The Creating Safer Space network has shown a series of films as part of the WOW Wales One World Film Festival, and these are still available to view online.

The WOW Film Festival is the only UK festival dedicated principally to films from Africa, Asia & Latin America, and this is its 23rd year of bringing international films to cinemas across Wales.

This year the WOW Film Festival included 9 short films that have been produced as part of Creating Safer Space research projects in Colombia, Nigeria and Palestine.

The films were shown in Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales. Two of the sessions included discussions with the Principal Investigators of the projects that created two of the films, Dr Marwan Darweish for Civil protection to stay on our land (Palestine) and Dr Pier Parisi for Survive among violence: Stories of the Nasa people in Colombia. More information about the films here.

The films and recordings of the discussions are being shown online until 31 May – book here with free admission!

The Creating Safer Space Exhibition was on display in Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Wales from 11 – 28 March.

Two students from the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University worked as Exhibition Tour Guides. Emily Pomeroy is a first year PhD student, and Konstantinos Kolokotronis is a Master’s student. They provided tours to groups of university students and members of the public. A diverse range of visitors viewed the exhibition, and were moved by the stories and the artwork. Most heard about unarmed civilian protection for the first time.

A special exhibition event, attended by approximately 80 people, was held on the evening of Friday 22 March, with wine, food and live music. In her opening remarks, Angela Hatton, Aberystwyth University Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research, Knowledge Exchange and Innovation, discussed the importance of the Creating Safer Space network in the context of the increasing need for civilian protection around the world. Patrick Finney, the Head of Department of International Politics, highlighted the Creating Safer Space network’s difficult journey (born during Covid and affected by subsequent funding instability) and the pleasure in now seeing the network’s achievements as part of the exhibition and its contributions to the WOW Film Festival.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Exploring unarmed civilian self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict’ has published a booklet with poetry and drawings, entitled: “Ji se a-nta-av” Resilient Voices: An anthology of poems on community unarmed protection from a war zone, edited by Mutia Brendaline. The poems and drawings are all written and drawn by civilians living amidst the current conflict in the English-speaking North West and South West regions of Cameroon. An introduction is provided by Prof. Gordon Crawford, the Principal Investigator of the project, who highlights how “[t]he poems’ authors (anonymous to protect their security) outline their experiences, hardships and traumas, as well as their courage, resilience and agency in protecting themselves and others against violence.”

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 based on their research in Nariño, Colombia, entitled ‘Civilians Protecting Civilians’. The policy brief was launched at an event in London that included the participation of the Ambassador of Colombia to the UK and officials from the UK Foreign Office, who reflected on the recommendations provided. The policy brief was published by Rodeemos el Diálogo and written by Karen Arteaga Garzón and Andrei Gómez-Suárez, with illustrations by Sebastián Bucheli. The policy brief is available in English and Spanish.

The Creating Safer Space network held a three-day final regional research forum in Bangkok, Thailand, from 20 – 22 February 2024. The event was hosted by the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University.

The research forum was organized to bring researchers and other stakeholders together to share research findings, unique research methodologies, and implications of the research findings for violence prevention and peacebuilding initiatives.

Each of the 8 Creating Safer Space projects in South-East Asia sent at least two representatives to the event, and the event brought together about 50 participants in total. The participants exchanged research findings and enthusiastically discussed ideas about how to create safer spaces for people living in areas of violent conflict.

Participants were also able to visit the Creating Safer Space exhibition. The exhibition brings together objects, images, and voices to show how civilians around the world harness the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces for a dignified life.

More information about the event will be available on the Creating Safer Space website in due course.

This is the second of our three final events. The final event for Africa and the Middle East took place in Kenya in January and we are now very pleased to share more information about this event on our website, along with recordings from the event. The final event for Latin America will take place in Colombia in June.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Development of civil protection capacities in women displaced by the armed conflict through popular communication and Community Legal Empowerment’ is holding an event at the La Casona Public Library in Cali, Colombia, at 3.30 pm on Thursday 14 March to disseminate the transmedia booklet developed as part of the research project.

