Rev Donal O’Mahony, OFM Cap.
Capuchin Friary
South Africa and Kenya
Rev
Donal O’Mahony, OF M Cap., Capuchin Friary,
works as International Director of the Damietta
Peace Initiative and is based in South Africa
and Kenya.
The Damietta Initiative is a community driven,
proactive, interfaith, peace project centered
upon non-violence, reconciliation and care for
creation in Africa. It harnesses the capacity of
the estimated 40,000 lay and religious members
of the Franciscan family in 39 countries in
Africa, to build multi-ethnic, multi-faith and
mixed gender grass roots groups known as PACTS
(Pan-African Conciliation Teams), who will be
trained in the values and skills and knowledge
required to grow and sustain the drive towards
social justice and poverty reduction.
The project is regionally based, currently in
Southern and Central Africa, but extending soon
to East Africa, then West and North Africa.
The main aims of the Damietta project are:
- To effect conflict transformation through non-violence, reconciliation and care for the environment and apply it to local community conditions.
- To foster a culture of peace at a time when a culture of violence threatens to overwhelm local communities at multi-layered levels in human and social relationships. (For example, the violence of ‘forced poverty’ and affluence are major crimes in modern Africa)
- To create grassroots teams, reflecting civil society, developing specific peacemaking skills, identifying and training for peace-building roles and strategies, and providing an infrastructure to carry these out.
- To mobilize the potential human resource of the geographically extensive, trained and committed capacity of the Franciscan family throughout Africa to enable us gain entry into local communities.
- To give special attention to strengthening
Muslim-Christian relations in Africa In 2007,
funding helped us to provide training of
Pan-African Conciliation Teams (PACTs) and
Peace-enablers, who are highly motivated and
train staff, consolidate a Franciscan family
network throughout Africa (c.30,000 members) and
provide access to the world-wide Franciscan
family. We also worked to involve the active
support of the psychology faculty of the
University of Pretoria, specifically for
monitoring and evaluation, and to build
supportive relationships with other groups
including Quakers, Jewish and Muslim
communities. A lot of the work of the Damietta
Peace Initiative is focussed on setting solid
foundations for its development.
While focus on the development of PACTs will
remain a priority, other peace initiatives have
also been taken. For example, the violence of
poverty which pushes the ‘have nots’ to rebel
against the ‘haves’, which in turn begets a
violent institutional backlash, and lecturing on
how the degradation of nature has become a major
contributing factor to societal violence. We
keep seeking to network, and where possible
collaborate, with those who share our vision. In
the course of establishing PACT groups,
cross-cutting issues such as HIV/AIDS and gender
have emerged, but the main thrust still remains
peace-building.
The Damietta Peace Initiative reflects a
partnership of Church and Civil Society. There
is a widespread interest among government
officials, ambassadors and embassy communities.
This is exemplified by the number of invitations
the Damietta Peace Initiative has received to
talk about its work with them. It helps to
create a more peaceful environment for economic
development to grow in their areas. Locally, the
easing of tensions in the Cape Flats between
Muslims and Christians is evident, as is the
facility to meet and to get to know people of
different ethnic and religious persuasions at
PACT meetings.
Long-term goals for the Damietta Peace
Initiative are already planned. They include
expansion of the Damietta Peace Initiative into
five regions in Africa. Already they are in
three regions. The presence of these regions,
along with the presence of the International
Office connecting with the regional areas on a
daily basis, is a further assurance towards the
sustainability of local groups.
This is a project involving attitudinal change
to support conflict transformation.
Its lessons cannot be adequately expressed in
terms of numbers or statistics. We have learned,
however, the importance of regularly contacting
and informing local religious and political
leaders where PACTs are in the process of being
set up. Another lesson learned by the Damietta
Peace Team is the need to adjust the outline of
their PACT programmes to the diverse cultures
and ethnicities of its members. Sometimes, in
the same group, the language skills and
understanding of ideas will differ. Other times,
the awareness of local problems are interpreted
very differently. Role playing a real-life
situation among the group, for example, will
have to take into account Muslim female
sensitivity.