Prof. Rachel Julian and Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara travelled to Washington, DC, from 5-9 May 2024 to share Creating Safer Space insights. With the help of local UCP Community of Practice members, they presented the findings and projects to policymakers and peace advocacy organisations.

Among the highlights was a roundtable organised by Alliance for Peacebuilding attended by c.30 people from around the world with an interest in de-escalating violence and local peacebuilding. In a meeting with the Friends Committee On National Legislation, Rachel and Berit spoke about the importance of Creating Safer Space research and projects to current crises and the need to work together to bring new ideas and thinking into discussion on how to create spaces of safety and peace. Rachel and Berit also talked to several people from the policymaking space on preventing violence, atrocity prevention, and civilian protection about how UCP in and by communities could fit into their work. The Network’s concrete examples of what people do and how safer spaces are used in communities helped these policymakers and practitioners understand the importance of thinking more about how we support community-led UCP and unarmed self-protection.

“Spaces of Peace: A Gathering of a Community of Practice” was held on 10 May 2024 at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) in Manhattan, New York City. This event was attended by leaders of non-profit organizations and individual researchers based in New York and Los Angeles who are engaged in the promotion or research of nonviolent, unarmed or abolitionist practices of community self-protection. Participating organizations include the Alliance for Community Transit – Los Angeles (ACT-LA) and Nonviolent Peaceforce.

The gathering aimed at fostering a dialogue between international practices of unarmed civilian protection and local unarmed, nonviolent or abolition movements in the U.S. Key themes discussed by participants include the shared practices and challenges of international practices of unarmed civilian protection and the work of abolition locally, the kinds of infrastructures and relationships required in sustaining the work of abolition, and ways of expanding solidarity as a community of practice of unarmed community protection across different spaces and places. Participants also viewed and reflected upon three documentary films from the Creating Safer Space research network: Civil protection to stay on our land: Palestine (director: Mahmoud Makrameh), Minga (Director: Malala Lekander), and When a Young Blood Bleeds (Producers: Spontaneous the Poet, Martha Okumu, Rachel Akinyi, Peace Tree Network).

The gathering was co-organized by Prof. Nerve Macaspac, Co-Investigator for Creating Safer Space research network, and Flip Zang, a PhD student of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) at the Graduate Center. Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Principal Investigator of Creating Safer Space, and Prof. Rachel Julian, Co-Investigator, participated at the event and provided an overview of the 26 research projects funded by the network and updates from the recent Creating Safer Space exhibition at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia: local experiences and lessons learned’ has published the IAP Research Seedbed Curriculum. This toolbox is one of the results of the process of training local researchers in participatory action research (PAR). The local researchers then led the creation and training of research seedbeds in the city of Buenaventura and the communities of Caldono and Lerma in Cauca. This curriculum is a testimony to the significant contributions of local researchers and seedbeds to the research and practice of security, protection and care strategies in their communities. This publication is currently only available in Spanish, but an English language edition will follow soon.

Arfiansyah, the Co-Investigator of the Creating Safer Space project ‘Civilian (Self-) Protection from Violent Conflict in Papua: Exploring Local Infrastructures and Initiatives’, was interviewed by Dr Mukhlisuddin Ilyas, Director of Bandar Publishing, on Sagoe TV Podcast:

Arfiansyah discussed his research activities with Nonviolent Peaceforce of the Philippines in Papua, in Maesot on the Thai border with Myanmar, and in Kachin and Northern Shan states of Myanmar, with an emphasis on the research in Papua. Arfiansyah provided a comparative perspective on the challenge of doing research in conflict areas, and introduced UCP to local audiences who are not yet familiar with the concept.

It is with great pleasure that CIVIC, Creating Safer Space, 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, invite you to attend a POC Week side event on Thursday, 23 May 2024 at 1.00pm – 2.30pm EDT. The event will be held in-person at the Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York and online via Zoom.

The international community is at a critical juncture with peacekeeping and protection of civilians efforts being pressed to evolve and innovate to meet new challenges, risks and threats, escalating civilian needs, major gaps between intent and impact of missions, community and host-state resistance, and precarious mission drawdowns. Civilian-centered approaches to protection can bridge these gaps and address these challenges. Community-led protection, a civilian-centered approach to POC based on principles of unarmed action, non-violence, and the primacy of local actors, has been successfully employed to protect civilians in numerous conflict-affected regions. Substantial research has demonstrated that community-centered approaches are effective, cost-efficient, and sustainable when they are based on conflict-sensitive approaches, an in-depth understanding of communities, and built upon existing community efforts. This session will examine what has worked and why, what lessons have been learned, and what is needed at both field and policy levels to more fully raise awareness and integrate, coordinate, and internalize unarmed, civilian-led approaches into institutional protection efforts.