The event will be specifically aimed at women who actively participated in the research. It will be an opportunity to recognize their valuable contribution as agents of change in promoting peaceful civil protection in communities affected by armed conflict. The focal point of the event will be a panel discussion where the participating women will have the opportunity to share their experiences in civil protection and the co-creation process of the booklet. In addition to the delivery to the participants, a donation of some copies of the booklet will be made to the La Casona Public Library. This donation aims to facilitate access to educational materials for all library users, thus contributing to the dissemination of knowledge about civil protection in the community.

The transmedia booklet is available for download here.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Civilian (Self-) Protection from Violent Conflict in Papua: Exploring Local Infrastructures and Initiatives’ published an opinion peace in the Jakarta Post, entitled ‘A new approach to violent conflict in Papua’, on 5 March 2024. The article is written by Arfiansyah and Delsy Ronnie, and it argues that recognizing and allowing a nonpartisan third party to focus solely on protecting civilians from violent conflict could be a stepping stone to conflict management in Papua. The article is available here:

https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2024/03/05/a-new-approach-to-violent-conflict-in-papua.html

The article is currently only available to subscribers of Jakarta Post, but please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk if you would like to connect with the authors to learn more about their research.

As part of the WOW Wales One World Film Festival the Creating Safer Space research network will be showing films from our research projects around the world. The films will be shown at Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Wales on the dates specified below, and will also be shown online from 22–31 March (booking opening soon).

La Fiesta

10.00 am on Wednesday 20 March, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

La Fiesta is a piece inspired by the findings of the research project Art That Protects and performed by Harlequin and the Jugglers. Witnessed by 600 spectators at the renowned Pablo Tobón Uribe Theatre of Medellín on 17 May 2023, this magical piece transported the audience into a realm of wonder. Among them were members of artistic-cultural organizations from vulnerable urban areas, underscoring the transformative power of art in communities affected by urban violence.

Water Conflicts

4.00 pm on Friday 22 March, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

We will show short films that explore rivers and the filmmakers’ relationships with them, the social / environmental problems that surround them, and our responses to this. The event will include screening of the films and an informal discussion between filmmakers, artists, and activists.

Water Conflicts

These three films emerged from a research project that explored water conflicts around the rivers La Paloma (Argelia), Santo Domingo (San Francisco) and Dormilón (San Luis) in the Oriente region of the department of Antioquia, Colombia. Peasant communities and organizations in the region have a history of social mobilization against extractivist projects such as hydroelectric power plants, mining, and construction works in protected areas. These projects, often backed by armed actors, have changed the landscape and agricultural lifestyle of many municipalities. Community self-protection in these contexts includes cultivating social practices and relationships aimed at caring for water and life. These films were produced as part of the research project Water conflicts, violations and forms of self-protection.

Cutting the Crap

This session will also include a showing of Cutting the Crap, which was produced independently of the Creating Safer Space network. Details TBC.

nodens

This session will also include a showing of nodens, which was produced independently of the Creating Safer Space network by aim king, PhD student at Aberystwyth University’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies. nodens (2023) follows Afon Hafren from source to mouth, exploring what is both strange and familiar through walking with river ecologies. It expresses the feeling of knowing and unknowing, continuously, and simultaneously, with the ever-changing iterations of water.

Exhibition

Participants are welcome to join a Special Event of the Creating Safer Space Exhibition that will take place directly afterwards.

Stories of Unarmed Civilian Protection

2.30 pm on Sunday 24 March, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

This series of films is about civilians harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces for a dignified life. Drawing from real-life experiences in Colombia, Nigeria, and Palestine, these films are born from projects commissioned by the Creating Safer Space research network. Developed collaboratively by academics, communities, and accompaniers, they delve into the practice of unarmed civilian protection, showcasing historical resistance and innovative approaches to imagining, implementing, and sustaining peace. We are excited to also be hearing from two of the principal investigators who initiated the creation of the films:

Dr Marwan Darweish is the Principal Investigator of the project Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta).

