As we end our 30th year, we wish you the happiest of holidays and a wonderful and prosperous New Year.  All of us here at Search for Common Ground remain committed to Peace on Earth.

COMMON GROUND AWARDS.  Since 1998, we have presented Common Ground Awards to recognize extraordinary achievement in peacebuilding and negotiation.  On November 8th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to our annual ceremony and made a highly emotional presentation of a posthumous Award to Ambassador Christopher Stevens who died tragically in Libya.  “We thank you for recognizing this brave and good man, this consummate diplomat, this American hero,” said Secretary Clinton.  “This is a very moving moment to honor someone whose life and work truly exemplify the meaning of Search for Common Ground.”

Winners.  In addition to Chris Stevens, here are the other recipients of 2012 Common Ground Awards:

• Lord George Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative and co-founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, and Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, were honored for their unswerving commitment to interfaith work among the three Abrahamic religions.

• Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who integrated the University of Georgia in 1961; served as a correspondent for PBS, NPR, and CNN; and recently wrote To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement, was honored for her lifetime commitment to an inclusive world.

• Ingoma Nshya (New Era), Rwanda’s first female drumming troupe, made up of Hutus and Tutsis, was honored for helping to heal Rwanda’s past and giving hope for its future. The group is the subject of a new documentary film, Sweet Dreams.

• Rosey Simonds and David Woollcombe received an Award for 30 years of inspiring young people to be agents of peace.  In 1982, we worked with them to co-produce their signature play, Peace Child, starring Susannah York, at a sold-out Kennedy Center.

SOCIETAL APPROACH.  For us, co-producing Peace Child was an important milestone.   It was the first time we ever used popular culture to try to change attitudes and behaviors.  Today, this is a staple of our work.  In 2011 alone, we produced 120 half-hour episodes of TV drama – soap opera for social change – and more than 4,000 hours of original radio programming.  In addition, we utilized participatory theater, music video, comic books, and our own YouTube channel.   And we combine our media programs with more traditional peacebuilding – mediation, collaborative problem-solving, training, facilitation, and exchanges.  In sum, we work across entire countries and practice what we call “societal conflict transformation.”    

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO.  A prime example of our societal approach can be found in the DRC where we have 100 staff members working out of seven offices and where we use a wide variety of media and non-media tools to curb violence and prevent sexual abuse.  Here is what we are doing:

• Retraining the Military.  We have an agreement with the Congolese army to retrain whole battalions and brigades in order to protect civilians and thwart rape.  More than 25% of the army and much of the police have participated, and evaluators note substantially improved behavior among the troops who have gone through our programs.  In addition, we are organizing training for commanders and traditional ethnic leaders in the North Kivu region in order to defuse large-scale violence that has recently broken out.     

• Mobile Cinema.  Across the eastern DRC, we show anti-rape films to large audiences.  Altogether, more than 1.5 million Congolese have seen these films, which are produced by award-winning Dutch film-makers, Ilse and Femke Van Velzen.

• TV Drama.  We have made 20 episodes of The Team,the soccer-based, soap opera series, which we also produce in 16 other countries.  In the DRC, all the players are women who overcome sexual abuse.  (To view a French-language trailer, click here.)

• Reality TV.  We produce a reality series that shows Congolese activists competing to make a difference.  In Kinshasa alone, we have at least 2 million viewers.   

• Public Service Announcements.  We produced ten TV and radio spots, hosted by a famous Congolese rapper, to communicate that “real men” do not molest women.  (Please click here to see a subtitled clip.)

• Radio.  We have a network of 85 local and national radio stations, and we produce 22 hours a month of original programming that includes soap opera, talk shows, news, and features.  We receive more than 300 telephone calls per day from listeners who provide feedback.

• Comic Books.  We have published hundreds of thousands of comic books to deliver our various messages.  Most recently, we teamed up with UN forces to make helicopter drops of comics and leaflets into dangerous, rebel-held areas.  These comic books focus on the need to denounce sexual violations as a way of fighting impunity.

• Peace Commandos.  Our staff member, Rigobert Lulinha, leads a team that intervenes in local conflicts.  In 2010 and 2011, UNHCR and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) requested we go into Dongo, a remote region where a tribal dispute had led to one million refugees and hundreds dead.  After months of painstaking mediation and facilitation, Rigobert’s team negotiated a peace agreement.  (Please click here to see a subtitled French TV clip describing the process.)  Most recently, Rigobert led a mission to the Ango region where violence was raging between villagers and pastoral animal herders.  The team held trainings for local leaders and peacemaking events for 10,000 participants.  Now, the pastoralists are able to circulate freely, and the killing has stopped.

• Results.  In March 2012, Channel Research, a Belgian consulting firm, released an independent evaluation that found our multi-pronged approach in the DRC is particularly effective.  The report stated that “working with the same or similar tools over many years allowed the organization [SFCG] to develop its expertise and to increase staff capacities consistently” and that our toolkit is a principal reason why we are “able to work at a fast pace, which can be a key success factor for good results in a fast changing conflict context.”  (Please click here to see a summary of the evaluation.)

INDONESIA:  COMMON GROUND JOURNALISM.  In many conflicts, the media incites violence by reporting in divisive ways and by spreading lies and rumors.  Over the years, we have developed techniques to help counter this kind of “hate journalism” that can fan flames of genocide.  One such technique is to provide training in responsible and balanced reporting.  In September, we sponsored a two-day, rumor management workshop in Ambon, an Indonesian island where violence regularly flares between Muslims and Christians and where the local media have often made things worse.  We convened 38 journalists and media representatives of different religions and worked with them on how their reporting could be less inflammatory, even at times of high tension.  “People here are haunted by conflict and violence,” said Ongen Lekipiouw, a participant who himself was gravely injured by a bomb that left him in a coma for four months.  “Because of this training, we can better analyze problems which might cause conflict and acknowledge how to search for other roads.  That is what SFCG has given us.”

NEPAL:  MEASURING RESULTS.   We normally use metrics and logframes to evaluate the effectiveness of programs.  In Nepal, we have found a more picturesque way:  We examine paintings.  For several years, we have worked with women to strengthen leadership and peacebuilding skills.  Many participants are expert artists whose work reflects the restricted roles that women traditionally play in rural areas.  For example, the painting below at left, done by Sunaina Thakur before she took our training, shows a scene of a bride being carried from her home to her wedding.  After our training, Sunaina painted a different picture (at right) of an empowered woman speaking to village elders, who listen attentively.  The painting shows a shift in how Sunaina sees herself and reflects her courage in being willing to publicly share her vision.

THANK YOU.  After 30 years, we continue to deepen and expand our work, and we believe – as outside evaluators tell us – that we make a profound difference.  We could not be able do what we do without support of people like you.  We urge you to invest in our work by clicking here.

John Marks President