This invitation is intended for the humanitarian, peacebuilding, peacekeeping and/or POC experts within your organisation. The invitation is transferable, and should you feel that you are not best suited to attend, kindly forward to the appropriate individual in your mission or office. In-person space is limited and registration is required. A light lunch will be served at 12.45pm. Please RSVP by 17 May 2024 at this link.

For further information, kindly review this concept note or please contact:
Ms. Gay Rosenblum-Kumar, UN Representative of NP at g.rosenblumkumar@nonviolentpeaceforce.org.

We hope you can join us for this informal dialogue examining how civilian-centered approaches to protection can address the gaps and challenges faced by UN peacekeeping missions, other peace support operations, humanitarian organisations and conflict-affected communities.

The Creating Safer Space network has published a series of policy briefs about our research and our recommendations to the UN and its member states. The policy briefs have been written by Creating Safer Space Principal Investigator Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Co-Investigators Rachel Julian and Nerve Macaspac, and draw upon research from 26 Creating Safer Space projects. The policy briefs will be disseminated during the exhibition at the UN Headquarters in New York. There are five policy briefs to date:

Policy Brief No. 1/2024:
Nonviolent Community Strategies protect Civilians Across the World

Policy Brief No. 2/2024:
Community Self-Protection Makes Civilians Safer

Policy Brief No. 3/2024:
The Missing Piece of PoC: Local Unarmed Civilian Protection

Policy Brief No. 4/2024:
Community Unarmed Civilian Protection in South Sudan

Policy Brief No. 5/2024:
Unarmed Civilian Protection in Post-Coup Myanmar

The Creating Safer Space exhibition will soon be on display inside the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The exhibition will be shown at the Delegates’ Entrance of the UN Headquarters from 29 April – 3 May. The official sponsor of the exhibition is the Permanent Mission of Colombia to the UN. Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Prof. Rachel Julian and Dr Nerve Macaspac will accompany the exhibition. They will seek to inform UN delegates, UN staff, and other interested stakeholders about Creating Safer Space research and the potential role of Unarmed Civilian Protection in the Protection of Civilians (PoC).

The travelling exhibition, which has previously been on show in Nairobi (Kenya), Bangkok (Thailand) and Aberystwyth (Wales), explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence. 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.

Along with the exhibition, there will be a stand with publications and brochures from Creating Safer Space projects, including a series of new policy briefs specifically for the UN and its member states.

An exhibition event will be held on Tuesday 30 April for members of UN missions and other interested parties, with drinks, nibbles and introductory speeches.

Prof. Rachel Julian, Creating Safer Space Co-Investigator, has published an article in the academic journal Civil Wars, ‘Civilians Creating Safe Space: The Role of Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping in Protection of Civilians’. The article draws on research in Myanmar and the Philippines, and challenges the assumption that only the military can do ‘Protection of Civilians’ (PoC). The article is available to view open access.

Mel Duncan, one of the co-founders of Nonviolent Peaceforce, has published an article in Waging Nonviolence, ‘There’s a better way to make communities safer — and it’s taking off around the world’. The article draws on Creating Safer Space research in Colombia, carried out by the University of Antioquia in collaboration with Harlequin and the Jugglers.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Exploring unarmed civilian self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict’ has published a policy brief, Strengthening Unarmed Community Self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone Conflict. The policy brief is written by Dr Nancy Annan and Prof. Gordon Crawford, and it demonstrates the resilience, resourcefulness, and pro-activeness of civilians in protecting themselves in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict. It advocates that external bodies, both national and international, should learn from these protective measures adopted by local actors, and provide appropriate support.

The Creating Safer Space network is excited to be part of the UCP/A Community of Practice, which brings together people and organisations around the world that are practicing, researching and promoting Unarmed Civilian Protection and Accompaniment. We are delighted that Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Creating Safer Space Principal Investigator, has become a member of the UCP/A Community of Practice Steering Group.

The UCP/A Community of Practice, with support from Creating Safer Space, has recently published a Report on its last international gathering, which took place in Geneva in October 2023. The report is available in English, Spanish and French.