dialogue NGO participated in joint event organized by project partners – Maidan Monitoring and Association of Middle East Studies.

This project is implemented by Theatre for Dialogue NGO within framework of the Civil Peace Service program: “Empowerment of civil society for non-violent conflict transformation ". The project is funded by KURVEWustrow - Centre for Training and Networking in Nonviolent Action, within the framework of Civil Peace Service, a program of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)."