Rotary Club of Ikeja Teams Up With Emmaus Rotary Club To Train West African Women in Peace Building

Rotary Club of Ikeja, District 9110, Lagos, Nigeria is teaming up with Emmaus Rotary Club, District 7430, Pennsylvania, USA and the Mediators Beyond Borders International, (MBBI) to organize the MBBI International Peace Training Institute (MBBI- IPTI) in Lagos, Nigeria.

The training will involve 30 women-participants in peace building, conflict prevention and transformation skills to serve as peace builders in their own communities in some countries in West Africa.

According to a statement signed by the President of Rotary Club of Ikeja, Rotarian Dotun Lampejo, the training session which is themed, ‘Women in Peacebuilding: Enhancing Skills and Practice’, the participants for the two-week training are drawn from the host country, Nigeria as well as Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia and Cameroon and it would run between January 25 till February, 5, 2021.

Rotarian Lampejo added that the training which would be virtual would help the women to learn with other peace builders from West Africa, develop their skills in restorative practices, mediation, trauma-informed conflict resolution, leadership and group facilitation as well as help them to connect with organizational and political leaders.

According to Lampejo, “Our objective during the Peace and Conflict Resolution Month is to help build vibrant and more inclusive societies and we know that, that can only be possible in a society devoid of crisis. We are therefore collaborating with the Emmaus Rotary Club to organize the Rotary-MBBI International Peace Training Institute to make this possible.’’

While lending his voice, the Rotary Foundation Director of Emmaus Rotary  Club, Jim Palmquist said the club joined forces with Rotary Club of Ikeja to organise the Peacebuilding training session to make the world a more peaceful one.

Palmquist added that, “Clearly the whole world desperately needs many more peacebuilders.  I believe we are building the experience within Rotary to spread peacebuilding skills and successes everywhere.  I see Rotary becoming one of the premier peace building NGOs. Though Rotary has been leading in peace work since its beginning, we are going to expand its peace-making markedly and bring peace to the world.’’

While commenting on the choice of women as participants, the Managing Director of MBBI, Prabha Sankaranaraan said that, “When you ask people about mediators people know, often the names mentioned are recognized globally and usually men. And yet some of the most complicated agreements in the world such as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, or the Philippines Peace process have had women at the center of the process.

“The reality is that women comprise only 2 per cent of mediators of armed conflict in the whole world. The participation of civil society groups, including women’s organizations, makes a peace agreement 64 per cent less likely to fail.

“When women participate in peace processes, the resulting agreement is 35 per cent more likely to last at least 15 years. Higher levels of gender equality are associated with a lower propensity for conflict, both between and within states. All this points to the clear need for increasing the capacity of women.’’