Dr Piergiuseppe Parisi is the Principal Investigator of the project ‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict: A collaborative visual ethnography of the cultural and spiritual protection practices of the Nasa people in Colombia

Survive among violence. Stories of the Nasa people in Colombia

The Nasa ancestral people of Colombia have lived amidst the Colombian armed conflict for decades. Armed groups, illicit economies, and economic conglomerates target them, jeopardising their survival, and endangering their ways of life. Through Ana Deida, a Nasa woman leader from Resguardo de Huellas Caloto, the Ritualising Protection project team journeys to understand the risks faced by the community and their historical resistance processes. This film was produced as part of the research project ‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict.

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.

Civil protection to stay on our land: Palestine

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).

Caring for community life

In Caring for Community Life, the Senú indigenous people of the Almendros 2 reservation in El Bagre, one of the municipalities hardest hit by armed violence in Colombia, tell how they have been organizing to resist armed groups and remain in their ancestral territories. This film was produced as part of the research project The Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia, Colombia, an experience of unarmed civil protection with indigenous and peasant communities of Bajo Cauca.

Inter-regional learning on UCP in Nigeria (Online Only)

This video 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 research project Unarmed civilian protection through collective impact.

For more information and to book, please see the WOW Film Festival website. Please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk with any questions.

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’ has recently finished.

The project team is pleased to share a multimedia tool that contains the results of the project, available on the organisation’s website: https://cjlibertad.org/psgbajocauca/

An event was held to present the results to relevant organizations and national and regional authorities responsible for the protection and guarantee for social leaders and human rights defenders and indigenous authorities. It sought to generate commitments for the protection of life and guarantees for the work of leadership. State authorities recognize the serious risk situation for social leaders and human rights defenders and indigenous authorities, but are unable to commit to strategies that provide protection and guarantees to the work of social leaders.

The Creating Safer Space network held a three-day Final Regional Event for Africa and the Middle East in Nairobi, Kenya, from 24–26 January 2024. The event was hosted by Strathmore University’s Business School.

The aim of the event was to bring researchers, practitioners, artists, journalists, and policymakers together to share unique research methodologies, research findings, and their implications for violence prevention, protection, and peacebuilding initiatives.

From the many learnings about unarmed civilian protection (UCP) and community self-protection in Africa and the Middle East arising from the presentations and discussions, three overarching learnings stood out:

1. UCP is embedded in, and emerges from, traditional and cultural practices. Findings across different projects are thereby fundamentally challenging and changing the literature on “who does UCP” away from international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) to local people.
2. UCP involves many more activities than had been acknowledged previously. This is because, in protecting people, communities start with what they have, be that signs and symbols, community media, or traditional mechanisms.
3. Early Warning is understood and carried out in most places at risk, but Early Response can be further developed so that the community can choose to de-escalate, use relationships, or other mechanisms. There is a need for better support for developing early response and strategic de-escalation.

Other high-level themes arising from the discussions included, among others:

• That lots of communities and grass-roots organisations do UCP, without calling it such or having heard of nonviolent protection;
• The centrality of the collective and of solidarity in UCP/community self-protection;
• The important role of women and youth;
• The positive role the arts and artivism can play in UCP and community self-protection;
• The growing importance of online media in civilian protection;
• The role of UCP with regard to the looming threat of conflicts brought about or acerbated by climate change, which require early intervention to prevent them.

The event brought together over 60 participants from at least eight countries. Distinguished speakers included Prof. Jacqueline McGlade (Professor at Strathmore University and University College London, formerly Chief Scientist of the UN Environment Programme and Executive Director of the European Environment Agency), Ambassador Frederic Gateretse-Ngoga (Ambassador of Burundi; Senior Advisor for the AU Border Program and Regional Security Mechanisms in the Office of the Commissioner for Political Affairs and Peace and Security of the African Union Commission), Dr Caesar Mwangi (Executive Dean of Strathmore University Business School), Ms Rosemary Kabaki (Nonviolent Peaceforce Head of Mission, South Sudan) and Dr Vincent Ogutu (Vice Chancellor of Strathmore University).

