Volunteering is about freely offering to do something or support a cause, without expecting payment. A Partners for Peace focus group discussion respondent in Ondo State described being a member of the Network as ‘selfless service’ by “people of same minds targeting peace so development can thrive”. According to the peace volunteer, “you sacrifice your time, talent and treasure… you are totally committed to do so without anyone forcing you to do so’’.
At the onset of the Partners for Peace project, PIND had one goal – to find people of like minds who would freely volunteer to be peace actors.
In searching for such volunteers, PIND looked out for some core criteria that pre-disposed certain individuals to be peacebuilders, creating a common interest that is foundational for the emergence of a social network.
As a first step to finding existing peace actors, PIND deployed participatory research to identify drivers of conflict and locate existing peace actors.
PIND organized an intensive conflict assessment of the region that enabled them to map and hold extensive consultations with representatives from all key stakeholder groups including men, women, youth, militants and ex-militants, political leaders, civil society, business owners, traditional leaders, religious leaders, community group leaders, government officials, and peacebuilding experts across all nine states of the Niger Delta to understand how they have experienced conflict and its impact on their livelihoods.
Through the interviews, PIND identified prospective individuals who fit into the potential volunteer profile and subsequently invited them to a series of consultative workshops that held in each of the nine states of the region.
The event set the stage for recruiting the first set of peace volunteers at State levels. According to Chief Africas Lawal, PIND’s Partners for Peace Network Coordinator “these people who were at the consultative meeting were invited and that was what formed the initial members we had for the Network”.
Initial peace volunteers had been recruited but they were still operating in silos. It was time for PIND to take steps towards bringing the actors into a common platform to leverage the power of their shared interest as a social network.
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