The Creating Safer Space project ‘Civilian (Self-) Protection from Violent Conflict in Papua: Exploring Local Infrastructures and Initiatives’ has published a new policy brief, Building Peace Amidst the Papua Conflict: Supporting Grassroots Protection and Peacebuilding Agents. The policy brief is written by Arfiansyah, Reza Idria and Delsy Ronnie, and draws upon interviews, focus group discussions and arts-based research methods in Papua. It explores the causes of the conflict in Papua, and how civilians protect themselves and others from violence.

A new Creating Safer Space Working Paper has been published, titled Community self-protection and Unarmed Civilian Protection/Accompaniment (UCP/A): a way to decolonize peace. The working paper is written by Catarina Bezerra, Laura Jiménez and Victória Barros, and is available in English and Spanish.

The working paper provides insights into the effectiveness and challenges associated with nonviolent strategies, highlighting the importance of self-protection, dialogue, and community-based relationship building as catalysts for sustainable solutions in conflict-ridden scenarios. It explores decoloniality as a foundation for self-protection initiatives, and examines three case studies of civilian self-protection in South Sudan, Burundi and Colombia.

A new Creating Safer Space Working Paper has been published, titled The Diffusion of Protection Norms and Practices in Kachin and Northern Shan, Myanmar. The working paper is written by Nang Seng Raw, Arfiansyah and Mang Pi, and draws on research by the Creating Safer Space project Understanding Changing Strategy and Practice of Civilian Protection Under a Military Junta: The case of Kachin and Northern Shan, Myanmar.

This working paper discusses the diffusion of protection norms in Kachin and Northern Shan, two among many conflict areas of Myanmar. Nonviolent Peaceforce has worked with local civil society organisations in Myanmar for several years, and have accompanied them in developing protection mechanisms. This working paper explores how protection norms were localised and diffused, and how they were transformed following the military coup of 2021.

The Creating Safer Space network has published a new brochure.

The brochure provides information about our activities and achievements over the last five years. It also features a summary of our key research findings, and an outline of the Creating Safer Space model of carrying out research with and for (not “on”) self-protecting communities and UCP practitioners.

The brochure also dedicates two pages to each of our 26 commissioned projects, highlighting the diversity of research approaches and research findings within our network.

March 2025

Factsheet by the Creating Safer Space project “Exploring unarmed civilian self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict”.

Authors/Auteurs: Gordon Crawford, Nancy Annan, James Kiven Kewir, Atim Evenye Niger-Thomas, Bernard Nsaidzedze Sakah, Zonziwoh Mbondgulo-Wondieh.

Available in English and French.

The Creating Safer Space Exhibition was on show at Quaker House Brussels from 4-7 February 2025.

On the first day, we held a policy event on “Civilians and Nonviolence in Crisis Preparedness and Management”, with several speakers: Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Rachel Julian (Creating Safer Space), Rosemary Kabaki (Head of Mission, Nonviolent Peaceforce South Sudan), Gaëlle Nizery (Service for Foreign Policy Instruments, European Commission) and Nora Loozen (Belgium Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

During the week, we also held two brown bag lunches. The first brown bag lunch focused on protective accompaniment and community-led Unarmed Civilian Protection in Colombia, with Emily Humphreys (Peace Brigades International) and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (Creating Safer Space). The second focused on protecting human rights defenders, with speakers from the South Sudan Human Rights Defenders Network and Nonviolent Peaceforce.

We published two policy briefs for the occasion, for the EU and its member states:

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Scholars at Risk: Understanding vulnerability and violence faced by Myanmar refugee scholars in northern Thailand’ has published a report, Understanding Practices of Protection and Resilience: Co-producing knowledge among Myanmar scholars-in-exile.

The report is edited by Aung Kyaw Thein and Elliot Lodge.

It investigates the protection mechanisms and resilience strategies of Myanmar scholars and communities displaced to Thailand following the military coup in 2021. Key findings highlight the importance of proactive agency, networks of trust, mutual aid, collective action, and rebuilding communal spaces in fostering resilience.

Click here for Welsh medium version.

The Creating Safer Space Exhibition will be on show in Cardiff from 24–28 March 2025, daily from 10am–4pm, at the Temple of Peace and Health (King Edward VII Ave, Cardiff CF10 3AP).

