Southern Africa
MBBI’s Southern Africa Project began as a partnership between MBBI and Rotary districts in South Africa to build an African platform for conflict prevention and peacebuilding, through a mediation and conflict transformation certification program. The African Rotary Community Mediation (ARCoM) program began working with cohorts in 2021. Utilizing both a global and community-based lens, the program equipped participants, though training and coaching, to make a tangible impact on the well-being of diverse communities.
Graduates of the program have helped resolve land disputes; run youth and community work; initiated restorative circles; and taught workshops on race and gender-based violence, natural resource governance, and indigenous knowledge. The graduates make themselves available to their communities for pro-bono peacebuilding work across various social issues. They stay connected through an online platform where they continue to interact, learn, and support each other while also receiving the support of the MBBI project team. In addition, some participants of earlier cohorts have returned to support the training team and offer coaching support and share their experiences with newer cohorts.
Team leaders: Sokfa John, Lina Stahl, Dries Velthuizen
Project History
In 2019, a group of visionaries from Rotary Districts 9350, 9370, and 9400 in Southern Africa approached Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI). They proposed an initiative to build social cohesion throughout the region by training 100 community mediators across the Districts in celebration of the Rotary’s Centennial on the African continent. In 2020, the Districts established the African Rotary Community Mediation (ARCoM) Vocational Training Team Global Grant to raise needed funds and ARCoM became a reality.
Since January 2021, MBBI’s multi-disciplinary team of trainers and coaches has worked with four cohorts of 20-25 participants in each group. To maintain diversity and ensure sustainability, the program decided on a cohort ratio of 70% non-Rotarian community leaders and 30% Rotarian community leaders. Participant selection also focused on having a gender balance and drawing participants from every cultural and linguistic group in Southern Africa.
Each participant received two weeks of daily, four-hour training online, delivered by experienced trainers from MBBI. The training covered diverse aspects of community mediation, dialogue facilitation, conflict transformation, trauma-informed peacebuilding, navigating power structures and cultural contexts, and conflict mapping. This was followed by monthly four-hour live coaching calls to build on the skills learned, to debrief on the experiences of participants and to make necessary adjustments. At the end of each calendar year, the program's final week was conducted entirely by the participants, facilitating co-learning sessions around their service projects with one another.
ARCoM’s first cohort successfully completed training in 2021, followed by two more in October 2022, and a fourth in 2023. March 2023 saw all the participants come together for the first time in person at the ARCoM Graduation in Johannesburg. Over 40 graduates took the stage to celebrate their learning and engagement in healing their communities and to receive certificates of completion from MBBI.
Future plans
The Rotary Steering Committee is working on setting up a Rotary Action Group (RAG) for Community Mediation to provide a Rotary-supported platform for continuous exchange, collaboration and support among graduates and the broader global community of community peacebuilders - Rotarians and non-Rotarians alike. It is hoped that the project will continue to expand across Africa and that its impact will be visible in the lives of diverse African communities and in the foundation it would lay for more sustainable peace in Africa.