Peacebuilding UK’s mission is to support and build local capacities for peace and support civil society organizations in the Russian Federation, mainly in the North Caucasus. This involves supporting and jointly implementing projects with nine partners in the region to promote sustainable peace, the enjoyment of human rights and well-being, with a particular focus on children, women and youth, in the fields of psychosocial rehabilitation, legal aid, peacebuilding, and community development.
Peacebuilding UK has a long term approach to its work in the North Caucasus. Through running a wide range of programmes in the region, we aspire to help rebuild communities and lives following years of armed conflict and continuing instability and economic hardship, and to develop necessary conditions for peace, human rights, development and reconciliation.
Currently we have 4 active projects:
1. Empowering, securing and inspiring civil society in the North Caucasus - helping grass-roots activists and their organizations to build powerful local constituencies, stay safe amid threats, resist repressive policies and participate in regional and global human rights discourses and movements.
2. The Young Women’s Development Groups Project (YWDG) - an intensive, rights-based extracurricular programme for teenage girls that brings international best practices on working with girls to the North Caucasus. The project unites local women’s, youth and human rights NGOs around empowering girls for a more equal future and through “learning by doing”, educating local youth workers in best practices and innovative methods in youth work.
3. Peace Education: Through guided reading of the stories in 'Power of Goodness: Stories of Reconciliation and Nonviolence', discussion, art-therapy, music and role-play, children learn about peaceful conflict transformation, tolerance and respect. The project provides creative models for resolving differences peacefully and building relationships and a society based on tolerance and justice.
4. 'Little Star' psychosocial rehabilitation project was set up in 1997 and today employs a team of five professional local psychologists who conduct psychosocial workshops in 20 schools and at the Chechen State University to address psychological distress and trauma caused by violence and human rights violations in Chechnya for 1500 young people and their families each year. 35,000 young people and around 4000 parents have been assisted by Little Star since 1997, 40 local experts have obtained advanced psychology degrees, and curricula and training manuals have been developed.
