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Protection of Civilians Week in New York

The Creating Safer Space network had the pleasure of co-organising a Protection of Civilians (POC) Week side event in New York on 23 May 2024.

The event was organised together with CIVIC, Global Protection Cluster (GPC)/UNHCR, HPG/ODI, Oxfam, Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), NORCAP, and PAX along with the Permanent Observer Mission of the African Union to the UN and the Permanent Missions of El Salvador, the Netherlands, Philippines, and South Sudan.

The event was chaired by Tiffany Easthom (Executive Director of Nonviolent Peaceforce), and speakers included Prof. Nerve Macaspac (Creating Safer Space Co-Investigator), Ambassadors from the Netherlands, El Salvador, South Sudan and the Philippines, peacemakers from South Sudan, and representatives of the African Union, ODI/HPG, MONUSCO, and other organisations.

Photo by Nonviolent Peaceforce

Prof. Nerve Macaspac shared Creating Safer Space research, conducted by 26 project teams in eleven countries across three continents. Our research has found that communities and civil society organizations around the world often engage in practices of UCP without calling them such.

Our projects have uncovered and systematized a wide variety of hitherto unknown community activities and mechanisms of protection, including different forms of early warning and early response, protective accompaniment, and ways of negotiating with state officials and armed actors.

Prof. Macaspac highlighted the importance of recognizing local and community protection as an essential component of PoC; of including community protection strategies, capacities, and needs currently in place directly in the baseline of any assessment and funding decisions; and of ensuring that communities are included as decision-makers regarding how to use funding, who is involved in high-level meetings, and what protection approaches work in any given context. The full speech is available here.

We are very grateful to Gay Rosenblum-Kumar, Nonviolent Peaceforce’s Representative to the UN, as one of the main organisers of the event. A summary of the event is available here.

Photo by Nonviolent Peaceforce


New Song/Poem about Policy Brutality in Kenya

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Nonviolent Artivism Against Police Brutality in Kenya’ has produced a video of a poem/song by Spontaneous the Poet, entitled ‘When a Young Blood Bleeds’.

Spontaneous the Poet, aka Rachel Akinyi, was a research assistant on the project, and the poem/song was written in remembrance of people who’ve lost their relatives to extra-judicial killings. The spoken word piece / song was performed live at the Creating Safer Space Final Event in Nairobi. It is freely available to listen to here:


Our Exhibition 360° is Now Online

The Creating Safer Space exhibition is now available online!

The travelling exhibition has previously been on show in Nairobi (Kenya), Bangkok (Thailand), Aberystwyth (Wales), New York (USA) and Medellín (Colombia), and it will soon travel to Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). It is also now available online in the form of a navigable 360° virtual tour.

The objects, images, and voices originate from a selection of 26 research projects funded by the Creating Safer Space network, which have been conducted in collaboration between academics, self-protecting communities and nonviolent civilian accompaniers. The exhibition draws on experiences from Cameroon, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, South Sudan, and Thailand, where civilians are harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces and work towards alternative presents and futures.


Watch Creating Safer Space Films Online

We have a new Films Online section on our website, with films produced by Creating Safer Space projects available to watch for free:

Let the rivers be for life! explores water conflicts around the rivers La Paloma (Argelia), Santo Domingo (San Francisco) and Dormilón (San Luis) in Colombia.

Civil protection to stay on our land documents the experience of Palestinian farmers and shepherds with civil protection in the South Hebron Hills.

La Fiesta is the recording of a theatre production performed by Harlequin and the Jugglers. It underscores the transformative power of art in communities affected by urban violence.

Caring for community life tells the story of how the Senú indigenous people in Colombia have been organizing to resist armed groups and to remain in their ancestral territories.

Ramadan, Faith, Relationships, Peace explores the impact of the conflict in southern Thailand on Malay Muslims, and their struggle to express their own identity and culture.

When a young blood bleeds is a song/poem about extra-judicial killings in Kenya, produced by Spontaneous the Poet.

Minga explores the history and meaning of a community-based socio-cultural and political practice known as Minga, an indigenous form of protest and resistance in Colombia.

More films will come in the next few months.


Short Film: Minga

This film explores the history and meaning of a community-based socio-cultural and political practice known as Minga, an indigenous form of protest and resistance.

The film looks at Minga in the context of armed conflict through the experiences of resistance of the Nasa indigenous communities in the department of Cauca, Colombia. It was created by a group of local researchers from the Indigenous Community of Caldono, Resguardo San Lorenzo, Ancestral land Sath Tama Kiwe in 2023.

This film was produced as part of the research project “Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia”.


Short Film: Civil protection to stay on our land

Produced by local film makers, this film documents the experience of Palestinian farmers and shepherds with civil protection in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta). It explores the efficacy of unarmed civilian protection and how to strengthen self-protection against the threats of expulsion and dispossession by Israel and the settlers.

This film was produced as part of the research project Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta).

Civil protection to stay on our land

Introduction by the film director Mahmoud Jamal Makhamreh


Inter-regional learning on UCP in Nigeria

This documentary captures insights from an intergenerational and collective impact model adopted by the Jos Stakeholder’s Centre for Peace in Jos, Nigeria, to reduce violence in the context of two communities, Angwan Damisa and Balakaze, that have witnessed several episodes of communal conflict. The insights could help other Nigerian communities adapt the model to reduce or prevent violence in their specific context, such as in Maiduguri where ex-Boko Haram fighters and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are returning and changing the composition of the communities.

This film was produced as part of the Creating Safer Space research project Unarmed civilian protection through collective impact: Learning from the Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace for enhanced civilian protection in Maiduguri, north-eastern Nigeria.


Song/Poem: When a young blood bleeds

This song/poem was written by Spontaneous the Poet, and recorded as part of the Creating Safer Space research project “Nonviolent Artivism Against Police Brutality in Kenya”.

Spontaneous the Poet says, “This piece was written in remembrance of people who’ve lost their relatives from extra judicial killings. It is actually based on a true story and I’m so grateful that they took part in the shooting of the video.”