An alliance of 6 organisations / movements / trade union working in rural based contexts. ‘Citizen Voice’ was formed in 2012 in the context of increasing rights violations, violence against women, ethnic hatred in order to build strong inter-ethnic understanding and solidarity, taking up equal citizenship rights and peace at all levels.’Citizen Voice’ covers 5-6 geographical areas where farming- fisher communities, war displaced, migrant workers, casual workers, home based workers, and plantation workers live and work, comprising Muslims, Sinhalese, and Tamils, building inter-ethnic solidarity for common –cause – public action. ‘Citizen Voice’ approach is rights- justice- peace, as peace cannot be built in a vacuum; thus locating people’s problems and justice at the center.
Mobilised communities and local leaders have developed strong solidarity links across ‘Citizen Voice’ and undertook common collective actions to pressurize the government to address identified major problems. All organizations/movements/union have understood about what mobilization and collective agency adapting the ‘We lead’ peacebuilding module in their local work. All grassroots communities have developed confidence to deal with local issues collectively and using different strategies.
- The ‘Citizens’ declaration’ was handed over to the President
- Documentary film titled – ‘The Spark’ in all 3 languages [Tamil/Sinhala/English]. The film documents the mobilisation process and captures how local communities and women leaders at the grassroots – levels initiate local actions, developing their own understanding of their specific contexts, analyse problems and their collective actions to bring change in their own communities and solidarity collective public actions towards peace and justice. The documentary underlines the importance of mobilization as a process and how local communities’ critical awareness and analysis stimulates them to take critical actions through collective leadership. The key message is that effective mobilization can pave the way for meaningful social change.
- “We lead” – peace-building module was designed to share with regional activists to understand and analyse the underlying sources of conflicts, potential opportunities and possible obstacles to peace-building. It also to negotiate and promote peace in their families, communities, and engage in activism for their rights in a democratic and pluralistic society.
This networking initiative was part of the collective effort of the regional alliance with Shirkat Gah – Women’s Resource centre, Lahore in the programme on Women’s Empowerment for Leadership Development and Democratisation.
Comments are closed.