You are warmly invited to the OPENING EVENT with drinks: 7pm on Saturday 22 March 2025 – Please RSVP here.

What happens when civilians choose unarmed action to protect themselves from violence? How empowering is nonviolence in shaping peoples’ presents and futures? The exhibition CREATING SAFER SPACE explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence. It shows how protection is being thought of and practised by ordinary people without the use of weapons, and what transformative ways of imagining, doing, and living it enables, but also what its limits are.

With most deaths in wars sustained among civilians and a record high of over 110 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, the protection of civilians from the harms of war, violence and persecution is a pressing issue of our time. But answers are still mostly imagined as either armed protection from violence or as humanitarian assistance to protect people legally and socioeconomically. By contrast, the people featured in this exhibition show us that and how nonviolent, civilian alternatives of protection from physical violence work.

CREATING SAFER SPACE draws on unarmed civilian protection 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. The objects, images, and voices originate from a selection of 26 research projects conducted in collaboration between academics, self-protecting communities and nonviolent civilian accompaniers, that explored how nonviolent civilian protection works. The experiences they have captured invite us to reflect on our own ideas and biases of who can protect and how.

CREATING SAFER SPACE challenges its visitors to undo commonly held beliefs about vulnerability, agency, and choices in war. It invites us to imagine possibilities for the protection of civilians differently. And it inspires us to take action and contribute to this change.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Understanding Community-level Spontaneous Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP): A Comparative Study of Initiatives in South Sudan, Myanmar and Colombia’ has published a policy brief, Spontaneous Unarmed Civilian Protection in Rumbek and Juba, South Sudan.

The policy brief is written by Luke Abbs, Flora Francis Bringi and Moses John. It explores the role of peace committiees, protection teams and religious leaders in grassroots UCP initiatives in South Sudan, and provides recommendations aimed at supporting ‘spontaneous’ UCP initiatives while keeping initiatives locally owned.

Click this link for Spanish

The Creating Safer Space network has brought together people from 70 organisations in 13 countries to better understand unarmed civilian protection and self-protection amidst violent conflict. As the network draws to a close, join us to find out more about our work, to celebrate our achievements and to look ahead!

1.00 – 2.30 pm UTC on Friday 21 February

Register for the Zoom event HERE

Programme:

• Research Findings and Achievements: Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Nerve Macaspac, Beatriz Arias and Rachel Julian
• Keynote Speech: Rosemary Kabaki, Head of Mission South Sudan, Nonviolent Peaceforce
• Highlights from a selection of Creating Safer Space projects around the world
• Reflections from the audience

Bring a local drink to celebrate!

Further information about the images on the e-flyer:

• Top left: Men in South Sudan illustrating the use of grasses tied together to convey a specific symbolic meaning. When the heads of the grasses are tied together, it symbolises a clash (that there will be fighting). When the heads of the grasses are apart, as the man in the middle demonstrates with his hands, it symbolises that violence will be avoided. Photograph by Haji Elias Hillary as part of the Creating Safer Space project Visualising early warning and preparedness in civilian protection: Investigating local vernaculars of community adaptations to insecurity
• Top centre: Illustration by Wanwisa Intarakanchit, produced as part of the Creating Safer Space project Introducing Unarmed Civilian Protection in Thai Society: Opportunities and Challenges
• Top right: Still from La Fiesta theatre production, Medellin, Colombia, produced as part of the Creating Safer Space project Art that Protects: Contributions of artistic-cultural initiatives to the self-protection strategies of young people and women in the context of the urban conflict in Medellín Photograph by Laura Diosa Vera and Sofia Garcia ‘Ponchis’.
• Centre right: Illustration by Sebastián Bucheli in Civilians Protecting Civilians, produced by the Creating Safer Space project Understanding Community-level Spontaneous Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP): A Comparative Study of Initiatives in South Sudan, Myanmar and Colombia
• Bottom left: Part of a poster produced as part of the Creating Safer Space project The Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia, Colombia, an experience of unarmed civil protection with indigenous and peasant communities of Bajo Cauca
• Bottom centre: Drawing by a research participant, Jayapura, West Papua, as part of the Creating Safer Space project Civilian (Self-) Protection from Violent Conflict in Papua
• Bottom right: Part of a poster produced as part of the Creating Safer Space project The Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia, Colombia, an experience of unarmed civil protection with indigenous and peasant communities of Bajo Cauca