A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

34 Peace Fellows to Tackle Landmines, Gun Violence and Injustice in 21 Countries, May 29, 2008

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AdvocacyNet
News Bulletin 140
May 29, 2008
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May 29, 2008, Washington, DC: While taking a class in international law, Lucas Wolf read about an African doctor's experience with landmine survivors.
 
The doctor wrote about injuries. He discussed treatments. But mostly, he prayed that the survivors would not visit his practice. Seeing them, especially the children, was just too hard.
 
"The injuries were so severe...inhumane," recalls Mr Wolf, a graduate student at the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
 
The impact of the doctor's words remained long after the class ended. Mr Wolf is now preparing to work side-by-side with landmine survivors in Ethiopia as a 2008 Peace Fellow of The Advocacy Project (AP).
 
This summer, 34 graduate students from 17 universities will be serving as Peace Fellows with community-based advocates in 21 countries. Mr Wolf is one of six Fellows sponsored by Survivor Corps (formerly Landmine Survivors Network), a global network that helps survivors of conflict rise above their injuries and give back to their communities.
 
Worldwide, between 300,000 and 400,000 people live with landmine-related injuries, and an estimated 80 million mines are still in the ground, according to Survivor Corps.
 
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is also sponsoring two Peace Fellows. The Fellows will be working with IANSA members in Trinidad and El Salvador to combat gun-related and other forms of violence.
 
Peace Fellows spend up to three months with their host organizations and provide a range of information services (including newsletters and Information Communication Technology) that help the host to spread its message and campaign for social change. AP has introduced several new services this year, including wiki pages that will allow hosts to train in ICT while at the same time creating a simple web page.
 
Nerina Cevra, a program officer with Survivor Corps in Washington, described information as the "missing link" for partners. "We are looking to build their capacity at spreading their message and increasing their visibility on the web," she said.
 
Fellows for Peace is now in its fifth year. The program has grown rapidly since 2003, when it began with eight students. This year, AP received more than 400 applicants and recruited from outside the United States for the first time. Six Fellows are from Canada, the United Kingdom, Argentina and the Netherlands.
 
The partnerships with Survivor Corps and IANSA show that larger networks are starting to see value in the AP model. Peace Fellows provide low-cost, professional information support for advocacy groups that cannot afford conventional technical assistance.
 
Fellows are asked to continue representing their hosts when they return, by organizing events and linking up with diaspora groups. This is another aspect that appeals to sponsors. "We see this as an investment that will pay off for a long time because the Fellows will be ambassadors upon returning," said Tirza Leibowitz, international manager of rights advocacy for Survivor Corps.
 
About half of this year's Peace Fellows will be working in countries affected by conflict. Some will be helping longtime AP partners, like the Srebrenica weavers or Palestinian civil society. Two Fellows will be working with women's groups on both sides of the Serbia-Kosovo border. Six will be deployed to Nepal.
 
A third of all the Fellows will be going to new groups. They include Juliet Hutchings (American University), who will be working with advocates for the Pygmies in central Africa; Ash Kosiewicz (Georgetown), who will support a Peruvian forensic team (EPAF); and Annelieke van der Weil (Amsterdam University), who will be working with advocates for the disabled in northern Uganda.
 
In each case, their short-term goal will be to create demand for information and help their hosts sustain the use of information tools after they leave. But the long-term goal is to promote social change, and the past year has shown how this can be done.
 
In 2007 and 2008, Peace Fellows helped the Irish Travellers of Dale Farm (UK) to achieve a landmark victory before the British High Court, as well as assisted Nepalese civil society during the country's transition from war to democracy. AP also helped a partner in Afghanistan (the Oruj Learning Center) expand its education program to serve almost 2,000 girls, up from 30 in 2003.

    * Read bios of all the 2008 Peace Fellows.
    * Read Peace Fellow blogs from around the world.
    * Learn more about Survivor Corps.
    * Learn more about IANSA.