Peaceful family life ( PFI )
Peaceful Family Project is a program that helps people in the process of building strong and resilient community and living in it peacefully. In fact, many families live in consistent social conflicts which affect particularly children and Rwandan society in general. It is important for the family to feel stable and live in peace. The PFP will play a key role in this matter. Family as tissue of each society consists of husband, wife and their children. Each family needs to be a stable situation whereby none feel threatened or abused so as to work at his/her full potential. A non-peaceful and scared family situation may easily induce many socio-economic consequences which include: Homelessness, lack of access to education, School dropout, Street children, Loss of hope for the future. This results in becoming a hotbed of serious problems for community as a whole such as: extreme poverty, family social conflicts and fights which may even lead to murdering cases, Sexual abuse of children, early pregnancy and household demolition. In this regards, Peaceful Family Project activities will focus on transforming non-peaceful family for the sake of peace. Its activities will have a positive impact on concerned family members helping those who have lost hope in life so as they may feel safe and stable. A family is the foundation of any society. It is an entity that gives real meaning to life and existence. As such, it constitutes the cornerstone of any social system. A family is not a casual or spontaneous organization of people but a divinely ordained institution. The foundation of a family is based on marriage, which is a right to every human being (Haralambos and Holborn, 2008). In addition, a family acts as a social unit of society, which is usually very close "to the original" model of the entire society in which it operates. This is why governments and non-governmental organizations in different parts of the world attribute great importance to strengthening the family as basic social unit (Chow, 1996). Based on our survey, three types of conflicts in Rwanda households have been identified: conflicts between parents (husband and wife), parents and children and between siblings. Household social conflicts lead to physical and emotional violence between couples and children. These kind of conflicts affect the economic welfare of the family due to constant quarrels limiting their efforts to develop. Moreover, children are negatively affected to the extent that some of them become sex workers, street kids while others drop out of school to become thieves. On the other hand, in extreme cases household conflicts were found to be causes of divorce, murder and suicide. Family conflicts have become a major problem to security and are threatening the welfare of Rwandan families. Nonetheless, economic violence is also one of the factors that endanger family good relationship. This type of violence includes the lack of assistance to the family by the spouse, abandoning the family, complicity in confinement, deprivation of fundamental rights and discrimination (NURC, 2008). Today‘s families experience problems lead to violence and crimes. From those crises, families are experiencing unfaithfulness, violence, child molestation, divorce and separation. These problems experienced in families affect the intra-family members, and long term negative impact on social cohesion among family allies, child, parents and neighbors. To achieve this, PFP targets vulnerable populations including the youth, men and women affected by the family conflicts and hopeless peoples of boys and girls. PFP is will contribute to Peace consolidation and the promotion of gender equality working with men towards the transformation of masculinity-related norms at the individual, family, community and with private institution like Companies, Cooperatives, Schools, Religious groups as well as health services providers. The first beneficiaries of this programs are vulnerable groups and families from: 1. Men, women living with social conflicts 2. Hopeless youths of boys and girls 3. Orphans with no source of income. IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY 1. Healing from trauma and preventing violence from the family conflict To help men, women, and children heal from traumatic experiences of bad life because of losing peace in family learn positive alternatives to violence, HGL will conducts formative research on attitudes and behaviors regarding gender roles, experiences with and responses to violence, and more. This work informs the development and expansion of intervention programs and community campaigns designed to reduce gender-based violence and promote gender equality, nonviolence, and healing. In our methodology, group therapy sessions always culminate with community celebration sessions that provide an ideal setting for testimonies and dialogue between participants and the rest of the community and lead to positive change for men and women who attend the celebrations. 2. Strengthening the capacity of community In order to guarantee the sustainability of its peace initiatives, HGL trains 30 facilitators from different 15 sectors, 6 from social organizations, 14 selection people from Cooperatives and Companies will be facilitators of their members. PFP works to involve men and boys as allies when women are empowered economically. We develop programs that operate in conjunction with women’s economic empowerment initiatives to engage men as partners and ensure that they understand the positive effects of shifting gender roles around earning power. Through this way, the more beneficiaries are busy with economic development activities and seeing their incomes increased, the more families will become stable. In the same context, PFP will be working with youths discussing about gender principles, supporting women’s empowerment, and promoting respect for sexual health and diversity. 3. Promoting men’s involvement in women’s economic empowerment PFP promotes men’s caregiving and active fatherhood to encourage equitable gender roles, prevent violence against women and children, and contribute to positive maternal and child health outcomes. Our experts offer positive messaging through media and training classes, particularly for young families and couples. We work closely with youth to challenge existing gender norms, support women’s empowerment, and promote respect for sexual health and diversity. We create and test new educational tools for gender equality, health promotion, and violence prevention; use sports as an entry point to reach young people and adults; and engage parents, teachers, health workers and religion leaders in the discussion.