An International Initiative
Program Overview
Communities Without Boundaries International, Inc. (CWBI), together with its local partners, engages conflict and post-conflict communities in peacebuilding through community building and development initiatives. The primary goal of the initiative is to design and implement interventions into target communities through research, education/training and technical assistance. The long-term vision of the initiative is to have targeted inter-cultural communities of youth, religious, and business leaders living in harmony, while working together in peacebuilding projects through community building and development strategies.
The Program, titled From Chaos to Community: Building Communities without Boundaries (From Chaos to Community), is carried out in three project phases. The Program engages men and women from among the youth, religious, and business communities in peacebuilding and development education, inter-community dialogue, and community building/development strategies.
CWBI believes that the Chaos to Community Program
- promotes attitudinal change and mutual respect among disparate cultural, ethnic and religious groups for each other’s identities, while promoting tolerance and diversity
- enhances the quality of life of target communities through community building and economic development strategies
Four groups of local stakeholders will participate in the Program:
- Youth if channeled in the right direction have the potential to “constitute a huge reservoir of energy that can move mountains”, especially in conflict ridden and post-conflict settings (peacebuilding and conflict prevention)
- Religious Leaders have the power and opportunity to shape positive conflict transformation mechanisms (peacebuilding and conflict prevention)
- Business Leaders can play a critical role in diminishing the possibility of future conflicts (peacebuilding and conflict prevention)
- Local partner/s (NGO/university) have the capacity to play a critical role in peacebuilding and development, addressing ethnic and religious cleavages, and promote positive peace (peacebuilding and conflict prevention)
Key elements of the Program include training in:
- Nonviolence
- Peacebuilding development
- Leadership development
- Technical skills
- Community building
- Community development
Partners
The Chaos to Community Program engages and includes local partners and sponsors. Local partner and sponsors represent the three major sectors of a community: civic, business and government. The civic sector sponsor/s serves as the key collaborator with CWBI. Its role includes assistance in:
- Program development and implementation
- Resources development and shared allocation
- Community organizing
- Communications
- Local logistics
Products
The Program produces the following results
- Comprehensive community assessments
- Comprehensive program reports
- Comprehensive community plan and funding strategy
- Project implementation teams and a trained, organized community-based collaborative network of mediating institutions and organizations