Fambul Tok

WHY?

Implementation is “emergent design” in action. At Fambul Tok we regularly pilot new phases of each program in order to learn important lessons from the practice context before systematizing a component.

HOW? PILOTING IN KAILAHUN DISTRICT

Kailahun District—the district where the war began and ended in Sierra Leone, and one of the most impacted by the war—was chosen for the pilot phase of program implementation. After the consultation there in early 2008, national and district staff began immediately working with the people of the district to choose representatives from every chiefdom, one male and one female, to be the main contacts for Fambul Tok, ensuring full geographical representation. This group, which formed the initial District Executive body, received extensive training in Fambul Tok values, reconciliation, trauma healing, mediation, and restorative justice.

The district-appointed Contact People, with input from community elders and other sectional stakeholders, chose representatives at the sectional level to form Reconciliation Committees, which helped familiarize their communities with the goals and values of Fambul Tok and worked with them to design their ceremonies and prepare their communities. To ensure full representation, these Reconciliation Committees included a youth leader, a mommy queen, the section chief, an imam and a priest. They mediated ongoing conflicts between victims and perpetrators (or their families), and worked to ensure the sustainability of the project after the ceremonies.

Youth Outreach Teams, composed of five youths from different villages within each section, were also mobilized to spread the word and educate communities. They played a vital role in Kailahun in allaying fear of prosecution from the Special Court.

The Reconciliation Committees and Outreach Teams also received training to better engage with their communities. These sectional level structures helped to ensure community ownership of the process and to ground the reconciliation work at the most localized levels.

Read  more about the reconciliation ceremonies in Kailahun.

Read more about the follow-up activity in Kailahun.

Read more about the impact of rebuilt communities.