ForumZFD | Ziviler Friedensdienst

The third office opening of forumZFD's programme in Mindanao took place in Butuan City and was again able to welcome guests from the civil society, government entities, Church organisations and international organisations. In the garden of the newly rented office building, approximately 80 guests came together to witness the official beginning of forumZFD's activities in Caraga region in the North of Mindanao.

After an intense preparation, filled with conducting a thorough conflict analysis, establishing a stable network and building up the office structure the whole team is happy about the successful inauguration. The focus of our activities in Caraga region will be on resource based conflicts that affect mostly poor and marginalised groups. Tailor-made trainings and workshops are supposed to capacitate civil-society actors, local government entities and marginalised groups in order for them to become competent and strong players who can contribute to a just and long-lasting solution of the conflicts. Already in the last months, the project team, consisting of an international and two local peace experts, has conducted some trainings on civil conflict transformation with partner organisations.

After a short welcome and an introduction of forumZFD by Project Manager Tania Hörler Perrinet and Programme Manager Daniel Jäger, the film “Mindanao – Voices for Peace” was screened. This film was produced by forumZFD in 2010 and tells the success stories of several peace initiatives along different lines of conflict in Mindanao. The music group Joyful Children's Rondalla that was formed from a social project with street children provided a musical framework to the night. Before the evening ended in a relaxed dinner, a number of guests and representatives of partner organisations expressed their good wishes for forumZFD. Rodel Sango of the civil society organisation Kaisampalad Inc. stressed the importance of forumZFD's support of civic initiatives for peaceful conflict transformation. Dr. Stephanie Schell-Faucon of the German GIZ underlined her happiness about the fact that in the form of forumZFD there is now also a non-state actor of German development cooperation active in Caraga region and that the two approaches can complement each other and open up new opportunities for solving conflicts. Also Father Carlito Clase as representative of the Church based initiative Caraga Conference for Peace and Development as well as Dr. Feliza Laranjo as a staff member of the governmental Department of Education in Butuan expressed their hopes that forumZFD would be successful in its endeavours, would be blessed by God and always have patience and perseverance.

The whole of forumZFD are looking forward to fruitful collaborations with all our partners and to challenging projects in Caraga region.