Each of the 10 Creating Safer Space projects in Africa and the Middle East sent at least two representatives to the event, which involved detailed presentations and discussions on research findings and synergies between projects:

• Exploring Unarmed Civilian Self-Protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone Conflict (Gordon Crawford and Nancy Annan of Coventry University, UK, and Bernard Sakah of Big Steps Outreach Network, Cameroon)
• Unarmed Civilian Protection Through Collective Impact: Learning from the Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace (JSCP) for Enhanced Civilian Protection in Maiduguri, North-Eastern Nigeria (Sukanya Podder of King’s College London and Hamsatu Hajja Allamin of the Allamin Foundation for Peace & Development, Nigeria)
• Gender-Just Landscapes: Gender Based Violence and Community Protection in Land, Natural Resource, and Climate Conflicts (Aliyu Salisu Barau and Zainab Nuhu of Bayero University Kano, Nigeria)
• Strengthening Local Capacities for Unarmed Civilian Protection in Uasin Gishu, Kenya (Clinton Gwako and Emmanuel Birech of Rural Women Peace Link, Kenya)
• Nonviolent Activism Against Police Brutality in Kenya (Martha Okumu and Rachel Akinyi of Peace Tree Network, Kenya, and Elias Opongo of Hekima University College, Kenya)
• Strategies for Safety and Solidarity: Understanding Protection Through Creativity in South Sudan and Colombia (Kara Blackmore of London School of Economics and Political Science, José Fernando Serrano-Amaya of University of Los Andes, Colombia, and Rebecca Lorins, South Sudan)
• Safety and Dignity: Enhancing Unarmed Civilian Protection Amongst Palestinian Communities in the South Hebron Hills (Marwan Darweish of Coventry University and Mahmoud Soliman of Coventry University and Al-Shmoh Cultural Centre, Palestine)
• Visualising Early Warning and Preparedness in Civilian Protection: Investigating Local Vernaculars of Community Adaptations to Insecurity (Diria Vicky Thomas of Community Aid for Relief and Development, South Sudan, and Haji Elias Hillary of Lomore Development Organization, South Sudan)
• Understanding Community-level Spontaneous Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP): A Comparative Study of Initiatives in South Sudan, Myanmar and Colombia (Luke Abbs of University of Winchester, UK, and Moses John and Flora Francis Bringi of Organization for Nonviolence and Development, South Sudan)

The event also involved a Roundtable on Reporting on Civilian Protection. Speakers included Arthur Okwemba and Ruth Omukhango (African Women and Child Feature Service, Kenya), Philip Muhatia (Pamoja FM), Alex Chamwada (ChamsMedia) and Abjata Khalif (Journalist, Northeastern Kenya). They shared experiences of peace reporting in Kenya, through vernacular community media, especially local radio stations, the strong role of women in this alternative media reporting, and how it contributed to unarmed civilian protection and conflict prevention in different settings and situations.

Participants also visited the Creating Safer Space exhibition. The exhibition brings together objects, images, and voices emerging from the network’s projects to show how civilians around the world harness the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces for a dignified life

Recordings of the event are available here:

Keynote Speech, Prof. Jacqueline McGlade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHbWjZbavpw

Livestreaming of Day 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIThcfsg7zg&t=2216s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfX1ZYdMMk

Livestreaming of Day 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVR3jHedVPg&t=11903s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd8zujysQgA&t=195s

Livestreaming of Day 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHbWjZbavpw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynty4sHKCJk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DL2HyN13eo

This is the first of our three final events. The final event for Asia will take place in Thailand in February, and the final event for Latin America will take place in Colombia in June.