![\"\"](\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/blog\/peacebuilder\/files\/2010\/12\/zunguza_mckay_tiezen00_opt.jpeg\")
<\/a>The next year, 1997, Alfiado\u2019s church offered him the opportunity to be a full-time master\u2019s student in conflict transformation at EMU. It was a difficult decision. He would have to leave behind his wife Carla and their two daughters, one of whom was a newborn. With Carla\u2019s support, he took what they viewed as a \u201conce in a lifetime opportunity.\u201d (Alfiado and Carla now have four children, all daughters.)<\/p>\n
From its modest beginnings, JustaPaz has grown to be the most influential peace organization in the Portuguese-speaking world. Headquartered in Maputo, Mozambique, JustaPaz now has its own building, 13 staff members, and an annual operating budget of $400,000. It receives support from German, Swedish, Norwegian, and Canadian organizations, as well as its original parent, the United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n
The establishment of JustaPaz was, in part, an outgrowth of efforts by the Methodist bishop of Mozambique to get the two major warring parties \u2013 known as FRELIMO and RENAMO \u2013 to negotiate their way toward a peace agreement. (An agreement was signed in 1992.)<\/p>\n
JustaPaz\u2019s most recent strategic plan notes the following accomplishments over a three-year period:<\/p>\n
- \n
- 425 police officers trained in mediation, human rights, gender issues, and other matters of conflict transformation.<\/em><\/li>\n
- 110 senior political and government officials equipped with an in-depth understanding of the relationship between political conflict and violence at the community level, along with strategies to reduce such conflict.<\/em><\/li>\n
- 150 local government leaders trained in group-process skills and educated to understand the relationship between conflict and development.<\/em><\/li>\n
- Producing and distributing (in print and online) literature in Portuguese on peacebuilding, good governance, human rights, development, and democracy, including 3,000 copies of the Lusophone Journal of Peacebuilding.<\/em><\/li>\n
- Facilitating \u201cconstructive dialogue\u201d among the various faith groups in Mozambique \u2013 Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, and followers of traditional religions \u2013 through interfaith symposiums held each year in all regions of the country.<\/em><\/li>\n
- Equipping religious institutions throughout Mozambique to fill peacemaker roles and to increase their organizational effectiveness by doing training-of-trainers workshops. Attended by hundreds of church leaders, these workshops are designed to make local churches, often the only community hub in remote areas, more effective in responding to HIV\/AIDS, poverty, community development issues, and other local matters of well-being.<\/em><\/li>\n
- Since 2006, running an annual Lusophone Peacebuilding Institute that attracts about 50 participants each year from Africa\u2019s Lusophone countries.<\/em><\/li>\n
- Hosting conferences of Lusophone peacebuilders from the former colonies of Portugal: Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe,<\/a> East Timor, and Brazil.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
- 110 senior political and government officials equipped with an in-depth understanding of the relationship between political conflict and violence at the community level, along with strategies to reduce such conflict.<\/em><\/li>\n